| 123456789101112131415161718192021222324252627282930313233343536373839404142434445464748495051525354555657585960616263646566676869707172737475767778798081828384858687888990919293949596979899100101102103104105106107108109110111112113114115116117118119120121122123124125126127128129130131132133134135136137138139140141142143144145146147148149150151152153154155156157158159160161162163164165166167168169170171172173174175176177178179180181182183184185186187188189190191192193194195196197198199200201202203204205206207208209210211212213214215216217218219220221222223224225226227228229230231232233234235236237238239240241242243244245246247248249250251252253254255256257258259260261262263264265266267268269270271272273274275276277278279280281282283284285286287288289290291292293294295296297298299300301302303304305306307308309310311312313314315316317318319320321322323324325 | <!DOCTYPE html><html lang="en">  <head>    <meta charset="utf-8">    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=edge">    <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">        <meta name="generator" content="Docutils 0.17.1: http://docutils.sourceforge.net/" />    <title>Overview — fmt 9.1.0 documentation</title>        <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/basic.css" type="text/css" />    <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/pygments.css" type="text/css" />    <link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/breathe.css" type="text/css" />        <script type="text/javascript">      var DOCUMENTATION_OPTIONS = {        URL_ROOT:    './',        VERSION:     '9.1.0',        COLLAPSE_INDEX: false,        FILE_SUFFIX: '.html',        LINK_SUFFIX: '.html',        SOURCELINK_SUFFIX: '.txt',        HAS_SOURCE:  true,        SOURCELINK_SUFFIX:  '.txt'      };    </script>    <script src="_static/jquery.js"></script>    <script src="_static/underscore.js"></script>    <script src="_static/doctools.js"></script>    <script src="_static/language_data.js"></script>    <link rel="index" title="Index" href="genindex.html" />    <link rel="search" title="Search" href="search.html" /><meta name="description" content="Small, safe and fast formatting library"><meta name="keywords" content="C++, formatting, printf, string, library"><meta name="author" content="Victor Zverovich"><link rel="stylesheet" href="_static/fmt.css"><script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-20116650-4"></script><script>  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}  gtag('js', new Date());  gtag('config', 'UA-20116650-4');</script>  </head>  <body role="document"><nav class="navbar navbar-inverse">  <div class="tb-container">    <div class="row">      <div class="navbar-content">                <div class="navbar-header">          <button type="button" class="navbar-toggle collapsed"                  data-toggle="collapse" data-target=".navbar-collapse">            <span class="sr-only">Toggle navigation</span>            <span class="icon-bar"></span>            <span class="icon-bar"></span>            <span class="icon-bar"></span>          </button>          <a class="navbar-brand" href="index.html">{fmt}</a>        </div>                <div class="collapse navbar-collapse">          <ul class="nav navbar-nav">            <li class="dropdown">              <a href="#" class="dropdown-toggle" data-toggle="dropdown"                 role="button" aria-expanded="false">9.1.0                <span class="caret"></span></a>              <ul class="dropdown-menu" role="menu">                                <li><a href="https://fmt.dev/9.1.0">9.1.0</a></li>                                <li><a href="https://fmt.dev/9.0.0">9.0.0</a></li>                                <li><a href="https://fmt.dev/8.1.1">8.1.1</a></li>                              </ul>            </li>                                        <li><a href="contents.html">Contents</a></li>                                                      <li><a href="usage.html">Usage</a></li>                                                      <li><a href="api.html">API</a></li>                                                      <li><a href="syntax.html">Syntax</a></li>                                    </ul>                      <form class="navbar-form navbar-right" role="search" action="search.html"      method="get">  <div class="form-group">    <input type="text" name="q" class="form-control"           placeholder="Search" >  </div>  <input type="hidden" name="check_keywords" value="yes" />  <input type="hidden" name="area" value="default" />  </form>                  </div>       </div>     </div>   </div> </nav><div class="jumbotron">  <div class="tb-container">    <h1>{fmt}</h1>    <p class="lead">A modern formatting library</p>    <div class="btn-group" role="group">            <a class="btn btn-success"         href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/download/9.1.0/fmt-9.1.0.zip">           <span class="glyphicon glyphicon-download"></span> Download      </a>      <button type="button" class="btn btn-success dropdown-toggle"        data-toggle="dropdown"><span class="caret"></span></button>      <ul class="dropdown-menu">                    <li><a href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/download/9.1.0/fmt-9.1.0.zip">Version 9.1.0          </a></li>                    <li><a href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/download/9.0.0/fmt-9.0.0.zip">Version 9.0.0          </a></li>                    <li><a href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/download/8.1.1/fmt-8.1.1.zip">Version 8.1.1          </a></li>            </ul>    </div>  </div></div><div class="tb-container">  <div class="row">        <div class="content">        <section id="overview"><h1>Overview<a class="headerlink" href="#overview" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h1><p><strong>{fmt}</strong> is an open-source formatting library providing a fast and safealternative to C stdio and C++ iostreams.