Other Format Codes

In addition to the standard printf() formatting codes, other <fmt> codes are available:

• %t, %T strftime()-style output of a date or counter field (see above)

• %L Output of a latitude, longitude, or location (geocode); see above

• %H

  Prints its string (e.g. varchar) argument, applying HTML escape codes where needed to make the string "safe" for HTML output (", &, <, >, DEL and control chars less than 32 except TAB, LF, FF and CR are escaped). With the ! flag, decodes instead (to ISO-8859-1); see also the l (el) flag, here. The j flag (here) may be given for newline translation. When decoding with !, out-of-ISO-8859-1-range characters are output as ?; to decode HTML to UTF-8 instead, use %hV.

• %U Prints its string argument, encoding for a URL, e.g. using %-codes. With the ! flag, decodes instead; with the p (path) flag, spaces are encoded as "%20" instead of "+"; with the q flag, slash and at-sign are encoded as well. See Extended Flags, here.

• %V (upper-case vee)

  Prints its string argument, encoding 8-bit ISO-8859-1 chars for UTF-8 (compressed Unicode). With the ! flag (here), decodes instead (to ISO-8859-1). Illegal, truncated, or out-of-range sequences are translated as question-marks (?); this can be modified with the h flag (here). The j flag (here) may be given for newline translation. Added in version 3.01.970000000 20000926.

• %v (lower-case vee) Prints its UTF-8 string argument, encoding to UTF-16. With the ! flag (here), decodes to UTF-8 instead. Illegal, truncated, or out-of-range sequences are translated as question-marks (?); this can be modified with the h flag (here. The < (less-than) flag forces UTF-16LE (little-endian) output (encode) or treats input as little-endian (decode). The > flag forces UTF-16BE (big-endian) output (encode) or treats input as big-endian (decode). The default endian-ness is big-endian; for decode, a leading byte-order-mark character (hex 0xFEFF) will determine endian-ness if present. The _ (underscore) flag skips printing a leading byte-order-mark when encoding; when decoding the _ flag saves (does not delete) a leading byte-order-mark in the input. The j flag (here) may be given for newline translation. Added in version 4.03.1049741744 20030407.

• %B Prints its string argument, encoding to base64. If a non-zero field width is given, a newline is output after every "width" bytes output (absolute value, rounded up to 4) and at the end of the base64 output. Thus "%64B" would format with no more than 64 bytes per line. This is useful for encoding into a MIME mail message with line length restraints. A ! flag indicates that the string is to be decoded instead of encoded. The j flag (here) may be given to set the newline style, though it only applies to soft (output) newlines; input CR/LF bytes are never modified since base64 is a binary encoding. Added in version 3.01.984400000 20010312.

• %Q Prints its string argument, encoding to quoted-printable (per RFC 2045). If a non-zero field width is given, a newline is output after every "width" bytes output (absolute value, rounded up where needed). A negative field width or - flag indicates "binary" encoding: input CR and LF bytes are also hex-encoded; normally they are output as-is (or subject to the j flag, here) and therefore subject to possible newline translation by a mail transfer agent etc. A ! flag indicates that decoding instead of encoding is to be done (and the field width and negative flag are ignored). The j flag (here) may be given for newline translation.

  If an underscore (_) flag is given, "Q" encoding (per RFC 2047) is used instead of quoted-printable: it is similar, except that U+0020 (space) is output as underscore (_), no whitespace is ever output (e.g. tab/CR/LF are hex-encoded, and the field width is ignored), and certain other special characters are hex-encoded that normally would not be (e.g. dollar sign, percent, ampersand etc.). With the underscore flag, the resulting output is safe for all RFC 2047 "Q" encoding contexts.

  Added in version 4.03.1051320912 20030425.

• %W Prints its UTF-8 string argument, encoding linear-whitespace-separated tokens to RFC 2047 encoded-word format (i.e. "=?...?=" mail header tokens) as needed. Tokens that do not require encoding are left as-is. A ! flag indicates that decoding instead of encoding should be done. A q flag for %W indicates that only the "Q" encoding should be used for encoded words; normally either Q or base64 - whichever is shorter - is used. The hh, hhh, j, ^ and | flags are respected. If a non-zero field width is given, it is used as the desired maximum byte length of encoded words: if an encoded word would be longer than this, it is split atomically into multiple words, separated by newline-space. Added in version 6.00.1283370000 20100901.

• %b Binary output of an integer.

• %F Prints a float as a fraction: whole number plus fraction.

• %r Lowercase Roman numeral output of an integer.

• %R Uppercase Roman numeral output of an integer.

• %/

  Print platform-specific directory separator, e.g. "/" for Unix and "\" for Windows. No argument. Added in version 5.01.1131507000 20051108. With an l (el) flag, the code instead prints a REX character class (bracketed expression) to match all valid directory separators, e.g. "[/]" for Unix, and "[\\/]" for Windows; this behavior was added in version 7.00.1352409000 20121108, which also added the ! flag to negate the expression. The REX repetition operator is omitted for user flexibility in adding one.

• %:

  Print platform-specific search path separator, e.g. ":" for Unix and ";" for Windows. No argument. Added in version 5.01.1131507000 20051108. With an l (el) flag, the code instead prints a REX character class (bracketed expression) to match all valid search path separators, e.g. "[:]" for Unix, and "[;]" for Windows; this behavior was added in version 7.00.1352409000 20121108, which also added the ! flag to negate the expression. The REX repetition operator is omitted for user flexibility in adding one. (See also %/ footnote.)

All the standard flags, as well as the extended flags (below), can be given to these codes, where applicable. Examples:

  <fmt "Year %R %H %R" 1977 "<" 1997>
  Year MCMLXXVII &lt; MCMXCVII
  <fmt "%F" 5.75>
  5 3/4