What does the %*s format specifier mean?
c, format-specifiers, printf
Solution
It's used to specify, in a dynamic way, what the width of the field is:
- The width is not specified in the format string, but as an additional integer value argument preceding the argument that has to be formatted.
so "indent" specifies how much space to allocate for the string that follows it in the parameter list.
So,
printf("%*s", 5, "");
is the same as
printf("%5s", "");
It's a nice way to put some spaces in your file, avoiding a loop.
Problem
In some code that I have to maintain, I have seen a format specifier `%*s` . Can anybody tell me what this is and why it is used? An example of its usage is like: ``` fprintf(outFile, "\n%*s", indent, ""); ```