Date: Sun, 7 May 1995 14:45:47 +1000 From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: freebsd-bugs@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: bin/386: *s field width specification doesn't seem to work for printf Message-ID: <199505070445.OAA02207@godzilla.zeta.org.au>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
>> > Try this: printf "%8*s" foobarblatt
>> You are missing the required int arg for the * and foobarblatt is being
>> used for this int. foobarblatt is probably some rather very large int
Not quite. It's a nonsense format. The behaviour is undefined. printf(1)
ends up calling printf(3) with printf("%8*s", "foobarblatt").
>"foobarblatt" ain't a valid int. printf(1) misses an argument in that
>case. It expected two args (for the * and for the s) and got only
>one. The least one could expect is it loudly complains about this.
printf(1) doesn't seem to do any more error checking than printf(3).
>Furthermore, if you omit the asterisk, you'll be surprised that you
>can still see a very nice "foobarblatt" instead of the expected
>"foobarbl". You can also replace the command by
> printf "%*s" 8 foobarblatt
>to the same avail.
No, the 8 is the (minimum) field width.
printf "%.*s" 8 foobarblatt
specifies the precision as 8 to truncate the string.
Bruce
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?199505070445.OAA02207>