printf [ -v name ] format [ arg ... ]
       Print the arguments according to the format specification.  For-
       matting  rules  are  the  same  as  used  in  C. The same escape
       sequences as for echo are recognised in the format. All  C  con-
       version  specifications ending in one of csdiouxXeEfgGn are han-
       dled. In addition to this, `%b' can be used instead of  `%s'  to
       cause escape sequences in the argument to be recognised and `%q'
       can be used to quote the argument in such a way that  allows  it
       to be reused as shell input. With the numeric format specifiers,
       if the corresponding argument starts with a quote character, the
       numeric  value  of the following character is used as the number
       to print; otherwise the argument is evaluated as  an  arithmetic
       expression.  See  the  section  `Arithmetic  Evaluation' in zsh-
       misc(1) for a description of arithmetic expressions. With  `%n',
       the  corresponding  argument  is taken as an identifier which is
       created as an integer parameter.

       Normally, conversion specifications are applied to each argument
       in  order but they can explicitly specify the nth argument is to
       be used by replacing `%' by `%n$' and `*' by `*n$'.  It is  rec-
       ommended  that  you do not mix references of this explicit style
       with the normal style and the handling of such mixed styles  may
       be subject to future change.

       If  arguments  remain unused after formatting, the format string
       is reused until all arguments have been consumed. With the print
       builtin,  this can be suppressed by using the -r option. If more
       arguments are required by the format than have  been  specified,
       the  behaviour  is as if zero or an empty string had been speci-
       fied as the argument.

       The -v option causes the output to be stored as the value of the
       parameter  name, instead of printed. If name is an array and the
       format string is reused when consuming arguments then one  array
       element will be used for each use of the format string.