Formatted output can be made with format:
format(format-string, ...)
which works much like the C function printf. The first argument
is a format string, which can contain `%' specifications, and the
expansion of format is the formatted string.
Its use is best described by a few examples:
define(`foo', `The brown fox jumped over the lazy dog') => format(`The string "%s" is %d characters long', foo, len(foo)) =>The string "The brown fox jumped over the lazy dog" is 38 characters long
Using the forloop macro defined in See section Loops and recursion, this
example shows how format can be used to produce tabular output.
forloop(`i', 1, 10, `format(`%6d squared is %10d ', i, eval(i**2))') => 1 squared is 1 => 2 squared is 4 => 3 squared is 9 => 4 squared is 16 => 5 squared is 25 => 6 squared is 36 => 7 squared is 49 => 8 squared is 64 => 9 squared is 81 => 10 squared is 100
The builtin format is modeled after the ANSI C `printf'
function, and supports the normal `%' specifiers: `c',
`s', `d', `o', `x', `X', `u', `e',
`E' and `f'; it supports field widths and precisions, and the
modifiers `+', `-', ` ', `0', `#', `h' and
`l'. For more details on the functioning of printf, see the
C Library Manual.
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