502 lines
19 KiB
ReStructuredText
502 lines
19 KiB
ReStructuredText
{fmt}
|
|
=====
|
|
|
|
.. image:: https://travis-ci.org/fmtlib/fmt.png?branch=master
|
|
:target: https://travis-ci.org/fmtlib/fmt
|
|
|
|
.. image:: https://ci.appveyor.com/api/projects/status/ehjkiefde6gucy1v
|
|
:target: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/vitaut/fmt
|
|
|
|
.. image:: https://oss-fuzz-build-logs.storage.googleapis.com/badges/libfmt.svg
|
|
:alt: fmt is continuously fuzzed att oss-fuzz
|
|
:target: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/oss-fuzz/issues/list?colspec=ID%20Type%20Component%20Status%20Proj%20Reported%20Owner%20Summary&q=proj%3Dlibfmt&can=1
|
|
|
|
.. image:: https://img.shields.io/badge/stackoverflow-fmt-blue.svg
|
|
:alt: Ask questions at StackOverflow with the tag fmt
|
|
:target: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/fmt
|
|
|
|
**{fmt}** is an open-source formatting library for C++.
|
|
It can be used as a safe and fast alternative to (s)printf and iostreams.
|
|
|
|
`Documentation <https://fmt.dev/latest/>`__
|
|
|
|
Q&A: ask questions on `StackOverflow with the tag fmt <https://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/fmt>`_.
|
|
|
|
Features
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
* Replacement-based `format API <https://fmt.dev/dev/api.html>`_ with
|
|
positional arguments for localization.
|
|
* `Format string syntax <https://fmt.dev/dev/syntax.html>`_ similar to the one
|
|
of `str.format <https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.format>`_
|
|
in Python.
|
|
* Safe `printf implementation
|
|
<https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#printf-formatting>`_ including
|
|
the POSIX extension for positional arguments.
|
|
* Implementation of `C++20 std::format <https://fmt.dev/Text%20Formatting.html>`__.
|
|
* Support for user-defined types.
|
|
* High performance: faster than common standard library implementations of
|
|
`printf <https://en.cppreference.com/w/cpp/io/c/fprintf>`_ and
|
|
iostreams. See `Speed tests`_ and `Fast integer to string conversion in C++
|
|
<http://zverovich.net/2013/09/07/integer-to-string-conversion-in-cplusplus.html>`_.
|
|
* Small code size both in terms of source code (the minimum configuration
|
|
consists of just three header files, ``core.h``, ``format.h`` and
|
|
``format-inl.h``) and compiled code. See `Compile time and code bloat`_.
|
|
* Reliability: the library has an extensive set of `unit tests
|
|
<https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/tree/master/test>`_ and is continuously fuzzed.
|
|
* Safety: the library is fully type safe, errors in format strings can be
|
|
reported at compile time, automatic memory management prevents buffer overflow
|
|
errors.
|
|
* Ease of use: small self-contained code base, no external dependencies,
|
|
permissive MIT `license
|
|
<https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/blob/master/LICENSE.rst>`_
|
|
* `Portability <https://fmt.dev/latest/index.html#portability>`_ with
|
|
consistent output across platforms and support for older compilers.
|
|
* Clean warning-free codebase even on high warning levels
|
|
(``-Wall -Wextra -pedantic``).
|
|
* Support for wide strings.
|
|
* Optional header-only configuration enabled with the ``FMT_HEADER_ONLY`` macro.
|
|
|
|
See the `documentation <https://fmt.dev/latest/>`_ for more details.
|
|
|
|
Examples
|
|
--------
|
|
|
|
Print ``Hello, world!`` to ``stdout``:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
fmt::print("Hello, {}!", "world"); // Python-like format string syntax
|
|
fmt::printf("Hello, %s!", "world"); // printf format string syntax
|
|
|
|
Format a string and use positional arguments:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
std::string s = fmt::format("I'd rather be {1} than {0}.", "right", "happy");
|
|
// s == "I'd rather be happy than right."
|
|
|
|
Check a format string at compile time:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
// test.cc
|
|
#include <fmt/format.h>
|
|
std::string s = format(FMT_STRING("{2}"), 42);
|
|
|
|
.. code::
|
|
|
|
$ c++ -Iinclude -std=c++14 test.cc
|
|
...
