Go Lang - Printf Cheat Sheet - NY Comdori Computer Science Note

This is a go lang Printf cheat sheet post. Essentially it is very similar to the one in C. Just like the one in C, Printf really prints the string in a formatted way. It is very convenient to have a cheat sheet since I always forget unless I use it frequently. This mainly focuses on examples.

print type of variable %T

var intNum int
var floatNum float64
var boolVal bool
var strVal string

fmt.Printf("%T\n", intNum)
fmt.Printf("%T\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("%T\n", boolVal)
fmt.Printf("%T\n", strVal)

// output
int
float64
bool
string

print int type %d

This prints integer type. It will perform type check and will give you a warning that type doesn’t match. And of course the result format will be odd.

age := 21
fmt.Printf("age: %d\n", age)
fmt.Printf("age: %s\n", age)

// output
age: 21
age: %!s(int=21)

print float %f

%f prints floating numbers. Since this is a floating number, you can control the precision with “.<number>”
Increasing precision means the floating number will be more precise.

floatNum := 224.701
fmt.Printf("num: %f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.0f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.1f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.2f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.3f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.4f\n", floatNum)
fmt.Printf("num: %.5f\n", floatNum)

// output
num: 224.701000
num: 225
num: 224.7
num: 224.70
num: 224.701
num: 224.7010
num: 224.70100

print bool %t

male := true
female := false

fmt.Printf("are you male?: %t\n", male)
fmt.Printf("are you femail?: %t\n", female)

//output
are you male?: true
are you femail?: false

print string type %s, %q

Those print the strings. However, there is a difference between them. %s just prints the string itself but %q prints with double quotes.
Note that \n is just an escape sequence providing a new line. This also performs type checks.

name := "Google"
fmt.Printf("%s\n", name)
fmt.Printf("%q\n", name)

// output
Google
"Google"

print any value %v

This prints all the provided values. It’s very convenient but it doesn’t guarantee any type safety. For example, what if you only want to print int instead of string or float? %v will not check anything and print as-is.

name := "Google"
val := 1
floatVal := 1.123
fmt.Printf("%v %v %v\n", name, val, floatVal)

// output
Google 1 1.123

Argument Index

Typically you have to provide a value for each verb in the Printf format string. However, there is an exception to this rule. You can refer to the already provided variable. This is called argument index. Note that [1] refers to the first argument which is “name”. [2] refers to the second argument. Why does the index start from 1? It’s because index 0 of the Printf is the format string.

name := "NY Comdori"
job := "software engineer"

fmt.Printf("%v is a %v. Being %[2]v is fun! Good luck %[1]v!\n", name, job)

// output
NY Comdori is a software engineer. Being software engineer is fun! Good luck NY Comdori!

Go Lang – Printf Cheat Sheet