'\" t
.\" Copyright, the authors of the Linux man-pages project
.\"
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: Linux-man-pages-copyleft
.\"
.TH aprintf 3 2026-03-16 "Linux man-pages 6.18"
.SH NAME
aprintf, vaprintf \- allocate and print formatted string
.SH LIBRARY
gnulib \- The GNU Portability Library
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.B #include <stdio.h>
.P
.BI char\~*aprintf(const\~char\~*restrict\~ fmt ", ...);"
.BI char\~*vaprintf(const\~char\~*restrict\~ fmt ", va_list\~" ap );
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
The functions
.BR aprintf ()
and
.BR vaprintf ()
are analogs of
.BR sprintf (3)
and
.BR vsprintf (3),
except that their output is written
in a space allocated as if by a call to
.BR malloc (3).
.P
This pointer should be passed to
.BR free (3)
to release the allocated storage when it is no longer needed.
.SH RETURN VALUE
On success,
these functions return
a pointer to the first character of the formatted string.
On error,
\-1 is returned,
and
.I errno
is set to indicate the error.
.SH ERRORS
See
.BR sprintf (3)
and
.BR malloc (3).
.SH ATTRIBUTES
For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
.BR attributes (7).
.TS
allbox;
lbx lb lb
l l l.
Interface	Attribute	Value
T{
.na
.nh
.BR aprintf (),
.BR vaprintf ()
T}	Thread safety	MT-Safe locale
.TE
.SH STANDARDS
None.
.SH HISTORY
gnulib 202607.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR free (3),
.BR malloc (3),
.BR sprintf (3),
.BR strdup (3),
.BR asprintf (3)