|
|
test.cc:4:17: note: in instantiation of function template specialization 'fmt::v5::format<S, int>' requested here
|
|
std::string s = format(FMT_STRING("{2}"), 42);
|
|
^
|
|
include/fmt/core.h:778:19: note: non-constexpr function 'on_error' cannot be used in a constant expression
|
|
ErrorHandler::on_error(message);
|
|
^
|
|
include/fmt/format.h:2226:16: note: in call to '&checker.context_->on_error(&"argument index out of range"[0])'
|
|
context_.on_error("argument index out of range");
|
|
^
|
|
|
|
Use {fmt} as a safe portable replacement for ``itoa``
|
|
(`godbolt <https://godbolt.org/g/NXmpU4>`_):
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
fmt::memory_buffer buf;
|
|
format_to(buf, "{}", 42); // replaces itoa(42, buffer, 10)
|
|
format_to(buf, "{:x}", 42); // replaces itoa(42, buffer, 16)
|
|
// access the string with to_string(buf) or buf.data()
|
|
|
|
Format objects of user-defined types via a simple `extension API
|
|
<https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#formatting-user-defined-types>`_:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
#include "fmt/format.h"
|
|
|
|
struct date {
|
|
int year, month, day;
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
template <>
|
|
struct fmt::formatter<date> {
|
|
constexpr auto parse(format_parse_context& ctx) { return ctx.begin(); }
|
|
|
|
template <typename FormatContext>
|
|
auto format(const date& d, FormatContext& ctx) {
|
|
return format_to(ctx.out(), "{}-{}-{}", d.year, d.month, d.day);
|
|
}
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
std::string s = fmt::format("The date is {}", date{2012, 12, 9});
|
|
// s == "The date is 2012-12-9"
|
|
|
|
Create your own functions similar to `format
|
|
<https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#format>`_ and
|
|
`print <https://fmt.dev/latest/api.html#print>`_
|
|
which take arbitrary arguments (`godbolt <https://godbolt.org/g/MHjHVf>`_):
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
// Prints formatted error message.
|
|
void vreport_error(const char* format, fmt::format_args args) {
|
|
fmt::print("Error: ");
|
|
fmt::vprint(format, args);
|
|
}
|
|
template <typename... Args>
|
|
void report_error(const char* format, const Args & ... args) {
|
|
vreport_error(format, fmt::make_format_args(args...));
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
report_error("file not found: {}", path);
|
|
|
|
Note that ``vreport_error`` is not parameterized on argument types which can
|
|
improve compile times and reduce code size compared to a fully parameterized
|
|
version.
|
|
|
|
Benchmarks
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
Speed tests
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
================= ============= ===========
|
|
Library Method Run Time, s
|
|
================= ============= ===========
|
|
libc printf 1.04
|
|
libc++ std::ostream 3.05
|
|
{fmt} 6.1.1 fmt::print 0.75
|
|
Boost Format 1.67 boost::format 7.24
|
|
Folly Format folly::format 2.23
|
|
================= ============= ===========
|
|
|
|
{fmt} is the fastest of the benchmarked methods, ~35% faster than ``printf``.
|
|
|
|
The above results were generated by building ``tinyformat_test.cpp`` on macOS
|
|
10.14.6 with ``clang++ -O3 -DSPEED_TEST -DHAVE_FORMAT``, and taking the best of
|
|
three runs. In the test, the format string ``"%0.10f:%04d:%+g:%s:%p:%c:%%\n"``
|
|
or equivalent is filled 2,000,000 times with output sent to ``/dev/null``; for
|
|
further details refer to the `source
|
|
<https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark/blob/master/tinyformat_test.cpp>`_.
|
|
|
|
{fmt} is 10x faster than ``std::ostringstream`` and ``sprintf`` on floating-point
|
|
formatting (`dtoa-benchmark <https://github.com/fmtlib/dtoa-benchmark>`_)
|
|
and as fast as `double-conversion <https://github.com/google/double-conversion>`_:
|
|
|
|
.. image:: https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/576385/69767160-cdaca400-112f-11ea-9fc5-347c9f83caad.png
|
|
:target: https://fmt.dev/unknown_mac64_clang10.0.html
|
|
|
|
Compile time and code bloat
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
The script `bloat-test.py
|
|
<https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark/blob/master/bloat-test.py>`_
|
|
from `format-benchmark <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark>`_
|
|
tests compile time and code bloat for nontrivial projects.
