printf [-v var] format [arguments]
              Write  the  formatted arguments to the standard output under the con-
              trol of the format.  The format is a character string which  contains
              three  types of objects: plain characters, which are simply copied to
              standard output, character escape sequences, which are converted  and
              copied  to  the  standard  output, and format specifications, each of
              which causes printing of the next successive argument.   In  addition
              to  the  standard printf(1) formats, %b causes printf to expand back-
              slash escape sequences in the corresponding argument (except that  \c
              terminates output, backslashes in \', \", and \? are not removed, and
              octal escapes beginning with \0 may contain up to four  digits),  and
              %q  causes  printf  to  output the corresponding argument in a format
              that can be reused as shell input.

              The -v option causes the output to be assigned to  the  variable  var
              rather than being printed to the standard output.

              The  format  is  reused as necessary to consume all of the arguments.
              If the format requires more arguments than are  supplied,  the  extra
              format  specifications  behave  as if a zero value or null string, as
              appropriate, had been supplied.  The return value is zero on success,
              non-zero on failure.