Why_printf_is_called_printf

Last updated Sep 6, 2021 Edit Source

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The title of section 7.3 Formatted output - printf on page 145 of original K&R strongly suggest that the f stands for formatted:

Searching in other sources will show that B’s and C’s printf both seem to originate from BCPL’s writef function which used already in 1966 the % formatting character.

Also worth to note that Algol68 also adopted printf function for formatted output. Yet the formatting logic was a little different.

Source: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/317462/why-isnt-cs-most-basic-printing-function-named-print-instead-of-printf