PRINTF(1)

📦
version 9.10 · 5 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

💅 PRINTF — NAME

printf — format and print data. That's it, that's the whole vibe: it takes a FORMAT, it takes your ARGUMENTS, and it makes them pretty (or at least correct). And yeah, bestie, this is the printf(1) page from the User Commands manual — the shell-tool version, not the C-library one. We'll get to that one later. 🎀

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]...
printf OPTION

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So here's the tea: you print your ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT. Or — plot twist — you just execute a straight-up OPTION instead. Both are valid, both are iconic, pick your fighter. 🫶

Quick little menu of the OPTION path, since it's living here in the DESCRIPTION for some reason:
  • --help — display this help and exit. Classic. No notes. 💖
  • --version — output version information and exit. So you can flex which GNU coreutils you're running.

Okay, and now the main character: FORMAT. It controls the output exactly like it does in C printf. Here's every interpreted sequence, no gatekeeping, all of them: 🦋

  • \" — double quote
  • \\ — backslash
  • \a — alert (BEL)
  • \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 literally all C format specifications ending with one of diouxXfeEgGcs, with ARGUMENTs converted to proper type first. Variable widths? Handled. Slay. 👑

Heads up though, bestie: your shell may have its own version of printf, which usually supersedes the version described here. That's not a bug, that's just how shells are. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports, because this page isn't the boss of it. 💀

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Written by David MacKenzie. We stan a legend. 🌈

🐛 REPORTING BUGS 🐛

Found something cursed? Tell the people — they do want to know:

🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

💖 THE SIGN-OFF 💖

So basically, this whole page came to you courtesy of GNU coreutils 9.10, dated August 2026, and it's the PRINTF(1) page of the User Commands manual — Packaged by Ubuntu (9.10-1ubuntu2).

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.

fr fr, no warranty, so manifest carefully bestie 😭✨
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