|
|
It generates 100 translation units and uses ``printf()`` or its alternative
|
|
five times in each to simulate a medium sized project. The resulting
|
|
executable size and compile time (Apple LLVM version 8.1.0 (clang-802.0.42),
|
|
macOS Sierra, best of three) is shown in the following tables.
|
|
|
|
**Optimized build (-O3)**
|
|
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
Method Compile Time, s Executable size, KiB Stripped size, KiB
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
printf 2.6 29 26
|
|
printf+string 16.4 29 26
|
|
iostreams 31.1 59 55
|
|
{fmt} 19.0 37 34
|
|
Boost Format 91.9 226 203
|
|
Folly Format 115.7 101 88
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
|
|
As you can see, {fmt} has 60% less overhead in terms of resulting binary code
|
|
size compared to iostreams and comes pretty close to ``printf``. Boost Format
|
|
and Folly Format have the largest overheads.
|
|
|
|
``printf+string`` is the same as ``printf`` but with extra ``<string>``
|
|
include to measure the overhead of the latter.
|
|
|
|
**Non-optimized build**
|
|
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
Method Compile Time, s Executable size, KiB Stripped size, KiB
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
printf 2.2 33 30
|
|
printf+string 16.0 33 30
|
|
iostreams 28.3 56 52
|
|
{fmt} 18.2 59 50
|
|
Boost Format 54.1 365 303
|
|
Folly Format 79.9 445 430
|
|
============= =============== ==================== ==================
|
|
|
|
``libc``, ``lib(std)c++`` and ``libfmt`` are all linked as shared libraries to
|
|
compare formatting function overhead only. Boost Format is a
|
|
header-only library so it doesn't provide any linkage options.
|
|
|
|
Running the tests
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
Please refer to `Building the library`__ for the instructions on how to build
|
|
the library and run the unit tests.
|
|
|
|
__ https://fmt.dev/latest/usage.html#building-the-library
|
|
|
|
Benchmarks reside in a separate repository,
|
|
`format-benchmarks <https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark>`_,
|
|
so to run the benchmarks you first need to clone this repository and
|
|
generate Makefiles with CMake::
|
|
|
|
$ git clone --recursive https://github.com/fmtlib/format-benchmark.git
|
|
$ cd format-benchmark
|
|
$ cmake .
|
|
|
|
Then you can run the speed test::
|
|
|
|
$ make speed-test
|
|
|
|
or the bloat test::
|
|
|
|
$ make bloat-test
|
|
|
|
Projects using this library
|
|
---------------------------
|
|
|
|
* `0 A.D. <https://play0ad.com/>`_: A free, open-source, cross-platform real-time
|
|
strategy game
|
|
|
|
* `AMPL/MP <https://github.com/ampl/mp>`_:
|
|
An open-source library for mathematical programming
|
|
|
|
* `AvioBook <https://www.aviobook.aero/en>`_: A comprehensive aircraft
|
|
operations suite
|
|
|
|
* `Celestia <https://celestia.space/>`_: Real-time 3D visualization of space
|
|
|
|
* `Ceph <https://ceph.com/>`_: A scalable distributed storage system
|
|
|
|
* `ccache <https://ccache.dev/>`_: A compiler cache
|
|
|
|
* `CUAUV <http://cuauv.org/>`_: Cornell University's autonomous underwater
|
|
vehicle
|
|
|
|
* `HarpyWar/pvpgn <https://github.com/pvpgn/pvpgn-server>`_:
|
|
Player vs Player Gaming Network with tweaks
|
|
|
|
* `KBEngine <https://kbengine.org/>`_: An open-source MMOG server engine
|
|
|
|
* `Keypirinha <https://keypirinha.com/>`_: A semantic launcher for Windows
|
|
|
|
* `Kodi <https://kodi.tv/>`_ (formerly xbmc): Home theater software
|
|
|
|
* `Lifeline <https://github.com/peter-clark/lifeline>`_: A 2D game
|
|
|
|
* `Drake <https://drake.mit.edu/>`_: A planning, control, and analysis toolbox
|
|
for nonlinear dynamical systems (MIT)
|
|
|
|
* `Envoy <https://lyft.github.io/envoy/>`_: C++ L7 proxy and communication bus
|
|
(Lyft)
|
|
|
|
* `FiveM <https://fivem.net/>`_: a modification framework for GTA V
|
|
|
|
* `MongoDB <https://mongodb.com/>`_: Distributed document database
|
|
|
|
* `MongoDB Smasher <https://github.com/duckie/mongo_smasher>`_: A small tool to
|
|
generate randomized datasets
