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Comment on What is this format specifier?

If you want multi-line code, you need to put it like this:

For these kinds of questions, your best buddy is the documentation. In particular, a man ‘printf(3)’ yields:

Format of the format string

The format string is a character string, beginning and ending in its initial shift state, if any. The format string is composed of zero or more directives: ordinary characters (not %), which are copied unchanged to the output stream; and conversion specifications, each of which results in fetching zero or more subsequent arguments. Each conversion specification is introduced by the character %, and ends with a conversion specifier. In between there may be (in this order) zero or more flags, an optional minimum field width, an optional precision and an optional length modifier.

The overall syntax of a conversion specification is:

%[$][flags][width][.precision][length modifier]conversion

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PoolloverNathan@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wouldn’t man 3 printf do the same thing without the quotes?

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- AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yup that definitely does the same thing.
  
  If anyone else is wondering why the 3 is there, it’s because usually you won’t find just one printf. You have the printf user command, the printf function from the standard C library, and POSIX manual entries for both the printf user command and C function. The id number is then an identifier for the corresponding section of the printf entry, and you can list all of them by doing a man -f printf.
  
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  - JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Awesome, I think I’m gonna consider aliasing man to man -f lol. Can you think of any compelling reason not to?
    
    Actually, nevermind, I misunderstood you. -f just lists the pages, it doesn’t print all of their content.
    
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  - ono@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    The id number is then an identifier for the corresponding section of the printf entry,
    
    Nit: 3 is the manual section in which to look for the named entry (aka page), not a section of the entry.
    
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    AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Wrote it in an awkward way but yeah I meant to say the section where you can find the corresponding entry 😬
    
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starman@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Wait, you can use man on C++ functions?

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- Eufalconimorph@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  On libc functions yes. Maybe on some from other libs, if they provide man pages.
  
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  - starman@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    That’s nice.
    
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- ono@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  You can if you have those man pages installed.
  
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- AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yup! Try also man malloc 😁
  
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  - starman@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Nice :)
    
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- JBloodthorn@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Back in my day, MS-DOS let you use HELP on QBASIC commands.
  
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