Systemoutprintf

System.out.printf is a Java method used to print formatted text to the standard output. It is a member of the PrintStream object System.out, which represents the JVM’s standard output stream. The method formats its arguments according to a format string, using the format specifiers familiar from C’s printf.

The format string contains ordinary characters and conversion specifiers such as %d for integers, %f for floating-point numbers, %s for strings, and %n for a platform-independent newline. Width, precision, and flags can be included, for example %6.2f to print a number in a field of width 6 with two decimal places. The formatting can also be influenced by a Locale when using the overloads that take a Locale, to affect number and date formatting.

Common usage examples include: System.out.printf("Hello, %s. You have %d new messages.%n", name, count); This prints a formatted line with the provided values and ends with a newline.

System.out.printf differs from System.out.println in that printf does not automatically append a newline and supports embedded formatting. It is often paired with System.out.format, which is an alias of printf.

If the format string and argument list are incompatible, a runtime exception may be thrown, such as MissingFormatArgumentException or IllegalFormatConversionException. System.out.printf is a standard part of Java’s I/O facilities and is widely used for console output, debugging, and simple user-facing messages.