ft_printf | 42sp

Introduction

The printf is likely one of the most popular commands people see when learning a new programming language. They are easy to understand and very powerful as well. This is why learning to implement our own version of printf can help us better understand what happens internally when entering a printf("%s", "Hello World\n");.

Capabilities

My version of the printf function will handle the following specifiers: cspdiuxX% It will also work with these flags: -0.# + (Yes, one of them is a space), and it will handle any possible combination.

Usage

In order to use it, we should just clone the repo and use make:

git clone https://github.com/ichmi/ft_printf.git
make

It is going to generate an archive libftprintf.a where you can use in your programs:

clang main.c libftprintf.a

Limitations

There are a few limitations to consider:

It doesnt have buffer management, unlike the real printf;
This implementation of printf isn't nearly as powerful as the real prinft since many features are not included;
This ft_printf relies on my own library libft, which makes it slower in performance when compared to the original one;

Summary

The key to a successful ft_printf (And any project) is a well-structured and extensible code. But I was really happy thinking and working on it while implementing my own printf function. And I actually added this ft_printf project to the libft so I can use it in my school C projects.