Format is a function in Common Lisp that can produce formatted text and is normally used in a manner analogous to printf in C and other curly bracket programming languages. However, it provides much more functionality than printf allowing the user to output numbers in English, apply certain format specifiers only under certain conditions, iterate over data structures, and output in a tabular format.

[edit] Example

An example of a C printf call is the following:

  printf("Color %s, number1 %d, number2 %05d, hex %x, float %5.2f, unsigned value %u.\n",              "red", 123456, 89, 255, 3.14, 250); 

Using Common Lisp, this is equivalent to:

  (format t "Color ~s, number1 ~d, number2 ~05d, hex ~x, float ~5,2f, unsigned value ~u.~%"              "red" 123456 89 255 3.14 250) 

[edit] References

• Common Lisp HyperSpec Section 22.3 Formatted Output
• Practical Common Lisp Chapter 18. A Few FORMAT Recipes

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