vsnprintf, _vsnprintf, _vsnprintf_l, _vsnwprintf, _vsnwprintf_l

Article
06/05/2017

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The latest version of this topic can be found at vsnprintf, _vsnprintf, _vsnprintf_l, _vsnwprintf, _vsnwprintf_l.

Write formatted output using a pointer to a list of arguments. More secure versions of these functions are available; see vsnprintf_s, _vsnprintf_s, _vsnprintf_s_l, _vsnwprintf_s, _vsnwprintf_s_l.

Syntax

int vsnprintf(  
   char *buffer,  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   va_list argptr   
);  
int _vsnprintf(  
   char *buffer,  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   va_list argptr   
);  
int _vsnprintf_l(  
   char *buffer,  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   locale_t locale,  
   va_list argptr   
);  
int _vsnwprintf(  
   wchar_t *buffer,  
   size_t count,  
   const wchar_t *format,  
   va_list argptr   
);  
int _vsnwprintf_l(  
   wchar_t *buffer,  
   size_t count,  
   const wchar_t *format,  
   locale_t locale,  
   va_list argptr   
);  
template <size_t size>  
int vsnprintf(  
   char (&buffer)[size],  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   va_list argptr   
); // C++ only  
template <size_t size>  
int _vsnprintf(  
   char (&buffer)[size],  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   va_list argptr   
); // C++ only  
template <size_t size>  
int _vsnprintf_l(  
   char (&buffer)[size],  
   size_t count,  
   const char *format,  
   locale_t locale,  
   va_list argptr   
); // C++ only  
template <size_t size>  
int _vsnwprintf(  
   wchar_t (&buffer)[size],  
   size_t count,  
   const wchar_t *format,  
   va_list argptr   
); // C++ only  
template <size_t size>  
int _vsnwprintf_l(  
   wchar_t (&buffer)[size],  
   size_t count,  
   const wchar_t *format,  
   locale_t locale,  
   va_list argptr   
); // C++ only

Parameters

buffer
Storage location for output.

count
Maximum number of characters to write.

format
Format specification.

argptr
Pointer to list of arguments.

locale
The locale to use.

For more information, see Format Specifications.

Return Value

The vsnprintf function returns the number of characters written, not counting the terminating null character. If the buffer size specified by count is not sufficiently large to contain the output specified by format and argptr, the return value of vsnprintf is the number of characters that would be written, not counting the null character, if count were sufficiently large. If the return value is greater than count - 1, the output has been truncated. A return value of -1 indicates that an encoding error has occurred.

Both _vsnprintf and _vsnwprintf functions return the number of characters written if the number of characters to write is less than or equal to count; if the number of characters to write is greater than count, these functions return -1 indicating that output has been truncated.

The value returned by all these functions does not include the terminating null, whether one is written or not. When count is zero, the value returned is the number of characters the functions would write, not including any terminating null. You can use this result to allocate sufficient buffer space for the string and its terminating null, and then call the function again to fill the buffer.

If format is NULL, or if buffer is NULL and count is not equal to zero, these functions invoke the invalid parameter handler, as described in Parameter Validation. If execution is allowed to continue, these functions return -1 and set errno to EINVAL.

Remarks

Each of these functions takes a pointer to an argument list, then formats the data, and writes up to count characters to the memory pointed to by buffer. The vsnprintf function always writes a null terminator, even if it truncates the output. When using _vsnprintf and _vsnwprintf, the buffer will be null-terminated only if there is room at the end (that is, if the number of characters to write is less than count).

Important

To prevent certain kinds of security risks, ensure that format is not a user-defined string. For more information, see Avoiding Buffer Overruns.

Note

To ensure that there is room for the terminating null when calling _vsnprintf, _vsnprintf_l, _vsnwprintf and _vsnwprintf_l, be sure that count is strictly less than the buffer length and initialize the buffer to null prior to calling the function.

Because vsnprintf always writes the terminating null, the count parameter may be equal to the size of the buffer.

