PRINTF

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: September 2026
Index Return to Main Contents

---

 

NAME

printf - format and print data  

SYNOPSIS

printf ,FORMAT /[,ARGUMENT/]...
printf ,OPTION/  

DESCRIPTION

Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/printf#print-help'--helpX'tty: link'

display this help and exit

X'tty: link https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/printf#print-version'--versionX'tty: link'

output version information and exit

FORMAT controls the output as in C printf. Interpreted sequences are:

"

double quote

backslash

a

alert (bell)

b

backspace

c

produce no further output

e

escape

f

form feed

n

new line

r

carriage return

t

horizontal tab

v

vertical tab

NNN

byte with octal value NNN (1 to 3 digits)

xHH

byte with hexadecimal value HH (1 to 2 digits)

uHHHH

Unicode (ISO/IEC 10646) character with hex value HHHH (4 digits)

UHHHHHHHH

Unicode character with hex value HHHHHHHH (8 digits)

%%

a single %

%b

ARGUMENT as a string with '' escapes interpreted, except that octal escapes should have a leading 0 like 0NNN

%q

ARGUMENT is printed in a format that can be reused as shell input, escaping non-printable characters with the POSIX $'' syntax

and all C printf(3) format specifications ending with one of diouxXfaAeEgGcs, with ARGUMENTs converted to proper type first. FORMAT is reused to convert all specified arguments. The following table shows supported conversion specifiers, with examples including usage of width, precision, and flags.

CONVERSION

Shell format example Output

%s

'[%10s]' 'left pad' [ left pad]

%s

'[%-10s]' 'right pad' [right pad ]

%c %s

'%c %.3s' un unibyte u uni

%d %i

"%'d ;%04i" 1234 '-1' 1,234 ;-001

%o

'%#o' $((2#110100100)) 0644

%u

'%u' 0xFFFFFFFF 4294967295

%x

'0x%08x' 11259375 0x00abcdef

%a %f

'%1$a %1$f' 0.0009765625 0x8p-13 0.000977

%e %f

'%1$e %1$f' 123.456789 1.234568e+02 123.456789

%g

'%1$g %1$.2g' 1.2345678e3 1234.57 1.2e+03

%b

'%bfoo' 'barcbaz' qux bar

%q

'%q ' 'a' ;b $'cn' a ';b' 'c'$'n'

Your shell may have its own version of printf, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports.  

AUTHOR

Written by David MacKenzie.  

REPORTING BUGS

Report bugs to: <bug-coreutils@gnu.org>.
Report any translation bugs to: <https://translationproject.org/team/>.

Report Gentoo bugs to: https://bugs.gentoo.org/
GNU coreutils home page: <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/>
General help using GNU software: <https://www.gnu.org/gethelp/>  

SEE ALSO

printf(3)

Full documentation <https://www.gnu.org/software/coreutils/printf>
or available locally via: info aq(coreutils) printf invocationaq

Packaged by Gentoo (9.12 (p0))
Copyright © 2026 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
This is free software: you are free to change and redistribute it.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

---

 

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

AUTHOR

REPORTING BUGS

SEE ALSO