History of snprintf

Part of the ANSI C99 language standard

== Syntax ==

:int snprintf (char * str, int n, const char * format, ... )

== Arguments ==

:str

::Pointer to a string buffer to store the string

:n

::Maximum number of bytes to be written to the string buffer

:format

::Specifies the format of the resulting string, including types of the variables to be included in the string.

:...

::Additional variables to substitute for the formatting symbols in format

== Return ==

:The number of characters written, not including the terminating null character, or -1 if an error occurred.

== Description ==

:snprintf "prints" a formatted string (up to a defined length), except instead of printing it to a terminal console the result is stored in a string variable.

== Comments ==

:To prevent security problems and memory errors caused by buffer overruns, you should always use this function (snprintf) instead of sprintf. The formatting uses the printf-style formatting common to the C language.

== printf Format Specifiers ==

|| %% || % symbol ||

|| %c || A single character ||

|| %d || A signed integer in decimal format ||

|| %f || A double precision floating point number in decimal format ||

|| %i || A signed integer ||

|| %o || An unsigned integer in octal format ||

|| %s || A string ||

|| %u || An unsigned integer ||

|| %x || An unsigned integer in lowercase hexadecimal format ||

|| %X || An unsigned integer in uppercase hexadecimal format ||

== Example ==

<code>

int version = 1;

strcpy(str0, "Plug-In Name");

strcpy(str1, "Company Name");

// Note: size of str2 is 255 bytes

snprintf(str2, 255, "You are running %s made by %s, version %d", str0, str1, version);

printf(str2);

</code>

== See Also ==

:formatString, printf, sprintf