|
|
|
|
* `OpenSpace <https://openspaceproject.com/>`_: An open-source astrovisualization
|
|
framework
|
|
|
|
* `PenUltima Online (POL) <https://www.polserver.com/>`_:
|
|
An MMO server, compatible with most Ultima Online clients
|
|
|
|
* `quasardb <https://www.quasardb.net/>`_: A distributed, high-performance,
|
|
associative database
|
|
|
|
* `readpe <https://bitbucket.org/sys_dev/readpe>`_: Read Portable Executable
|
|
|
|
* `redis-cerberus <https://github.com/HunanTV/redis-cerberus>`_: A Redis cluster
|
|
proxy
|
|
|
|
* `rpclib <http://rpclib.net/>`_: A modern C++ msgpack-RPC server and client
|
|
library
|
|
|
|
* `Saddy <https://github.com/mamontov-cpp/saddy-graphics-engine-2d>`_:
|
|
Small crossplatform 2D graphic engine
|
|
|
|
* `Salesforce Analytics Cloud <https://www.salesforce.com/analytics-cloud/overview/>`_:
|
|
Business intelligence software
|
|
|
|
* `Scylla <https://www.scylladb.com/>`_: A Cassandra-compatible NoSQL data store
|
|
that can handle 1 million transactions per second on a single server
|
|
|
|
* `Seastar <http://www.seastar-project.org/>`_: An advanced, open-source C++
|
|
framework for high-performance server applications on modern hardware
|
|
|
|
* `spdlog <https://github.com/gabime/spdlog>`_: Super fast C++ logging library
|
|
|
|
* `Stellar <https://www.stellar.org/>`_: Financial platform
|
|
|
|
* `Touch Surgery <https://www.touchsurgery.com/>`_: Surgery simulator
|
|
|
|
* `TrinityCore <https://github.com/TrinityCore/TrinityCore>`_: Open-source
|
|
MMORPG framework
|
|
|
|
`More... <https://github.com/search?q=fmtlib&type=Code>`_
|
|
|
|
If you are aware of other projects using this library, please let me know
|
|
by `email <mailto:victor.zverovich@gmail.com>`_ or by submitting an
|
|
`issue <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/issues>`_.
|
|
|
|
Motivation
|
|
----------
|
|
|
|
So why yet another formatting library?
|
|
|
|
There are plenty of methods for doing this task, from standard ones like
|
|
the printf family of function and iostreams to Boost Format and FastFormat
|
|
libraries. The reason for creating a new library is that every existing
|
|
solution that I found either had serious issues or didn't provide
|
|
all the features I needed.
|
|
|
|
printf
|
|
~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
The good thing about ``printf`` is that it is pretty fast and readily available
|
|
being a part of the C standard library. The main drawback is that it
|
|
doesn't support user-defined types. ``printf`` also has safety issues although
|
|
they are somewhat mitigated with `__attribute__ ((format (printf, ...))
|
|
<https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Function-Attributes.html>`_ in GCC.
|
|
There is a POSIX extension that adds positional arguments required for
|
|
`i18n <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internationalization_and_localization>`_
|
|
to ``printf`` but it is not a part of C99 and may not be available on some
|
|
platforms.
|
|
|
|
iostreams
|
|
~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
The main issue with iostreams is best illustrated with an example:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
std::cout << std::setprecision(2) << std::fixed << 1.23456 << "\n";
|
|
|
|
which is a lot of typing compared to printf:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
printf("%.2f\n", 1.23456);
|
|
|
|
Matthew Wilson, the author of FastFormat, called this "chevron hell". iostreams
|
|
don't support positional arguments by design.
|
|
|
|
The good part is that iostreams support user-defined types and are safe although
|
|
error handling is awkward.
|
|
|
|
Boost Format
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
This is a very powerful library which supports both ``printf``-like format
|
|
strings and positional arguments. Its main drawback is performance. According to
|
|
various benchmarks it is much slower than other methods considered here. Boost
|
|
Format also has excessive build times and severe code bloat issues (see
|
|
`Benchmarks`_).
