Description

Both functions create a string based on the supplied format string and the remaining arguments to the call, in a similar manner to the C function sprintf.

The difference between the two routines is that Sprintf must also be sent the number of items to format (the n parameter above).

The format string is a C library sprintf style format descriptor. Briefly, the format string may consist of ordinary characters (not including the % character), which are copied into the output string as-is, and a conversion specification introduced by the % character. The % character must be followed by at least one other character to specify the conversion:

     s    value is a string
     f    value is a floating point number
     e    print float in exponential form, e.g., 2.345e08
     g    print float as e or g, depending upon its value
     c    value is an ascii character
     %    print the percent character
     d    print a signed decimal integer
     u    print an unsigned decimal integer
     o    print an integer as octal
     X    print an integer as hexadecimal
     S    convert value to a string and format as string

Note that %S is a S-Lang extension which will cause the value to be formatted as string. In fact, sprintf("%S",x) is equivalent to sprintf("%s",string(x)).