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- .. image:: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/
- 576385/156254208-f5b743a9-88cf-439d-b0c0-923d53e8d551.png
- :width: 25%
- :alt: {fmt}
- .. image:: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/workflows/linux/badge.svg
- :target: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/actions?query=workflow%3Alinux
- .. image:: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/workflows/macos/badge.svg
- :target: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/actions?query=workflow%3Amacos
- .. image:: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/workflows/windows/badge.svg
- :target: https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/actions?query=workflow%3Awindows
- .. image:: https://oss-fuzz-build-logs.storage.googleapis.com/badges/fmt.svg
- :alt: fmt is continuously fuzzed at oss-fuzz
- :target: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?\
- colspec=ID%20Type%20Component%20Status%20Proj%20Reported%20Owner%20\
- Summary&q=proj%3Dfmt&can=1
- .. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/stackoverflow-fmt-blue.svg
- :alt: Ask questions at StackOverflow with the tag fmt
- :target: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/fmt
- **{fmt}** is an open-source formatting library providing a fast and safe
- alternative to C stdio and C++ iostreams.
- If you like this project, please consider donating to one of the funds that
- help victims of the war in Ukraine: https://www.stopputin.net/.
- `Documentation <https://fmt.dev>`__
- `Cheat Sheets <https://hackingcpp.com/cpp/libs/fmt.html>`__
- Q&A: ask questions on `StackOverflow with the tag fmt
- <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/fmt>`_.
- Try {fmt} in `Compiler Explorer <https://godbolt.org/z/Eq5763>`_.
- Features
- --------
- * Simple `format API <https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html>`_ with positional arguments
- for localization
- * Implementation of `C++20 std::format
- <https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/utility/format>`__
- * `Format string syntax <https://fmt.dev/latest/syntax.html>`_ similar to Python's
- `format <https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.format>`_
- * Fast IEEE 754 floating-point formatter with correct rounding, shortness and
- round-trip guarantees
- * Safe `printf implementation
- <https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#printf-formatting>`_ including the POSIX
- extension for positional arguments
- * Extensibility: `support for user-defined types
- <https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#formatting-user-defined-types>`_
- * High performance: faster than common standard library implementations of
- ``(s)printf``, iostreams, ``to_string`` and ``to_chars``, see `Speed tests`_
- and `Converting a hundred million integers to strings per second
- <http://www.zverovich.net/2020/06/13/fast-int-to-string-revisited.html>`_
- * Small code size both in terms of source code with the minimum configuration
- consisting of just three files, ``core.h``, ``format.h`` and ``format-inl.h``,
- and compiled code; see `Compile time and code bloat`_
- * Reliability: the library has an extensive set of `tests
- <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/tree/master/test>`_ and is `continuously fuzzed
- <https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?colspec=ID%20Type%20
- Component%20Status%20Proj%20Reported%20Owner%20Summary&q=proj%3Dfmt&can=1>`_
- * Safety: the library is fully type safe, errors in format strings can be
- reported at compile time, automatic memory management prevents buffer overflow
- errors
- * Ease of use: small self-contained code base, no external dependencies,
- permissive MIT `license
- <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/blob/master/LICENSE.rst>`_
- * `Portability <https://fmt.dev/latest/index.html#portability>`_ with
- consistent output across platforms and support for older compilers
- * Clean warning-free codebase even on high warning levels such as
- ``-Wall -Wextra -pedantic``
- * Locale-independence by default
- * Optional header-only configuration enabled with the ``FMT_HEADER_ONLY`` macro
- See the `documentation <https://fmt.dev>`_ for more details.
- Examples
- --------
- **Print to stdout** (`run <https://godbolt.org/z/Tevcjh>`_)
- .. code:: c++
- #include <fmt/core.h>
-
- int main() {
- fmt::print("Hello, world!\n");
- }
- **Format a string** (`run <https://godbolt.org/z/oK8h33>`_)
- .. code:: c++
- std::string s = fmt::format("The answer is {}.", 42);
- // s == "The answer is 42."
- **Format a string using positional arguments** (`run <https://godbolt.org/z/Yn7Txe>`_)
- .. code:: c++
- std::string s = fmt::format("I'd rather be {1} than {0}.", "right", "happy");
- // s == "I'd rather be happy than right."
