[Chapter 15] 15.3 Formatting Data with sprintf( )
Author: Randal Schwartz, Tom Christiansen & Larry Wall
Date: 1999-07-02T01:35:20Z

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| Chapter 15 Other Data Transformation |

## 15.3 Formatting Data with sprintf( )

The `printf` function is sometimes handy when used to take a list of values and produce an output line that displays the values in controllable ways. The `sprintf` function is identical to `printf` for its arguments, but returns whatever would have been output by `printf` as a single string. (Think of it as "string `printf`.") For example, to create a string consisting of the letter `X` followed by a five-digit zero-padded value of `$y`, it's as easy as this:

    $result = sprintf("X%05d",$y);

See the sprintf entry in Chapter 3 of Programming Perl, and the printf (3) manpage (if you have it) for a description of the arguments required by `sprintf`.

15.2 Extracting and Replacing a Substring |  | 15.4 Advanced Sorting