Equivalent to print FILEHANDLE sprintf(FORMAT, LIST)
, except that $\
(the output record separator) is not appended. The FORMAT and the LIST are actually parsed as a single list. The first argument of the list will be interpreted as the printf
format. This means that printf(@_)
will use $_[0]
as the format. See sprintf for an explanation of the format argument. If use locale
(including use locale ':not_characters'
) is in effect and POSIX::setlocale
has been called, the character used for the decimal separator in formatted floating-point numbers is affected by the LC_NUMERIC
locale setting. See perllocale and POSIX.
For historical reasons, if you omit the list, $_
is used as the format; to use FILEHANDLE without a list, you must use a bareword filehandle like FH
, not an indirect one like $fh
. However, this will rarely do what you want; if $_
contains formatting codes, they will be replaced with the empty string and a warning will be emitted if warnings are enabled. Just use print
if you want to print the contents of $_
.
Don't fall into the trap of using a printf
when a simple print
would do. The print
is more efficient and less error prone.