- **Print chrono durations** (`run <https://godbolt.org/z/K8s4Mc>`_)
- .. code:: c++
- #include <fmt/chrono.h>
- int main() {
- using namespace std::literals::chrono_literals;
- fmt::print("Default format: {} {}\n", 42s, 100ms);
- fmt::print("strftime-like format: {:%H:%M:%S}\n", 3h + 15min + 30s);
- }
- Output::
- Default format: 42s 100ms
- strftime-like format: 03:15:30
- **Print a container** (`run <https://godbolt.org/z/MxM1YqjE7>`_)
- .. code:: c++
- #include <vector>
- #include <fmt/ranges.h>
- int main() {
- std::vector<int> v = {1, 2, 3};
- fmt::print("{}\n", v);
- }
- Output::
- [1, 2, 3]
- **Check a format string at compile time**
- .. code:: c++
- std::string s = fmt::format("{:d}", "I am not a number");
- This gives a compile-time error in C++20 because ``d`` is an invalid format
- specifier for a string.
- **Write a file from a single thread**
- .. code:: c++
- #include <fmt/os.h>
- int main() {
- auto out = fmt::output_file("guide.txt");
- out.print("Don't {}", "Panic");
- }
- This can be `5 to 9 times faster than fprintf
- <http://www.zverovich.net/2020/08/04/optimal-file-buffer-size.html>`_.
- **Print with colors and text styles**
- .. code:: c++
- #include <fmt/color.h>
- int main() {
- fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::crimson) | fmt::emphasis::bold,
- "Hello, {}!\n", "world");
- fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::floral_white) | bg(fmt::color::slate_gray) |
- fmt::emphasis::underline, "Hello, {}!\n", "мир");
- fmt::print(fg(fmt::color::steel_blue) | fmt::emphasis::italic,
- "Hello, {}!\n", "世界");
- }
- Output on a modern terminal:
- .. image:: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/
- 576385/88485597-d312f600-cf2b-11ea-9cbe-61f535a86e28.png
- Benchmarks
- ----------
- Speed tests
- ~~~~~~~~~~~
- ================= ============= ===========
- Library Method Run Time, s
- ================= ============= ===========
- libc printf 1.04
- libc++ std::ostream 3.05
- {fmt} 6.1.1 fmt::print 0.75
- Boost Format 1.67 boost::format 7.24
- Folly Format folly::format 2.23
- ================= ============= ===========
- {fmt} is the fastest of the benchmarked methods, ~35% faster than ``printf``.
- The above results were generated by building ``tinyformat_test.cpp`` on macOS
- 10.14.6 with ``clang++ -O3 -DNDEBUG -DSPEED_TEST -DHAVE_FORMAT``, and taking the
- best of three runs. In the test, the format string ``"%0.10f:%04d:%+g:%s:%p:%c:%%\n"``
- or equivalent is filled 2,000,000 times with output sent to ``/dev/null``; for
- further details refer to the `source
- <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark/blob/master/src/tinyformat-test.cc>`_.
- {fmt} is up to 20-30x faster than ``std::ostringstream`` and ``sprintf`` on
- floating-point formatting (`dtoa-benchmark <https://github.com/fmtlib/dtoa-benchmark>`_)
- and faster than `double-conversion <https://github.com/google/double-conversion>`_ and
- `ryu <https://github.com/ulfjack/ryu>`_:
- .. image:: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/576385/
- 95684665-11719600-0ba8-11eb-8e5b-972ff4e49428.png
- :target: https://fmt.dev/unknown_mac64_clang12.0.html
- Compile time and code bloat
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- The script `bloat-test.py
- <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark/blob/master/bloat-test.py>`_
- from `format-benchmark <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark>`_
- tests compile time and code bloat for nontrivial projects.
- It generates 100 translation units and uses ``printf()`` or its alternative
- five times in each to simulate a medium sized project. The resulting
- executable size and compile time (Apple LLVM version 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42),
- macOS Sierra, best of three) is shown in the following tables.
- **Optimized build (-O3)**
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- Method Compile Time, s Executable size, KiB Stripped size, KiB
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- printf 2.6 29 26
- printf+string 16.4 29 26
- iostreams 31.1 59 55
- {fmt} 19.0 37 34
- Boost Format 91.9 226 203
- Folly Format 115.7 101 88
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- As you can see, {fmt} has 60% less overhead in terms of resulting binary code
- size compared to iostreams and comes pretty close to ``printf``. Boost Format
- and Folly Format have the largest overheads.
- ``printf+string`` is the same as ``printf`` but with extra ``<string>``
- include to measure the overhead of the latter.
- **Non-optimized build**
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- Method Compile Time, s Executable size, KiB Stripped size, KiB
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- printf 2.2 33 30
- printf+string 16.0 33 30
- iostreams 28.3 56 52
- {fmt} 18.2 59 50
- Boost Format 54.1 365 303
- Folly Format 79.9 445 430
- ============= =============== ==================== ==================
- ``libc``, ``lib(std)c++`` and ``libfmt`` are all linked as shared libraries to
- compare formatting function overhead only. Boost Format is a
- header-only library so it doesn't provide any linkage options.
