A question about printf.

I hardly know anything about C++ or C, but, there is one thing I was asking myself:

Apparently there is a function called printf in C++ which appears to be similair to the Print method in Visual Basic. In C++ source code I found while searching the internet and these forums I see symbols such as %ld, %s, %d and %u in the string passed to the printf function. What do these symbols do (if anything) when used with the printf function?

If you want to know why I am asking this if I don't really know and don't use C++, read this thread: http://vbforums.com/showthread.php?p...81#post1894281

The symbols are format-specifiers. The first argument to printf is a format string which contains information on how printf should process/format the other arguments.

e.g.

int x = 5;
printf("%d", x); //tell printf that the first argument is a decimal/integer(%d), and pass x to be printed.

Or:

char* s = "hello";
int x = 5;

printf("%s %d", s, x); //prints "hello 5".

The most common specifiers are %s (string), %d (or %i, same thing) (integer), %f (float). There's more, and you can specify other things like precision. A C standard library reference will give you more info.