Beginning with the UCRT in Visual Studio 2015 and Windows 10, vsnprintf is no longer identical to _vsnprintf. The vsnprintf function complies with the C99 standard; _vnsprintf is retained for backward compatibility with older Visual Studio code.

The versions of these functions with the _l suffix are identical except that they use the locale parameter passed in instead of the current thread locale.

In C++, these functions have template overloads that invoke the newer, secure counterparts of these functions. For more information, see Secure Template Overloads.

Generic-Text Routine Mappings

TCHAR.H routine	_UNICODE & _MBCS not defined	_MBCS defined	_UNICODE defined
`_vsntprintf`	`_vsnprintf`	`_vsnprintf`	`_vsnwprintf`
`_vsntprintf_l`	`_vsnprintf_l`	`_vsnprintf_l`	`_vsnwprintf_l`

Requirements

Routine	Required header (C)	Required header (C++)
`vsnprintf`, `_vsnprintf`, `_vsnprintf_l`	<stdio.h>	<stdio.h> or <cstdio>
`_vsnwprintf`, `_vsnwprintf_l`	<stdio.h> or <wchar.h>	<stdio.h>, <wchar.h>, <cstdio>, or <cwchar>

The _vsnprintf, _vsnprintf_l, _vsnwprintf and _vsnwprintf_l functions are Microsoft specific. For additional compatibility information, see Compatibility in the Introduction.

Example

// crt_vsnwprintf.c  
// compile by using: cl /W3 crt_vsnwprintf.c  
  
// To turn off error C4996, define this symbol:  
#define _CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS  
  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <wtypes.h>  
  
#define BUFFCOUNT (10)  
  
void FormatOutput(LPCWSTR formatstring, ...)  
{  
    int nSize = 0;  
    wchar_t buff[BUFFCOUNT];  
    memset(buff, 0, sizeof(buff));  
    va_list args;  
    va_start(args, formatstring);  
    // Note: _vsnwprintf is deprecated; consider vsnwprintf_s instead  
    nSize = _vsnwprintf(buff, BUFFCOUNT - 1, formatstring, args); // C4996  
    wprintf(L"nSize: %d, buff: %ls\n", nSize, buff);  
}  
  
int main() {  
    FormatOutput(L"%ls %ls", L"Hi", L"there");  
    FormatOutput(L"%ls %ls", L"Hi", L"there!");  
    FormatOutput(L"%ls %ls", L"Hi", L"there!!");  
}

nSize: 8, buff: Hi there  
nSize: 9, buff: Hi there!  
nSize: -1, buff: Hi there!

The behavior changes if you use vsnprintf instead, along with narrow-string parameters. The count parameter can be the entire size of the buffer, and the return value is the number of characters that would have been written if count was large enough:

Example

// crt_vsnprintf.c  
// compile by using: cl /W4 crt_vsnprintf.c  
#include <stdio.h>  
#include <stdarg.h> // for va_list, va_start  
#include <string.h> // for memset  
  
#define BUFFCOUNT (10)  
  
void FormatOutput(char* formatstring, ...)  
{  
    int nSize = 0;  
    char buff[BUFFCOUNT];  
    memset(buff, 0, sizeof(buff));  
    va_list args;  
    va_start(args, formatstring);  
    nSize = vsnprintf(buff, sizeof(buff), formatstring, args);  
    printf("nSize: %d, buff: %s\n", nSize, buff);  
}  
  
int main() {  
    FormatOutput("%s %s", "Hi", "there");   //  8 chars + null  
    FormatOutput("%s %s", "Hi", "there!");  //  9 chars + null  
    FormatOutput("%s %s", "Hi", "there!!"); // 10 chars + null  
}

nSize: 8, buff: Hi there  
nSize: 9, buff: Hi there!  
nSize: 10, buff: Hi there!

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vsnprintf, _vsnprintf, _vsnprintf_l, _vsnwprintf, _vsnwprintf_l

Syntax

Parameters

Return Value

Remarks

Generic-Text Routine Mappings

Requirements

Example

Example

See Also

Additional resources