1printf format [ arg ... ]
2       Print  the arguments according to the format specification. For-
3       matting rules are the  same  as  used  in  C.  The  same  escape
4       sequences  as  for echo are recognised in the format. All C con-
5       version specifications ending in one of csdiouxXeEfgGn are  han-
6       dled.  In  addition to this, `%b' can be used instead of `%s' to
7       cause escape sequences in the argument to be recognised and `%q'
8       can  be  used to quote the argument in such a way that allows it
9       to be reused as shell input. With the numeric format specifiers,
10       if the corresponding argument starts with a quote character, the
11       numeric value of the following character is used as  the  number
12       to  print  otherwise  the argument is evaluated as an arithmetic
13       expression. See the  section  `Arithmetic  Evaluation'  in  zsh-
14       misc(1)  for a description of arithmetic expressions. With `%n',
15       the corresponding argument is taken as an  identifier  which  is
16       created as an integer parameter.
17
18       Normally, conversion specifications are applied to each argument
19       in order but they can explicitly specify the nth argument is  to
20       be  used by replacing `%' by `%n$' and `*' by `*n$'.  It is rec-
21       ommended that you do not mix references of this  explicit  style
22       with  the normal style and the handling of such mixed styles may
23       be subject to future change.
24
25       If arguments remain unused after formatting, the  format  string
26       is reused until all arguments have been consumed. With the print
27       builtin, this can be suppressed by using the -r option. If  more
28       arguments  are  required by the format than have been specified,
29       the behaviour is as if zero or an empty string had  been  speci-
30       fied as the argument.
31