printf
E299164
printf is a command-line utility in Unix-like systems used to format and print data according to specified format strings.
All labels observed (2)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| GNU printf | 1 |
| printf canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T2792294 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: printf Context triple: [GNU Core Utilities, contains, printf]
-
A.
forint
The forint is the official currency of Hungary, used for everyday transactions and monetary policy in the country.
-
B.
CFF
CFF is the French-language abbreviation for the Swiss Federal Railways, the national railway company of Switzerland.
-
C.
FORMAT
FORMAT is a FreeDOS utility program used to prepare and initialize disks or partitions with a file system for use by the operating system.
-
D.
FORU
FORU is the former acronym for Oceania Rugby, the regional governing body for rugby union in the Oceania region.
-
E.
PIF
PIF is a regional intergovernmental organization that brings together Pacific island countries and territories to cooperate on political, economic, and security issues.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: printf Target entity description: printf is a command-line utility in Unix-like systems used to format and print data according to specified format strings.
-
A.
forint
The forint is the official currency of Hungary, used for everyday transactions and monetary policy in the country.
-
B.
CFF
CFF is the French-language abbreviation for the Swiss Federal Railways, the national railway company of Switzerland.
-
C.
FORMAT
FORMAT is a FreeDOS utility program used to prepare and initialize disks or partitions with a file system for use by the operating system.
-
D.
FORU
FORU is the former acronym for Oceania Rugby, the regional governing body for rugby union in the Oceania region.
-
E.
PIF
PIF is a regional intergovernmental organization that brings together Pacific island countries and territories to cooperate on political, economic, and security issues.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (48)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
Unix command
ⓘ
command-line utility ⓘ text processing utility ⓘ |
| advantageOverEcho |
predictable escape handling
ⓘ
richer formatting capabilities ⓘ |
| availableIn |
GNU Core Utilities
ⓘ
surface form:
GNU coreutils
|
| category | shell built-in (in many shells) ⓘ |
| exitStatus |
0 on success
ⓘ
non-zero on failure ⓘ |
| implementation |
BSD printf
ⓘ
printf self-linksurface differs ⓘ
surface form:
GNU printf
|
| inputSource | command-line arguments ⓘ |
| inspiredBy | C printf function ⓘ |
| introducedIn |
POSIX
ⓘ
surface form:
POSIX.1-1990
|
| license | varies by implementation ⓘ |
| operatingSystem |
Linux
ⓘ
Unix ⓘ macOS ⓘ |
| operatingSystemFamily |
Unix-like systems
ⓘ
surface form:
Unix-like
|
| outputTarget |
standard output
ⓘ
stdout ⓘ |
| primaryFunction |
format text
ⓘ
print formatted data ⓘ |
| relatedCommand | echo ⓘ |
| shellIntegration |
Unix shell
ⓘ
surface form:
Bash
Dash ⓘ KornShell ⓘ Unix shell ⓘ
surface form:
POSIX shell
Zsh ⓘ |
| standard |
POSIX
ⓘ
Single UNIX Specification ⓘ |
| supports |
character formatting
ⓘ
escape sequences ⓘ field width specification ⓘ floating-point formatting ⓘ format strings ⓘ hexadecimal formatting ⓘ left justification ⓘ numeric formatting ⓘ octal formatting ⓘ positional parameters ⓘ precision specification ⓘ string formatting ⓘ zero padding ⓘ |
| typicalUse |
creating tabular output
ⓘ
generating structured text ⓘ printing numbers with specific precision ⓘ script output formatting ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: printf Description of subject: printf is a command-line utility in Unix-like systems used to format and print data according to specified format strings.
Referenced by (2)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
this entity surface form:
GNU printf