printf

Basic Usage

# assign output to a variable
printf -v var "%s\n" hello
echo $var
hello

Format Specifiers

Format Specifier	Description
%c	Treat the arguments as a single character.
%d	Treat the input as a decimal (integer) number (base 10).
%e	Treats the input as an exponential floating-point number.
%f	Treat the input as a floating-point number.
%i	Treat the input as an integer number (base 10).
%o	Treats the input as an octal number (base 8).
%s	Treat the input as a string of characters.
%u	Treat the input as an unsigned decimal (integer) number.
%x	Treats the input as a hexadecimal number (base 16).
%%	Print a percent sign.
%Wd	Print the W integer X digits wide.
%(format)T	Outputs a date-time string resulting from using format as a format string for strftime. The corresponding argument can be the number of seconds since Epoch (January 1, 1970, 00:00), -1 (the current time), or -2 (shell startup time). Not specifying an argument uses the current time as the default value.
\%	Print a percent sign.
\n	Prints a newline character.
\t	Print a tab character.

# syntax
printf "<specifier(s)>" "string"
 
# new line
printf "%s\n" "str1" "str2" "str3"
str1
str2
str3

When multiple specifiers are used, they are replaced by a corresponding argument.

printf "%s\n%s\t%s\n" "str1" "str2" "str3" "str4"
str1
str2    str3
str4