</p><div class="panel panel-default">  <div class="panel-heading">What users say:</div>  <div class="panel-body">    Thanks for creating this library. It’s been a hole in C++ for    a long time. I’ve used both <code>boost::format</code> and    <code>loki::SPrintf</code>, and neither felt like the right answer.    This does.  </div></div><section id="format-api"><span id="format-api-intro"></span><h2>Format API<a class="headerlink" href="#format-api" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2><p>The format API is similar in spirit to the C <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">printf</span></code> family of function butis safer, simpler and several times <a class="reference external" href="https://www.zverovich.net/2020/06/13/fast-int-to-string-revisited.html">faster</a>than common standard library implementations.The <a class="reference external" href="syntax.html">format string syntax</a> is similar to the one used by<a class="reference external" href="https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.format">str.format</a> inPython:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">std</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">string</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">s</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"The answer is {}."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fmt::format</span></code> function returns a string “The answer is 42.”. You can use<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fmt::memory_buffer</span></code> to avoid constructing <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">std::string</span></code>:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">auto</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">out</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">memory_buffer</span><span class="p">();</span><span class="w"></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">format_to</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">std</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">back_inserter</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">out</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"></span><span class="w">          </span><span class="s">"For a moment, {} happened."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"nothing"</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span><span class="k">auto</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">data</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">out</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">data</span><span class="p">();</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="c1">// pointer to the formatted data</span><span class="k">auto</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">size</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="o">=</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">out</span><span class="p">.</span><span class="n">size</span><span class="p">();</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="c1">// size of the formatted data</span></pre></div></div><p>The <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fmt::print</span></code> function performs formatting and writes the result to a stream:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">stderr</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"System error code = {}</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s">"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">errno</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>If you omit the file argument the function will print to <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">stdout</span></code>:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"Don't {}</span><span class="se">\n</span><span class="s">"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"panic"</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>The format API also supports positional arguments useful for localization:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"I'd rather be {1} than {0}."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"right"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"happy"</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>You can pass named arguments with <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">fmt::arg</span></code>:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"Hello, {name}! The answer is {number}. Goodbye, {name}."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"></span><span class="w">           </span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">arg</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"name"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"World"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">arg</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"number"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">));</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>If your compiler supports C++11 user-defined literals, the suffix <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">_a</span></code> offersan alternative, slightly terser syntax for named arguments:</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="k">using</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="k">namespace</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nn">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="nn">literals</span><span class="p">;</span><span class="w"></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"Hello, {name}! The answer is {number}. Goodbye, {name}."