printf 字符串格式化 %6.9s %*.s

Question

I got a code snippet in which there is a

printf("%.*s\n")

what does the %.*s mean?

Without additional arguments, that is not a valid printf call. — Andrew Marshall, Oct 26 '11 at 5:58

BaCaRoZzo · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07 21:22:00Z

up vote 64 down vote accepted

You can use an asterisk (*) to pass the width specifier/precision to printf(), rather than hard coding it into the format string, i.e.

void f(const char *str, int str_len)
{
  printf("%.*s\n", str_len, str);
}

edited Jul 7 '15 at 21:22

BaCaRoZzo

4,199 6 20 36

answered Oct 26 '11 at 5:59

AusCBloke

12.4k 3 28 42

1

It should be noted that the str_len argument must have type int (or narrower integral type, which would be promoted to int). It would be a bug to pass long, size_t, etc. – M.M Jul 7 '15 at 22:03

It's worth mentioning that the likely purpose of this code, especially when used with %s, is to print a sub-string of the original string. In this use case, str would point to somewhere inside the original string (possibly at the beginning), and str_len will specify the length of the sub-string that should be printed. – Sonic Atom Jan 25 at 13:37

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Dan D. · Answer 2 · 2015-03-30 04:52:00Z

up vote 11 down vote

I don't think the code above is correct but (according to this description of printf()) the .* means

The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.'

So it's a string with a passable width as an argument.

edited Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

Dan D.

33.4k 6 56 79

answered Oct 26 '11 at 6:00

rerun

18.2k 2 30 67

2

I've added the URL cross-reference so you can avoid charges of plagiarism. Of course, the correct quote says "The precision is not …" rather than "The width is not…". – Jonathan Leffler Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

As @MattMcNabb pointed out, every reference to that page must highlight that “an integer value” is exactlyint (or a subset of it) — not just any integral value like more intuitive size_t or its possible aliases, likestd::string::size_type. This is even more confusing, taking into account that the referenced page mentions size_t as one of supported type specifiers. – Anton Samsonov Aug 4 '15 at 18:04

add a comment

user2864740 · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-08 17:37:59Z

up vote 7 down vote

See: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstdio/printf/

.* The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.

s String of characters

50 down vote favorite

10

I got a code snippet in which there is a

printf("%.*s\n")

what does the %.*s mean?

edited Jul 8 '15 at 17:37

user2864740

35k 4 36 78

asked Oct 26 '11 at 5:54

StevenWung

953 2 13 34

16

Without additional arguments, that is not a valid printf call. – Andrew Marshall Oct 26 '11 at 5:58

add a comment

3 Answers

active oldest votes

up vote 64 down vote accepted

You can use an asterisk (*) to pass the width specifier/precision to printf(), rather than hard coding it into the format string, i.e.

void f(const char *str, int str_len)
{
  printf("%.*s\n", str_len, str);
}

edited Jul 7 '15 at 21:22

BaCaRoZzo

4,199 6 20 36

answered Oct 26 '11 at 5:59

AusCBloke

12.4k 3 28 42

1

It should be noted that the str_len argument must have type int (or narrower integral type, which would be promoted to int). It would be a bug to pass long, size_t, etc. – M.M Jul 7 '15 at 22:03

It's worth mentioning that the likely purpose of this code, especially when used with %s, is to print a sub-string of the original string. In this use case, str would point to somewhere inside the original string (possibly at the beginning), and str_len will specify the length of the sub-string that should be printed. – Sonic Atom Jan 25 at 13:37

add a comment

up vote 11 down vote

I don't think the code above is correct but (according to this description of printf()) the .* means

The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.'

So it's a string with a passable width as an argument.

edited Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

Dan D.

33.4k 6 56 79

answered Oct 26 '11 at 6:00

rerun

18.2k 2 30 67

2

I've added the URL cross-reference so you can avoid charges of plagiarism. Of course, the correct quote says "The precision is not …" rather than "The width is not…". – Jonathan Leffler Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

As @MattMcNabb pointed out, every reference to that page must highlight that “an integer value” is exactlyint (or a subset of it) — not just any integral value like more intuitive size_t or its possible aliases, likestd::string::size_type. This is even more confusing, taking into account that the referenced page mentions size_t as one of supported type specifiers. – Anton Samsonov Aug 4 '15 at 18:04

add a comment

up vote 7 down vote

See: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstdio/printf/

.* The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.

