.TH PRINTF 1 "GNU Shell Utilities" "FSF" \" -*- nroff -*-
.SH NAME
printf \- format and print data
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B printf
format [argument...]
.br
.B printf
{\-\-help,\-\-version}
.SH DESCRIPTION
This documentation is no longer being maintained and may be inaccurate
or incomplete.  The Texinfo documentation is now the authoritative source.
.PP
This manual page
documents the GNU version of
.BR printf .
.B printf
prints the
.I format
string, interpreting `%' directives and `\e' escapes in the same way
as the C `printf' function.  The
.I format
argument is re-used as many times as necessary to convert all of the
given arguments.
.P
.B printf
interprets `\e0ooo' as a an octal
number (`ooo' is 0 to 3 digits) specifying a character to print, and
`\exhhh' as a hexadecimal number (`hhh' is 1 to 3 digits) specifying a
character to print.  It has an additional escape, `\ec', which causes
.B printf
to produce no further output, and an additional directive, `%b',
which prints its argument string with `\e' escapes interpreted the way
they are in the
.I format
string.
.SS OPTIONS
When GNU
.B printf
is invoked with exactly one argument, the following options are recognized:
.TP
.I "\-\-help"
Print a usage message on standard output and exit successfully.
.TP
.I "\-\-version"
Print version information on standard output then exit successfully.