Variadic functions

 

C++

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Standard library headers

Named requirements

Feature test macros (C++20)

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Metaprogramming library (C++11)

Diagnostics library

General utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

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Numerics library

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Filesystem library (C++17)

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Symbols index

External libraries

 

Utilities library

Language support Type support (basic types, RTTI) Library feature-test macros (C++20) Dynamic memory management Program utilities Coroutine support (C++20) Variadic functions is_constant_evaluated (C++20) is_within_lifetime (C++26) initializer_list (C++11) source_location (C++20) Three-way comparison three_way_comparablethree_way_comparable_with (C++20)(C++20) strong_ordering (C++20) weak_ordering (C++20) partial_ordering (C++20) common_comparison_category (C++20) compare_three_way_result (C++20) compare_three_way (C++20) strong_order (C++20) weak_order (C++20) partial_order (C++20) compare_strong_order_fallback (C++20) compare_weak_order_fallback (C++20) compare_partial_order_fallback (C++20)   is_eqis_ltis_lteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   is_neqis_gtis_gteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)

General utilities Date and time Function objects Formatting library (C++20)   bitset hash (C++11) Relational operators (deprecated in C++20) rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator>    rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>= Integer comparison functions cmp_equalcmp_lesscmp_less_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)   cmp_not_equalcmp_greatercmp_greater_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20) in_range (C++20) Swap and type operations swap ranges::swap (C++20) exchange (C++14) declval (C++11) to_underlying (C++23) forward (C++11) forward_like (C++23) move (C++11) move_if_noexcept (C++11) as_const (C++17) Common vocabulary types pair tuple (C++11) optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17) tuple_size (C++11) tuple_element (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17) expected (C++23) Elementary string conversions to_chars (C++17) from_chars (C++17) chars_format (C++17) to_chars_result (C++17) from_chars_result (C++17)

 

Variadic functions

va_start

va_arg

va_copy (C++11)

va_end

va_list

 

Variadic functions are functions (e.g. std::printf) which take a variable number of arguments.

To declare a variadic function, an ellipsis is used as the last parameter, e.g. int printf(const char* format, ...);. See Variadic arguments for additional detail on the syntax, automatic argument conversions and the alternatives.

To access the variadic arguments from the function body, the following library facilities are provided:

Defined in header <cstdarg>
va_start	enables access to variadic function arguments (function macro)
va_arg	accesses the next variadic function argument (function macro)
va_copy (C++11)	makes a copy of the variadic function arguments (function macro)
va_end	ends traversal of the variadic function arguments (function macro)
va_list	holds the information needed by va_start, va_arg, va_end, and va_copy (typedef)

Example

Run this code

#include <iostream>
#include <cstdarg>
 
void simple_printf(const char* fmt...)
{
    va_list args;
    va_start(args, fmt);
 
    while (*fmt != '\0') {
        if (*fmt == 'd') {
            int i = va_arg(args, int);
            std::cout << i << '\n';
        } else if (*fmt == 'c') {
            // note automatic conversion to integral type
            int c = va_arg(args, int);
            std::cout << static_cast<char>(c) << '\n';
        } else if (*fmt == 'f') {
            double d = va_arg(args, double);
            std::cout << d << '\n';
        }
        ++fmt;
    }
 
    va_end(args);
}
 
int main()
{
    simple_printf("dcff", 3, 'a', 1.999, 42.5); 
}

Output:

3
a
1.999
42.5