Objective-C object, printed as the string returned by descriptionWithLocale: if available, or description otherwise. Also works withCFTypeRef objects, returning the result of the CFCopyDescription function.
%%
'%' character.
%d, %D
Signed 32-bit integer (int).
%u, %U
Unsigned 32-bit integer (unsigned int).
%x
Unsigned 32-bit integer (unsigned int), printed in hexadecimal using the digits 0–9 and lowercase a–f.
%X
Unsigned 32-bit integer (unsigned int), printed in hexadecimal using the digits 0–9 and uppercase A–F.
%o, %O
Unsigned 32-bit integer (unsigned int), printed in octal.
%f
64-bit floating-point number (double).
%e
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in scientific notation using a lowercase e to introduce the exponent.
%E
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in scientific notation using an uppercase E to introduce the exponent.
%g
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in the style of %e if the exponent is less than –4 or greater than or equal to the precision, in the style of %f otherwise.
%G
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in the style of %E if the exponent is less than –4 or greater than or equal to the precision, in the style of %f otherwise.
%c
8-bit unsigned character (unsigned char), printed by NSLog() as an ASCII character, or, if not an ASCII character, in the octal format\\ddd or the Unicode hexadecimal format \\udddd, where d is a digit.
%C
16-bit Unicode character (unichar), printed by NSLog() as an ASCII character, or, if not an ASCII character, in the octal format \\ddd or the Unicode hexadecimal format \\udddd, where d is a digit.
%s
Null-terminated array of 8-bit unsigned characters. Because the %s specifier causes the characters to be interpreted in the system default encoding, the results can be variable, especially with right-to-left languages. For example, with RTL, %s inserts direction markers when the characters are not strongly directional. For this reason, it’s best to avoid %s and specify encodings explicitly.
%S
Null-terminated array of 16-bit Unicode characters.
%p
Void pointer (void *), printed in hexadecimal with the digits 0–9 and lowercase a–f, with a leading 0x.
%a
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in scientific notation with a leading 0x and one hexadecimal digit before the decimal point using a lowercase p to introduce the exponent.
%A
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in scientific notation with a leading 0X and one hexadecimal digit before the decimal point using a uppercase P to introduce the exponent.
%F
64-bit floating-point number (double), printed in decimal notation.
Table 2 Length modifiers supported by the
NSString formatting methods and CFString formatting functions
Length modifier
Description
h
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a short or unsigned short argument.
hh
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a signed char or unsigned charargument.
l
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a long or unsigned long argument.
ll, q
Length modifiers specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a long long or unsigned long longargument.
L
Length modifier specifying that a following a, A, e, E, f, F, g, or G conversion specifier applies to a long double argument.
z
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a size_t or the corresponding signed integer type argument.
t
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a ptrdiff_t or the corresponding unsigned integer type argument.
j
Length modifier specifying that a following d, o, u, x, or X conversion specifier applies to a intmax_t or uintmax_t argument
Platform Dependencies
Mac OS X uses several data types—NSInteger, NSUInteger,CGFloat, and CFIndex—to provide a consistent means of representing values in 32- and 64-bit environments. In a 32-bit environment, NSInteger and NSUInteger are defined as int and unsigned int, respectively. In 64-bit environments,NSInteger and NSUInteger are defined as long and unsigned long, respectively. To avoid the need to use different printf-style type specifiers depending on the platform, you can use the specifiers shown in Table 3. Note that in some cases you may have to cast the value.
Table 3 Format specifiers for data types
Type
Format specifier
Considerations
NSInteger
%ld or %lx
Cast the value to long.
NSUInteger
%lu or %lx
Cast the value to unsigned long.
CGFloat
%f or %g
%f works for floats and doubles when formatting; but note the technique described below for scanning.
CFIndex
%ld or %lx
The same as NSInteger.
pointer
%p or %zx
%p adds 0x to the beginning of the output. If you don't want that, use %zx and no typecast.