printf

Format and print data, formatted printing of text.

SYNTAX
      printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]...

Write the formatted arguments to the standard output under the control of the format. The format is a character string which contains three types of objects: plain characters, which are simply copied to standard output, character escape sequences, which are converted and copied to the standard output, and format specifications, each of which causes printing of the next successive argument.

In addition to the standard printf(1) formats, `%b' causes printf to expand backslash escape sequences in the corresponding argument, and `%q' causes printf to output the corresponding argument in a format that can be reused as shell input.

The format is reused as necessary to consume all of the arguments. If the format requires more arguments than are supplied, the extra format specifications behave as if a zero value or null string, as appropriate, had been supplied.

`printf' interprets `\0ooo' in FORMAT as an octal number 
(if OOO is 0 to 3 octal digits) specifying a character to print.

`printf' interprets  `\xhhh' in FORMAT as a hexadecimal number 
(if HHH is 1 to 3 hex digits) specifying a character to print.

An additional escape, `\c', causes `printf' to produce no further output.

The return value is zero on success, non-zero on failure.

Related commands:

cat - Display the contents of a file
less - Display output one screen at a time
more - Display output one screen at a time