printf - Man Page

format and print data

Examples (TL;DR)

Print a text message: printf "%s\n" "Hello world"
Print formatted message multiple times with different strings: printf "%s\n" string1 string2 ...
Print an integer in bold blue: printf "\e[1;34m%.3d\e[0m\n" 42
Print a float number with the Unicode Euro sign: printf "\u20AC %.2f\n" 123.4
Print a text message composed with environment variables: printf "var1: %s\tvar2: %s\n" "$VAR1" "$VAR2"
Store a formatted message in a variable (does not work on Zsh): printf -v myvar "This is %s = %d\n" "a year" 2016
Print a hexadecimal, octal, and scientific number: printf "hex=%x octal=%o scientific=%e\n" 0xFF 0377 100000

tldr.sh

Synopsis

printf FORMAT [ARGUMENT]... printf OPTION

Description

Print ARGUMENT(s) according to FORMAT, or execute according to OPTION:

--help: display this help and exit
--version: output version information and exit

FORMAT controls the output as in C printf. Interpreted sequences are:

\": double quote
\\: backslash
\a: alert (bell)
\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 all C printf(3) format specifications ending with one of diouxXfaAeEgGcs, with ARGUMENTs converted to proper type first. FORMAT is reused to convert all specified arguments. The following table shows supported conversion specifiers, with examples including usage of width, precision, and flags.

CONVERSION: Shell format example Output
%s: '[%10s]' 'left pad' [ left pad]
%s: '[%-10s]' 'right pad' [right pad ]
%c %s: '%c %.3s' un unibyte u uni
%d %i: "%'d ;%04i" 1234 '-1' 1,234 ;-001
%o: '%#o' $((2#110100100)) 0644
%u: '%u' 0xFFFFFFFF 4294967295
%x: '0x%08x' 11259375 0x00abcdef
%a %f: '%1$a %1$f' 0.0009765625 0x8p-13 0.000977
%e %f: '%1$e %1$f' 123.456789 1.234568e+02 123.456789
%g: '%1$g %1$.2g' 1.2345678e3 1234.57 1.2e+03
%b: '%bfoo' 'bar\cbaz' qux bar
%q: '%q ' 'a' \;b $'c\n' a ';b' 'c'$'\n'

Your shell may have its own version of printf, which usually supersedes the version described here. Please refer to your shell's documentation for details about the options it supports.

Author

Written by David MacKenzie.

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Copyright

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.

Info

September 2026 GNU coreutils 9.12