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Overview
========
**{fmt}** is an open-source formatting library providing a fast and safe
alternative to C stdio and C++ iostreams.
.. raw:: html
<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>
.. _format-api-intro:
Format API
----------
The format API is similar in spirit to the C ``printf`` family of function but
is safer, simpler and several times `faster
<https://www.zverovich.net/2020/06/13/fast-int-to-string-revisited.html>`_
than common standard library implementations.
The `format string syntax <syntax.html>`_ is similar to the one used by
`str.format <https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.format>`_ in
Python:
.. code:: c++
std::string s = fmt::format("The answer is {}.", 42);
The ``fmt::format`` function returns a string "The answer is 42.". You can use
``fmt::memory_buffer`` to avoid constructing ``std::string``:
.. code:: c++
auto out = fmt::memory_buffer();
fmt::format_to(std::back_inserter(out),
"For a moment, {} happened.", "nothing");
auto data = out.data(); // pointer to the formatted data
auto size = out.size(); // size of the formatted data
The ``fmt::print`` function performs formatting and writes the result to a stream:
.. code:: c++
fmt::print(stderr, "System error code = {}\n", errno);
If you omit the file argument the function will print to ``stdout``:
.. code:: c++
fmt::print("Don't {}\n", "panic");
The format API also supports positional arguments useful for localization:
.. code:: c++
fmt::print("I'd rather be {1} than {0}.", "right", "happy");
You can pass named arguments with ``fmt::arg``:
.. code:: c++
fmt::print("Hello, {name}! The answer is {number}. Goodbye, {name}.",
fmt::arg("name", "World"), fmt::arg("number", 42));
If your compiler supports C++11 user-defined literals, the suffix ``_a`` offers
an alternative, slightly terser syntax for named arguments:
.. code:: c++
using namespace fmt::literals;
fmt::print("Hello, {name}! The answer is {number}. Goodbye, {name}.",
"name"_a="World", "number"_a=42);
.. _safety:
Safety
------
The library is fully type safe, automatic memory management prevents buffer
overflow, errors in format strings are reported using exceptions or at compile
time. For example, the code
.. code:: c++
fmt::format("The answer is {:d}", "forty-two");
throws the ``format_error`` exception because the argument ``"forty-two"`` is a
string while the format code ``d`` only applies to integers.
The code
.. code:: c++
format(FMT_STRING("The answer is {:d}"), "forty-two");
reports a compile-time error on compilers that support relaxed ``constexpr``.
See `here <api.html#compile-time-format-string-checks>`_ for details.
The following code
.. code:: c++
fmt::format("Cyrillic letter {}", L'\x42e');
produces a compile-time error because wide character ``L'\x42e'`` cannot be
formatted into a narrow string. For comparison, writing a wide character to
``std::ostream`` results in its numeric value being written to the stream
(i.e. 1070 instead of letter 'ю' which is represented by ``L'\x42e'`` if we
use Unicode) which is rarely desirable.
Compact Binary Code
-------------------
The library produces compact per-call compiled code. For example
(`godbolt <https://godbolt.org/g/TZU4KF>`_),
.. code:: c++
#include <fmt/core.h>
int main() {
fmt::print("The answer is {}.", 42);
}
compiles to just
.. code:: asm
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 {}."
.. _portability:
Portability
-----------
The library is highly portable and relies only on a small set of C++11 features:
* variadic templates
* type traits
* rvalue references
* decltype
* trailing return types
* deleted functions
* alias templates
These are available in GCC 4.8, Clang 3.4, MSVC 19.0 (2015) and more recent
compiler version. For older compilers use {fmt} `version 4.x
<https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases/tag/4.1.0>`_ which is maintained and
only requires C++98.
The output of all formatting functions is consistent across platforms.
For example,
.. code::
fmt::print("{}", std::numeric_limits<double>::infinity());
always prints ``inf`` while the output of ``printf`` is platform-dependent.
.. _ease-of-use:
Ease of Use
-----------
{fmt} has a small self-contained code base with the core library consisting of
just three header files and no external dependencies.
A permissive MIT `license <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt#license>`_ allows
using the library both in open-source and commercial projects.
`Learn more... <contents.html>`_
|