- Running the tests
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- Please refer to `Building the library`__ for the instructions on how to build
- the library and run the unit tests.
- __ https://fmt.dev/latest/usage.html#building-the-library
- Benchmarks reside in a separate repository,
- `format-benchmarks <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark>`_,
- so to run the benchmarks you first need to clone this repository and
- generate Makefiles with CMake::
- $ git clone --recursive https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark.git
- $ cd format-benchmark
- $ cmake .
- Then you can run the speed test::
- $ make speed-test
- or the bloat test::
- $ make bloat-test
-
- Migrating code
- --------------
- `clang-tidy-fmt <https://github.com/mikecrowe/clang-tidy-fmt>`_ provides clang
- tidy checks for converting occurrences of ``printf`` and ``fprintf`` to
- ``fmt::print``.
- Projects using this library
- ---------------------------
- * `0 A.D. <https://play0ad.com/>`_: a free, open-source, cross-platform
- real-time strategy game
- * `2GIS <https://2gis.ru/>`_: free business listings with a city map
- * `AMPL/MP <https://github.com/ampl/mp>`_:
- an open-source library for mathematical programming
- * `Aseprite <https://github.com/aseprite/aseprite>`_:
- animated sprite editor & pixel art tool
- * `AvioBook <https://www.aviobook.aero/en>`_: a comprehensive aircraft
- operations suite
-
- * `Blizzard Battle.net <https://battle.net/>`_: an online gaming platform
-
- * `Celestia <https://celestia.space/>`_: real-time 3D visualization of space
- * `Ceph <https://ceph.com/>`_: a scalable distributed storage system
- * `ccache <https://ccache.dev/>`_: a compiler cache
- * `ClickHouse <https://github.com/ClickHouse/ClickHouse>`_: analytical database
- management system
- * `CUAUV <https://cuauv.org/>`_: Cornell University's autonomous underwater
- vehicle
- * `Drake <https://drake.mit.edu/>`_: a planning, control, and analysis toolbox
- for nonlinear dynamical systems (MIT)
- * `Envoy <https://lyft.github.io/envoy/>`_: C++ L7 proxy and communication bus
- (Lyft)
- * `FiveM <https://fivem.net/>`_: a modification framework for GTA V
- * `fmtlog <https://github.com/MengRao/fmtlog>`_: a performant fmtlib-style
- logging library with latency in nanoseconds
- * `Folly <https://github.com/facebook/folly>`_: Facebook open-source library
- * `GemRB <https://gemrb.org/>`_: a portable open-source implementation of
- Bioware’s Infinity Engine
- * `Grand Mountain Adventure
- <https://store.steampowered.com/app/1247360/Grand_Mountain_Adventure/>`_:
- a beautiful open-world ski & snowboarding game
- * `HarpyWar/pvpgn <https://github.com/pvpgn/pvpgn-server>`_:
- Player vs Player Gaming Network with tweaks
- * `KBEngine <https://github.com/kbengine/kbengine>`_: an open-source MMOG server
- engine
- * `Keypirinha <https://keypirinha.com/>`_: a semantic launcher for Windows
- * `Kodi <https://kodi.tv/>`_ (formerly xbmc): home theater software
- * `Knuth <https://kth.cash/>`_: high-performance Bitcoin full-node
- * `Microsoft Verona <https://github.com/microsoft/verona>`_:
- research programming language for concurrent ownership
- * `MongoDB <https://mongodb.com/>`_: distributed document database
- * `MongoDB Smasher <https://github.com/duckie/mongo_smasher>`_: a small tool to
- generate randomized datasets
- * `OpenSpace <https://openspaceproject.com/>`_: an open-source
- astrovisualization framework
- * `PenUltima Online (POL) <https://www.polserver.com/>`_:
- an MMO server, compatible with most Ultima Online clients
- * `PyTorch <https://github.com/pytorch/pytorch>`_: an open-source machine
- learning library
- * `quasardb <https://www.quasardb.net/>`_: a distributed, high-performance,
- associative database
-
- * `Quill <https://github.com/odygrd/quill>`_: asynchronous low-latency logging library
- * `QKW <https://github.com/ravijanjam/qkw>`_: generalizing aliasing to simplify
- navigation, and executing complex multi-line terminal command sequences
- * `redis-cerberus <https://github.com/HunanTV/redis-cerberus>`_: a Redis cluster
- proxy
- * `redpanda <https://vectorized.io/redpanda>`_: a 10x faster Kafka® replacement
- for mission critical systems written in C++
- * `rpclib <http://rpclib.net/>`_: a modern C++ msgpack-RPC server and client
- library
- * `Salesforce Analytics Cloud
- <https://www.salesforce.com/analytics-cloud/overview/>`_:
- business intelligence software
- * `Scylla <https://www.scylladb.com/>`_: a Cassandra-compatible NoSQL data store
- that can handle 1 million transactions per second on a single server
- * `Seastar <http://www.seastar-project.org/>`_: an advanced, open-source C++
- framework for high-performance server applications on modern hardware
- * `spdlog <https://github.com/gabime/spdlog>`_: super fast C++ logging library
- * `Stellar <https://www.stellar.org/>`_: financial platform
- * `Touch Surgery <https://www.touchsurgery.com/>`_: surgery simulator
- * `TrinityCore <https://github.com/TrinityCore/TrinityCore>`_: open-source
- MMORPG framework
- * `Windows Terminal <https://github.com/microsoft/terminal>`_: the new Windows
- terminal
- `More... <https://github.com/search?q=fmtlib&type=Code>`_
- If you are aware of other projects using this library, please let me know
- by `email <mailto:victor.zverovich@gmail.com>`_ or by submitting an
- `issue <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/issues>`_.
