Mac OS X Panther in a Nutshell, 2nd Edition

Name

printf

Synopsis

                     printf 
                     string [arguments]

Format the arguments according to string. Works like the C library printf function. Standard printf percent-sign formats are recognized in string, such as %i for integer. Escape sequences such as \n can be included in string and are automatically recognized; if you want to include them in arguments, specify a string of %b. You can escape characters in arguments to output a string suitable for input to other commands by specifying a string of %q.

Examples

$ printf "Previous command: %i\n" "$(($HISTCMD-1))"
Previous command: 534
$ echo $PAGER
less -E
$ printf "%q\n" "\t$PAGER"
\\tless\ -E

The last command would probably be used to record a setting in a file where it could be read and assigned by another shell script.