Most examples you see of C++ use the so-called stream output for the code. Stream output uses the << operator, as shown in this example:
Writes the C string pointed by format to the standard output.If format includes format specifiers (subsequences beginning with%), the additional arguments following format are formatted and inserted in the resulting string replacing their respective specifiers. Parameters format C string that contains the text to be written to stdout. It can optionally contain embedded format specifiers. Oct 23, 2018 printf This is mainly used in C language. It is a formatting function that prints to the standard out. It prints to the console and takes a format specifier to print. It returns an integer value. It is not type safe in input parameters. It can be used in C language too. Here is the syntax of printf in C and C language.
However, C++ inherits another form of output from its predecessor, C. This form is based upon a set of functions that are very similar both in appearance and in the way they function. Collectively these functions carry the name of their most widely used member, printf().
You can ignore this article and continue using stream output, or you can switch over to printf() output if you prefer — but you should not mix the two in the same program. These sets of functions use different classes for buffering output to reduce the number of disk accesses, thereby increasing program performance. Mixing the two will cause output to get interleaved in unpredictable ways resulting in confusing and perhaps meaningless output.
The general form of printf() output![]()
The printf() function has the following prototype defined in the cstdio include file:
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The ellipses (…) in a prototype declaration means any number of any type of variables.
The first argument to printf() is a string to be output. If this string contains format specifiers, which are characters preceded by a ‘%’, then printf() outputs the next argument in line using that format specifier as guidance.
This is best demonstrated with a simple example:
This would output the string
There must be at least as many arguments following the format string as there are format specifiers in the string. If there are more, they are ignored. printf() returns the number of characters printed. If an error occurs, this number will be negative.
Format specifiers
Format specifiers have the form
Each of these format specifiers is described in the following sections.
Type specifiers
The following type specifiers are available to printf()
There is at least one type specifier for each of the variable types intrinsic to C++. In the absence of any further information, C++ uses default values. For example, an integer number output with a d is preceded with a – if it is negative but not preceded with anything if it is positive. In addition, such a value takes only as many spaces as are needed to output the number.
Printf Decimal HexOutput amplifier flags
What if the default display format for an integer specifier such as d is not what you want? For example, for some applications, it might be important that positive numbers are preceded by a + (plus sign) in the same way that negatives are preceded by a – (minus sign). For that, printf() provides these output amplifier flags.
Output width flagPrintf %s
Suppose that you want all of the numbers in a column to line up. In that case, it would be important that each number occupy the same number of spaces even if not all of those spaces are needed to display the value. For this and thousands of other applications, printf() allows the user to specify the width by using these width flags.
Precision flag
The precision flag is most often combined with the width flag when displaying floating point numbers. In this case, the precision flag tells printf() how many digits to display after the decimal point.
The precision flag has been given meaning for types other than floating point, as shown here, but these are less commonly used.
Printf DecimalLength flags
Unlike the flags discussed above, the length flag is not so much about telling printf() how to display the number but more about telling printf() about the number itself. For example, suppose you want to output a variable using a d format, but that variable is actually a long int? No problem, just use ld,as described here.
Reviewing the advantages and disadvantages of printf()
The printf() style of output has one significant advantage compared with stream output: the grammar is extremely terse. Once you’ve master all the special types and lengths, widths and precisions, you can output a variable in just about any way you want with a minimum number of keystrokes.
C++ Printf Long
The terseness comes with a price, however:
C++ Printf Library
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