(m4.info)Format
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11.7 Formatting strings (printf-like)
=====================================
Formatted output can be made with `format':
-- Builtin: format (FORMAT-STRING, ...)
Works much like the C function `printf'. The first argument
FORMAT-STRING can contain `%' specifications which are satisfied
by additional arguments, and the expansion of `format' is the
formatted string.
The macro `format' is recognized only with parameters.
Its use is best described by a few examples:
define(`foo', `The brown fox jumped over the lazy dog')
=>
format(`The string "%s" uses %d characters', foo, len(foo))
=>The string "The brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" uses 38 characters
format(`%*.*d', `-1', `-1', `1')
=>1
format(`%.0f', `56789.9876')
=>56790
len(format(`%-*X', `5000', `1'))
=>5000
ifelse(format(`%010F', `infinity'), ` INF', `success',
format(`%010F', `infinity'), ` INFINITY', `success',
format(`%010F', `infinity'))
=>success
ifelse(format(`%.1A', `1.999'), `0X1.0P+1', `success',
format(`%.1A', `1.999'), `0X2.0P+0', `success',
format(`%.1A', `1.999'))
=>success
format(`%g', `0xa.P+1')
=>20
Using the `forloop' macro defined earlier (Note: Forloop), this
example shows how `format' can be used to produce tabular output.
$ m4 -I examples
include(`forloop.m4')
=>
forloop(`i', `1', `10', `format(`%6d squared is %10d
', i, eval(i**2))')
=> 1 squared is 1
=> 2 squared is 4
=> 3 squared is 9
=> 4 squared is 16
=> 5 squared is 25
=> 6 squared is 36
=> 7 squared is 49
=> 8 squared is 64
=> 9 squared is 81
=> 10 squared is 100
=>
The builtin `format' is modeled after the ANSI C `printf' function,
and supports these `%' specifiers: `c', `s', `d', `o', `x', `X', `u',
`a', `A', `e', `E', `f', `F', `g', `G', and `%'; it supports field
widths and precisions, and the flags `+', `-', ` ', `0', `#', and `''.
For integer specifiers, the width modifiers `hh', `h', and `l' are
recognized, and for floating point specifiers, the width modifier `l'
is recognized. Items not yet supported include positional arguments,
the `n', `p', `S', and `C' specifiers, the `z', `t', `j', `L' and `ll'
modifiers, and any platform extensions available in the native
`printf'. For more details on the functioning of `printf', see the C
Library Manual, or the POSIX specification (for example, `%a' is
supported even on platforms that haven't yet implemented C99
hexadecimal floating point output natively).
Unrecognized specifiers result in a warning. It is anticipated that
a future release of GNU `m4' will support more specifiers, and give
better warnings when various problems such as overflow are encountered.
Likewise, escape sequences are not yet recognized.
format(`%p', `0')
error-->m4:stdin:1: Warning: unrecognized specifier in `%p'
=>
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