s String of characters

C++ 字符串的格式化（转）

C++ | 2014-01-28 00:45:15 | 4426次阅读 | 0评

C++格式化字符串(续）

2. 一些特殊规定字符

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

字符作用

──────────────────────────

\n 换行

\f 清屏并换页

\r 回车

\t Tab符

\xhh 表示一个ASCII码用16进表示, 其中hh是1到2个16进制数

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

char c, s[20], *p;

int a=1234, *i;

float f=3.141592653589;

double x=0.12345678987654321;

p="How do you do";

strcpy(s, "Hello, Comrade");

*i=12;

c='\x41';

printf("a=%d\n", a); /*结果输出十进制整数a=1234*/

printf("a=%6d\n", a); /*结果输出6位十进制数a= 1234*/

printf("a=%06d\n", a); /*结果输出6位十进制数a=001234*/

printf("a=%2d\n", a); /*a超过2位, 按实际值输出a=1234*/

printf("*i=%4d\n", *i); /*输出4位十进制整数*i= 12*/

printf("*i=%-4d\n", *i); /*输出左对齐4位十进制整数*i=12*/

printf("i=%p\n", i); /*输出地址i=06E4*/

printf("f=%f\n", f); /*输出浮点数f=3.141593*/

printf("f=6.4f\n", f); /*输出6位其中小数点后4位的浮点数f=3.1416*/

printf("x=%lf\n", x); /*输出长浮点数x=0.123457*/

printf("x=%18.16lf\n", x);/*输出18位其中小数点后16位的长浮点数x=0.1234567898765432*/

printf("c=%c\n", c); /*输出字符c=A*/

printf("c=%x\n", c); /*输出字符的ASCII码值c=41*/

printf("s[]=%s\n", s); /*输出数组字符串s[]=Hello,Comrade*/

printf("s[]=%6.9s\n", s);/*输出最多9个字符的字符串s[]=Hello,Co*/

printf("s=%p\n", s); /*输出数组字符串首字符地址s=FFBE*/

printf("*p=%s\n", p); /* 输出指针字符串p=How do you do*/

printf("p=%p\n", p); /*输出指针的值p=0194*/

上面结果中的地址值在不同计算机上可能不同。

printf和sprintf 都使用C++格式化字符串来指定串的格式，在格式串内部使用一些以"%"开头的格式说明符（format specifications）来占据一个位置，在后边的变参列表中提供相应的变量，最终函数就会用相应位置的变量来替代那个说明符，产生一个调用者想要的字符串。

sprintf最常见的应用之一莫过于把整数打印到字符串中，所以，spritnf在大多数场合可以替代itoa。

如：

1. //把整数123 打印成一个字符串保存在s 中。

2. sprintf(s, "%d", 123); //产生"123"可以指定宽度，不足的左边补空格：

3. sprintf(s, "%8d%8d", 123, 4567); //产生：" 123 4567"当然也可以左对齐：

4. sprintf(s, "%-8d%8d", 123, 4567); //产生："123 4567"

也可以按照16 进制打印：

1. sprintf(s, "%8x", 4567); //小写16 进制，宽度占8 个位置，右对齐

2. sprintf(s, "%-8X", 4568); //大写16 进制，宽度占8 个位置，左对齐

这样，一个整数的16 进制字符串就很容易得到，但我们在打印16 进制内容时，通常想要一种左边补0 的等宽格式，那该怎么做呢？很简单，在表示宽度的数字前面加个0 就可以了。

1. sprintf(s, "%08X", 4567); //产生："000011D7"

上面以"%d"进行的10 进制打印同样也可以使用这种左边补0 的方式。

这里要注意一个符号扩展的问题：比如，假如我们想打印短整数（short）-1 的内存16 进制表示形式，在Win32 平台上，一个short 型占2个字节，所以我们自然希望用4 个16 进制数字来打印它：

1. short si = -1;

2. sprintf(s, "%04X", si);

产生"FFFFFFFF"，怎么回事？因为spritnf 是个变参函数，除了前面两个参数之外，后面的参数都不是类型安全的，函数更没有办法仅仅通过一个"%X"就能得知当初函数调用前参数压栈时被压进来的到底是个4 字节的整数还是个2 字节的短整数，所以采取了统一4 字节的处理方式，导致参数压栈时做了符号扩展，扩展成了32 位的整数-1，打印时4 个位置不够了，就把32 位整数-1 的8 位16 进制都打印出来了。

