vsnprintf() — Format and print data to fixed length buffer

Format

#include <stdarg.h>
#include <stdio.h>

int  vsnprintf(char *__restrict__ s, size_t n, 
               const char *__restrict__ format, va_list arg);

General Description

The vsnprintf() function is equivalent to snprintf(), except that instead of being called with a variable number of arguments, it is called with an argument list as defined by stdarg.h. For a specification of the format string, see sprintf() — Format and Write Data.

Initialize the argument list by using the va_start macro before each call. These functions do not invoke the va_end macro, but instead invoke the va_arg macro causing the value of arg after the return to be unspecified.

Notes:
  1. Use of vsnprintf() requires that an environment has been set up by using the __cinit() function. When the function is called, GPR 12 must contain the environment token created by the __cinit() call.
  2. In contrast to some UNIX-based implementations of the C language, the z/OS® XL C/C++ implementation of the vprintf() family increments the pointer to the variable arguments list. To control whether the pointer is incremented, call the va_end macro after each function call.

Returned Value

The vsnprintf() function returns the number of characters that would have been written had n been sufficiently large, not counting the terminating null character, or a negative value if an encoding error occurred. Thus, the null-terminated output has been completely written if and only if the returned value is nonnegative and less than n.

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