WPRINTF(3) Library Functions Manual WPRINTF(3)

wprintf, fwprintf, swprintf, vwprintf, vfwprintf, vswprintfformatted wide character output conversion

Standard C Library (libc, -lc)

#include <stdio.h>
#include <wchar.h>

int
fwprintf(FILE * restrict stream, const wchar_t * restrict format, ...);

int
swprintf(wchar_t * restrict ws, size_t n, const wchar_t * restrict format, ...);

int
wprintf(const wchar_t * restrict format, ...);

#include <stdarg.h>

int
vfwprintf(FILE * restrict stream, const wchar_t * restrict, va_list ap);

int
vswprintf(wchar_t * restrict ws, size_t n, const wchar_t *restrict format, va_list ap);

int
vwprintf(const wchar_t * restrict format, va_list ap);

The () family of functions produces output according to a format as described below. The wprintf() and () functions write output to stdout, the standard output stream; () and () write output to the given output stream; swprintf() and vswprintf() write to the wide character string ws.

Extended locale versions of these functions are documented in wprintf_l(3). See xlocale(3) for more information.

These functions write the output under the control of a format string that specifies how subsequent arguments (or arguments accessed via the variable-length argument facilities of stdarg(3)) are converted for output.

These functions return the number of characters printed (not including the trailing ‘\0’, used to end output to strings).

The () and () functions return the number of characters written (not including the terminating null wide character). These functions will fail (returning a negative value and setting errno appropriately) if n or more wide characters were requested to be written.

The other functions return the number of wide characters printed on success, or a negative value on faiure, setting errno to indicate the error.

The format string is composed of zero or more directives: ordinary characters (not %), which are copied unchanged to the output stream; and conversion specifications, each of which results in fetching zero or more subsequent arguments. Each conversion specification is introduced by the % character. The arguments must correspond properly (after type promotion) with the conversion specifier. After the %, the following appear in sequence:

A field width or precision, or both, may be indicated by an asterisk ‘*’ or an asterisk followed by one or more decimal digits and a ‘$’ instead of a digit string. In this case, an int argument supplies the field width or precision. A negative field width is treated as a left adjustment flag followed by a positive field width; a negative precision is treated as though it were missing. If a single format directive mixes positional (nn$) and non-positional arguments, the results are undefined.

The conversion specifiers and their meanings are:

The int (or appropriate variant) argument is converted to signed decimal (d and i), unsigned octal (o), unsigned decimal (u), or unsigned hexadecimal (x and X) notation. The letters “abcdef” are used for x conversions; the letters “ABCDEF” are used for X conversions. The precision, if any, gives the minimum number of digits that must appear; if the converted value requires fewer digits, it is padded on the left with zeros.
The long int argument is converted to signed decimal, unsigned octal, or unsigned decimal, as if the format had been ld, lo, or lu respectively. These conversion characters are deprecated, and will eventually disappear.
The double argument is rounded and converted in the style [-]d.ddddd where there is one digit before the decimal-point character and the number of digits after it is equal to the precision; if the precision is missing, it is taken as 6; if the precision is zero, no decimal-point character appears. An E conversion uses the letter ‘E’ (rather than ‘e’) to introduce the exponent. The exponent always contains at least two digits; if the value is zero, the exponent is 00.

For a, A, e, E, f, F, g, and G conversions, positive and negative infinity are represented as inf and -inf respectively when using the lowercase conversion character, and INF and -INF respectively when using the uppercase conversion character. Similarly, NaN is represented as nan when using the lowercase conversion, and NAN when using the uppercase conversion.

The double argument is rounded and converted to decimal notation in the style [-]ddd.ddd, where the number of digits after the decimal-point character is equal to the precision specification. If the precision is missing, it is taken as 6; if the precision is explicitly zero, no decimal-point character appears. If a decimal point appears, at least one digit appears before it.
The double argument is converted in style f or e (or F or E for G conversions). The precision specifies the number of significant digits. If the precision is missing, 6 digits are given; if the precision is zero, it is treated as 1. Style e is used if the exponent from its conversion is less than -4 or greater than or equal to the precision. Trailing zeros are removed from the fractional part of the result; a decimal point appears only if it is followed by at least one digit.
The double argument is converted to hexadecimal notation in the style [-]0xh.hhhp[±]d, where the number of digits after the hexadecimal-point character is equal to the precision specification. If the precision is missing, it is taken as enough to exactly represent the floating-point number; if the precision is explicitly zero, no hexadecimal-point character appears. This is an exact conversion of the mantissa+exponent internal floating point representation; the [-]0xh.hhh portion represents exactly the mantissa; only denormalized mantissas have a zero value to the left of the hexadecimal point. The p is a literal character ‘p’; the exponent is preceded by a positive or negative sign and is represented in decimal, using only enough characters to represent the exponent. The A conversion uses the prefix “0X” (rather than “0x”), the letters “ABCDEF” (rather than “abcdef”) to represent the hex digits, and the letter ‘P’ (rather than ‘p’) to separate the mantissa and exponent.
Treated as c with the l (ell) modifier.
The int argument is converted to an unsigned char, then to a wchar_t as if by btowc(3), and the resulting character is written.

If the l (ell) modifier is used, the wint_t argument is converted to a wchar_t and written.

Treated as s with the l (ell) modifier.
The char * argument is expected to be a pointer to an array of character type (pointer to a string) containing a multibyte sequence. Characters from the array are converted to wide characters and written up to (but not including) a terminating NUL character; if a precision is specified, no more than the number specified are written. If a precision is given, no null character need be present; if the precision is not specified, or is greater than the size of the array, the array must contain a terminating NUL character.

If the l (ell) modifier is used, the wchar_t * argument is expected to be a pointer to an array of wide characters (pointer to a wide string). Each wide character in the string is written. Wide characters from the array are written up to (but not including) a terminating wide NUL character; if a precision is specified, no more than the number specified are written (including shift sequences). If a precision is given, no null character need be present; if the precision is not specified, or is greater than the number of characters in the string, the array must contain a terminating wide NUL character.

The void * pointer argument is printed in hexadecimal (as if by ‘%#x’ or ‘%#lx’).
The number of characters written so far is stored into the integer indicated by the int * (or variant) pointer argument. No argument is converted.
A ‘%’ is written. No argument is converted. The complete conversion specification is ‘%%’.

The decimal point character is defined in the program's locale (category LC_NUMERIC).

In no case does a non-existent or small field width cause truncation of a numeric field; if the result of a conversion is wider than the field width, the field is expanded to contain the conversion result.

Refer to printf(3).

Refer to printf(3).

btowc(3), fputws(3), printf(3), putwc(3), setlocale(3), wcsrtombs(3), wprintf_l(3), wscanf(3)

Subject to the caveats noted in the BUGS section of printf(3), the wprintf(), fwprintf(), swprintf(), vwprintf(), vfwprintf() and vswprintf() functions conform to ISO/IEC 9899:1999 (“ISO C99”).

July 5, 2003 macOS 15.2