|
|
|
|
FastFormat
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
This is an interesting library which is fast, safe and has positional
|
|
arguments. However it has significant limitations, citing its author:
|
|
|
|
Three features that have no hope of being accommodated within the
|
|
current design are:
|
|
|
|
* Leading zeros (or any other non-space padding)
|
|
* Octal/hexadecimal encoding
|
|
* Runtime width/alignment specification
|
|
|
|
It is also quite big and has a heavy dependency, STLSoft, which might be
|
|
too restrictive for using it in some projects.
|
|
|
|
Boost Spirit.Karma
|
|
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
|
|
|
|
This is not really a formatting library but I decided to include it here for
|
|
completeness. As iostreams, it suffers from the problem of mixing verbatim text
|
|
with arguments. The library is pretty fast, but slower on integer formatting
|
|
than ``fmt::format_int`` on Karma's own benchmark,
|
|
see `Fast integer to string conversion in C++
|
|
<http://zverovich.net/2013/09/07/integer-to-string-conversion-in-cplusplus.html>`_.
|
|
|
|
FAQ
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
Q: how can I capture formatting arguments and format them later?
|
|
|
|
A: use ``std::tuple``:
|
|
|
|
.. code:: c++
|
|
|
|
template <typename... Args>
|
|
auto capture(const Args&... args) {
|
|
return std::make_tuple(args...);
|
|
}
|
|
|
|
auto print_message = [](const auto&... args) {
|
|
fmt::print(args...);
|
|
};
|
|
|
|
// Capture and store arguments:
|
|
auto args = capture("{} {}", 42, "foo");
|
|
// Do formatting:
|
|
std::apply(print_message, args);
|
|
|
|
License
|
|
-------
|
|
|
|
{fmt} is distributed under the MIT `license
|
|
<https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/blob/master/LICENSE.rst>`_.
|
|
|
|
The `Format String Syntax
|
|
<https://fmt.dev/latest/syntax.html>`_
|
|
section in the documentation is based on the one from Python `string module
|
|
documentation <https://docs.python.org/3/library/string.html#module-string>`_
|
|
adapted for the current library. For this reason the documentation is
|
|
distributed under the Python Software Foundation license available in
|
|
`doc/python-license.txt
|
|
<https://raw.github.com/fmtlib/fmt/master/doc/python-license.txt>`_.
|
|
It only applies if you distribute the documentation of fmt.
|
|
|
|
Acknowledgments
|
|
---------------
|
|
|
|
The {fmt} library is maintained by Victor Zverovich (`vitaut
|
|
<https://github.com/vitaut>`_) and Jonathan Müller (`foonathan
|
|
<https://github.com/foonathan>`_) with contributions from many other people.
|
|
See `Contributors <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/graphs/contributors>`_ and
|
|
`Releases <https://github.com/fmtlib/fmt/releases>`_ for some of the names.
|
|
Let us know if your contribution is not listed or mentioned incorrectly and
|
|
we'll make it right.
|
|
|
|
The benchmark section of this readme file and the performance tests are taken
|
|
from the excellent `tinyformat <https://github.com/c42f/tinyformat>`_ library
|
|
written by Chris Foster. Boost Format library is acknowledged transitively
|
|
since it had some influence on tinyformat.
|
|
Some ideas used in the implementation are borrowed from `Loki
|
|
<http://loki-lib.sourceforge.net/>`_ SafeFormat and `Diagnostic API
|
|
<https://clang.llvm.org/doxygen/classclang_1_1Diagnostic.html>`_ in
|
|
`Clang <https://clang.llvm.org/>`_.
|
|
Format string syntax and the documentation are based on Python's `str.format
|
|
<https://docs.python.org/3/library/stdtypes.html#str.format>`_.
|
|
Thanks `Doug Turnbull <https://github.com/softwaredoug>`_ for his valuable
|
|
comments and contribution to the design of the type-safe API and
|
|
`Gregory Czajkowski <https://github.com/gcflymoto>`_ for implementing binary
|
|
formatting. Thanks `Ruslan Baratov <https://github.com/ruslo>`_ for comprehensive
|
|
`comparison of integer formatting algorithms <https://github.com/ruslo/int-dec-format-tests>`_
|
|
and useful comments regarding performance, `Boris Kaul <https://github.com/localvoid>`_ for
|
|
`C++ counting digits benchmark <https://github.com/localvoid/cxx-benchmark-count-digits>`_.
|
|
Thanks to `CarterLi <https://github.com/CarterLi>`_ for contributing various
|
|
improvements to the code.
|