- Motivation
- ----------
- So why yet another formatting library?
- There are plenty of methods for doing this task, from standard ones like
- the printf family of function and iostreams to Boost Format and FastFormat
- libraries. The reason for creating a new library is that every existing
- solution that I found either had serious issues or didn't provide
- all the features I needed.
- printf
- ~~~~~~
- The good thing about ``printf`` is that it is pretty fast and readily available
- being a part of the C standard library. The main drawback is that it
- doesn't support user-defined types. ``printf`` also has safety issues although
- they are somewhat mitigated with `__attribute__ ((format (printf, ...))
- <https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html>`_ in GCC.
- There is a POSIX extension that adds positional arguments required for
- `i18n <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization>`_
- to ``printf`` but it is not a part of C99 and may not be available on some
- platforms.
- iostreams
- ~~~~~~~~~
- The main issue with iostreams is best illustrated with an example:
- .. code:: c++
- std::cout << std::setprecision(2) << std::fixed << 1.23456 << "\n";
- which is a lot of typing compared to printf:
- .. code:: c++
- printf("%.2f\n", 1.23456);
- Matthew Wilson, the author of FastFormat, called this "chevron hell". iostreams
- don't support positional arguments by design.
- The good part is that iostreams support user-defined types and are safe although
- error handling is awkward.
- Boost Format
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~
- This is a very powerful library which supports both ``printf``-like format
- strings and positional arguments. Its main drawback is performance. According to
- various benchmarks, it is much slower than other methods considered here. Boost
- Format also has excessive build times and severe code bloat issues (see
- `Benchmarks`_).
- FastFormat
- ~~~~~~~~~~
- This is an interesting library which is fast, safe and has positional arguments.
- However, it has significant limitations, citing its author:
- Three features that have no hope of being accommodated within the
- current design are:
- * Leading zeros (or any other non-space padding)
- * Octal/hexadecimal encoding
- * Runtime width/alignment specification
- It is also quite big and has a heavy dependency, STLSoft, which might be too
- restrictive for using it in some projects.
- Boost Spirit.Karma
- ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
- This is not really a formatting library but I decided to include it here for
- completeness. As iostreams, it suffers from the problem of mixing verbatim text
- with arguments. The library is pretty fast, but slower on integer formatting
- than ``fmt::format_to`` with format string compilation on Karma's own benchmark,
- see `Converting a hundred million integers to strings per second
- <http://www.zverovich.net/2020/06/13/fast-int-to-string-revisited.html>`_.
- License
- -------
- {fmt} is distributed under the MIT `license
- <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/blob/master/LICENSE.rst>`_.
- Documentation License
- ---------------------
- The `Format String Syntax <https://fmt.dev/latest/syntax.html>`_
- section in the documentation is based on the one from Python `string module
- documentation <https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#module-string>`_.
- For this reason the documentation is distributed under the Python Software
- Foundation license available in `doc/python-license.txt
- <https://raw.github.com/fmtlib/fmt/master/doc/python-license.txt>`_.
- It only applies if you distribute the documentation of {fmt}.
- Maintainers
- -----------
- The {fmt} library is maintained by Victor Zverovich (`vitaut
- <https://github.com/vitaut>`_) and Jonathan Müller (`foonathan
- <https://github.com/foonathan>`_) with contributions from many other people.
- See `Contributors <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/graphs/contributors>`_ and
- `Releases <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases>`_ for some of the names.
- Let us know if your contribution is not listed or mentioned incorrectly and
- we'll make it right.
|