如果你想看si 的本来面目，那么就应该让编译器做0 扩展而不是符号扩展（扩展时二进制左边补0 而不是补符号位）：

1. sprintf(s, "%04X", (unsigned short)si);

就可以了。或者：

1. unsigned short si = -1;

2. sprintf(s, "%04X", si);

sprintf和printf 还可以按8 进制打印整数字符串，使用"%o"。注意8 进制和16 进制都不会打印出负数，都是无符号的，实际上也就是变量的内部编码的直接的16 进制或8 进制表示。

C++格式化字符串的具体应用方法就为大家介绍到这里。

BaCaRoZzo · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07 21:22:00Z

up vote 64 down vote accepted

You can use an asterisk (*) to pass the width specifier/precision to printf(), rather than hard coding it into the format string, i.e.

void f(const char *str, int str_len)
{
  printf("%.*s\n", str_len, str);
}

edited Jul 7 '15 at 21:22

BaCaRoZzo

4,199 6 20 36

answered Oct 26 '11 at 5:59

AusCBloke

12.4k 3 28 42

1

It should be noted that the str_len argument must have type int (or narrower integral type, which would be promoted to int). It would be a bug to pass long, size_t, etc. – M.M Jul 7 '15 at 22:03

It's worth mentioning that the likely purpose of this code, especially when used with %s, is to print a sub-string of the original string. In this use case, str would point to somewhere inside the original string (possibly at the beginning), and str_len will specify the length of the sub-string that should be printed. – Sonic Atom Jan 25 at 13:37

add a comment

Dan D. · Answer 5 · 2015-03-30 04:52:00Z

up vote 11 down vote

I don't think the code above is correct but (according to this description of printf()) the .* means

The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.'

So it's a string with a passable width as an argument.

edited Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

Dan D.

33.4k 6 56 79

answered Oct 26 '11 at 6:00

rerun

18.2k 2 30 67

2

I've added the URL cross-reference so you can avoid charges of plagiarism. Of course, the correct quote says "The precision is not …" rather than "The width is not…". – Jonathan Leffler Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

As @MattMcNabb pointed out, every reference to that page must highlight that “an integer value” is exactlyint (or a subset of it) — not just any integral value like more intuitive size_t or its possible aliases, likestd::string::size_type. This is even more confusing, taking into account that the referenced page mentions size_t as one of supported type specifiers. – Anton Samsonov Aug 4 '15 at 18:04

add a comment

score 7 · Answer 6

See: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstdio/printf/

.* The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.

s String of characters

BaCaRoZzo · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-07 21:22:00Z

up vote 64 down vote accepted

You can use an asterisk (*) to pass the width specifier/precision to printf(), rather than hard coding it into the format string, i.e.

void f(const char *str, int str_len)
{
  printf("%.*s\n", str_len, str);
}

edited Jul 7 '15 at 21:22

BaCaRoZzo

4,199 6 20 36

answered Oct 26 '11 at 5:59

AusCBloke

12.4k 3 28 42

1

It should be noted that the str_len argument must have type int (or narrower integral type, which would be promoted to int). It would be a bug to pass long, size_t, etc. – M.M Jul 7 '15 at 22:03

It's worth mentioning that the likely purpose of this code, especially when used with %s, is to print a sub-string of the original string. In this use case, str would point to somewhere inside the original string (possibly at the beginning), and str_len will specify the length of the sub-string that should be printed. – Sonic Atom Jan 25 at 13:37

add a comment

Dan D. · Answer 8 · 2015-03-30 04:52:00Z

up vote 11 down vote

I don't think the code above is correct but (according to this description of printf()) the .* means

The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.'

So it's a string with a passable width as an argument.

edited Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

Dan D.

33.4k 6 56 79

answered Oct 26 '11 at 6:00

rerun

18.2k 2 30 67

2

I've added the URL cross-reference so you can avoid charges of plagiarism. Of course, the correct quote says "The precision is not …" rather than "The width is not…". – Jonathan Leffler Mar 30 '15 at 4:52

As @MattMcNabb pointed out, every reference to that page must highlight that “an integer value” is exactlyint (or a subset of it) — not just any integral value like more intuitive size_t or its possible aliases, likestd::string::size_type. This is even more confusing, taking into account that the referenced page mentions size_t as one of supported type specifiers. – Anton Samsonov Aug 4 '15 at 18:04

add a comment

score 7 · Answer 9

See: http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/clibrary/cstdio/printf/

.* The precision is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.

s String of characters