PRINTF(1)

NAME
       printf - format and print data

SYNOPSIS
       printf format [argument...]
       printf {--help,--version}

DESCRIPTION
       This  documentation  is no longer being maintained and may
       be inaccurate or incomplete.  The Texinfo documentation is
       now the authoritative source.

       This  manual  page  documents  the  GNU version of printf.
       printf prints the format string, interpreting  `%'  direc-
       tives  and  `\'  escapes in the same way as the C `printf'
       function.  The format argument is re-used as many times as
       necessary to convert all of the given arguments.

       printf interprets `\0ooo' as a an octal number (`ooo' is 0
       to 3 digits) specifying a character to print, and  `\xhhh'
       as  a hexadecimal number (`hhh' is 1 to 3 digits) specify-
       ing a character to print.  It has  an  additional  escape,
       `\c',  which  causes  printf to produce no further output,
       and an additional directive, `%b', which prints its  argu-
       ment  string with `\' escapes interpreted the way they are
       in the format string.

   OPTIONS
       When GNU printf is invoked with exactly one argument,  the
       following options are recognized:

       --help Print  a  usage message on standard output and exit
              successfully.

       --version
              Print version information on standard  output  then
              exit successfully.