2023-08-31 10:35:59 -0500, Eric Blake via austin-group-l at The Open Group: > In today's Austin Group call, we discussed the fact that printf(1) has > mandated behavior for %b (escape sequence processing similar to XSI > echo) that will eventually conflict with C2x's desire to introduce %b > to printf(3) (to produce 0b000... binary literals). [...]
Is C2x's %b already set in stone? ksh93's printf (and I'd expect ast's standalone printf) has %<width>[,<precision>[,<base>]d to output a number in an arbitrary base which IMO seems like a better approach than introducing a new specifier for every base. $ printf '%..2d\n' 63 111111 $ printf '0b%.8.2d\n' 63 0b00111111 $ printf '%#.8.2d\n' 63 2#00111111 The one thing it can't do though is left-space-padding of 0b1111. printf %b is used in countless scripts especially the more correct/portable ones that use it to work around the portability fiasco that is echo's escape sequence expansion. I can't imagine it going away. Hard to imagine the C folks overlooked it, I'd expect printf %b to be known by any shell scripter. -- Stephane