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"></span><span class="w">           </span><span class="s">"name"</span><span class="n">_a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="s">"World"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"number"</span><span class="n">_a</span><span class="o">=</span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div></section><section id="safety"><span id="id1"></span><h2>Safety<a class="headerlink" href="#safety" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2><p>The library is fully type safe, automatic memory management prevents bufferoverflow, errors in format strings are reported using exceptions or at compiletime. For example, the code</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"The answer is {:d}"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"forty-two"</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>throws the <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">format_error</span></code> exception because the argument <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">"forty-two"</span></code> is astring while the format code <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">d</span></code> only applies to integers.</p><p>The code</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">format</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="n">FMT_STRING</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"The answer is {:d}"</span><span class="p">),</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="s">"forty-two"</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>reports a compile-time error on compilers that support relaxed <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">constexpr</span></code>.See <a class="reference external" href="api.html#compile-time-format-string-checks">here</a> for details.</p><p>The following code</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>fmt::format("Cyrillic letter {}", L'\x42e');</pre></div></div><p>produces a compile-time error because wide character <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">L'\x42e'</span></code> cannot beformatted into a narrow string. For comparison, writing a wide character to<code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">std::ostream</span></code> results in its numeric value being written to the stream(i.e. 1070 instead of letter ‘ю’ which is represented by <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">L'\x42e'</span></code> if weuse Unicode) which is rarely desirable.</p></section><section id="compact-binary-code"><h2>Compact Binary Code<a class="headerlink" href="#compact-binary-code" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2><p>The library produces compact per-call compiled code. For example(<a class="reference external" href="https://godbolt.org/g/TZU4KF">godbolt</a>),</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="cp">#include</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="cpf"><fmt/core.h></span><span class="cp"></span><span class="kt">int</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="nf">main</span><span class="p">()</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="p">{</span><span class="w"></span><span class="w">  </span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"The answer is {}."</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="mi">42</span><span class="p">);</span><span class="w"></span><span class="p">}</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>compiles to just</p><div class="highlight-asm notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span>main: # @main  sub rsp, 24  mov qword ptr [rsp], 42  mov rcx, rsp  mov edi, offset .L.str  mov esi, 17  mov edx, 1  call fmt::v7::vprint(fmt::v7::basic_string_view<char>, fmt::v7::format_args)  xor eax, eax  add rsp, 24  ret.L.str:  .asciz "The answer is {}."</pre></div></div></section><section id="portability"><span id="id2"></span><h2>Portability<a class="headerlink" href="#portability" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2><p>The library is highly portable and relies only on a small set of C++11 features:</p><ul class="simple"><li><p>variadic templates</p></li><li><p>type traits</p></li><li><p>rvalue references</p></li><li><p>decltype</p></li><li><p>trailing return types</p></li><li><p>deleted functions</p></li><li><p>alias templates</p></li></ul><p>These are available in GCC 4.8, Clang 3.4, MSVC 19.0 (2015) and more recentcompiler version. For older compilers use {fmt} <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/tag/4.1.0">version 4.x</a> which is maintained andonly requires C++98.</p><p>The output of all formatting functions is consistent across platforms.For example,</p><div class="highlight-c++ notranslate"><div class="highlight"><pre><span></span><span class="n">fmt</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">print</span><span class="p">(</span><span class="s">"{}"</span><span class="p">,</span><span class="w"> </span><span class="n">std</span><span class="o">::</span><span class="n">numeric_limits</span><span class="o"><</span><span class="kt">double</span><span class="o">>::</span><span class="n">infinity</span><span class="p">());</span><span class="w"></span></pre></div></div><p>always prints <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">inf</span></code> while the output of <code class="docutils literal notranslate"><span class="pre">printf</span></code> is platform-dependent.</p></section><section id="ease-of-use"><span id="id3"></span><h2>Ease of Use<a class="headerlink" href="#ease-of-use" title="Permalink to this headline">¶</a></h2><p>{fmt} has a small self-contained code base with the core library consisting ofjust three header files and no external dependencies.A permissive MIT <a class="reference external" href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt#license">license</a> allowsusing the library both in open-source and commercial projects.</p><p><a class="reference external" href="contents.html">Learn more…</a></p><a class="btn btn-success" href="https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt">GitHub Repository</a><div class="section footer">  <iframe src="https://ghbtns.com/github-btn.html?user=fmtlib&repo=fmt&type=watch&count=true"          class="github-btn" width="100" height="20"></iframe></div></section></section>    </div>  </div></div>    <div class="footer" role="contentinfo">        © Copyright 2012-present, Victor Zverovich.      Created using <a href="http://sphinx-doc.org/">Sphinx</a> 3.3.0.    </div><script src="_static/bootstrap.min.js"></script>  </body></html>
 |