You can use the function
parse_printf_format to obtain
information about the number and types of arguments that are expected by
a given template string. This function permits interpreters that
provide interfaces to
printf to avoid passing along invalid
arguments from the user's program, which could cause a crash.
All the symbols described in this section are declared in the header file printf.h.
This function returns information about the number and types of arguments expected by the
printftemplate string template. The information is stored in the array argtypes; each element of this array describes one argument. This information is encoded using the various ‘PA_’ macros, listed below.
The argument n specifies the number of elements in the array argtypes. This is the maximum number of elements that
parse_printf_formatwill try to write.
parse_printf_formatreturns the total number of arguments required by template. If this number is greater than n, then the information returned describes only the first n arguments. If you want information about additional arguments, allocate a bigger array and call
The argument types are encoded as a combination of a basic type and modifier flag bits.
This macro is a bitmask for the type modifier flag bits. You can write the expression
(argtypes[i] & PA_FLAG_MASK)to extract just the flag bits for an argument, or
(argtypes[i] & ~PA_FLAG_MASK)to extract just the basic type code.
Here are symbolic constants that represent the basic types; they stand for integer values.
int, cast to
char *, a null-terminated string.
void *, an arbitrary pointer.
PA_LAST. For example, if you have data types ‘foo’ and ‘bar’ with their own specialized
printfconversions, you could define encodings for these types as:
#define PA_FOO PA_LAST #define PA_BAR (PA_LAST + 1)
Here are the flag bits that modify a basic type. They are combined with the code for the basic type using inclusive-or.
short. (This corresponds to the ‘h’ type modifier.)
long. (This corresponds to the ‘l’ type modifier.)
long long. (This corresponds to the ‘L’ type modifier.)
PA_FLAG_LONG_LONG, used by convention with a base type of
PA_DOUBLEto indicate a type of