C stdio snprintf() Function
Example
Write a formatted string into a char
array:
char destination[50];
snprintf(destination, 50, "Hello %s!", "World");
printf("%s", destination);
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Definition and Usage
The snprintf()
function writes a formatted string followed by a \0
null terminating character into a char
array.
The snprintf()
function is defined in the <stdio.h>
header file.
The format string can contain format specifiers which describe where and how to represent additional arguments that are passed into the function. Details about format specifiers can be found on the printf() reference page.
Syntax
snprintf(char * destination, size_t * size, const char * format, arg1, arg2...);
Parameter Values
Parameter | Description |
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destination |
Required. A char array to which the formatted string is written.
|
size | Required. Specifies the size of the destination array. This function will write at most this number of characters into the array, including the null terminating character. |
format | Required. A string representing the format of the data to be written to the array. |
arg1, arg2... | Optional. Any number of additional arguments, their values can be formatted and written to the destination array using the specifiers in the format argument. |
Technical Details
Returns: | An int value representing the number of characters that were intended to be written to the array (excluding the null terminating character). If this is greater than or equal to the size argument then there are some characters that could not be written to the array. If an error occurred then it returns a negative number. |
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