Editing Printf (section)

===2000s: -Wformat safety===

The need to do something about the range of problems resulting from lack of type safety has prompted attempts to make the C++ compiler {{code|printf}}-aware.

The {{kbd|-Wformat}} option of [[GNU Compiler Collection|GCC]] allows compile-time checks to {{code|printf}} calls, enabling the compiler to detect a subset of invalid calls (and issue either a warning or an error, stopping the compilation altogether, depending on other flags).<ref>{{cite manual| section-url= https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-14.2.0/gcc/Warning-Options.html#index-Wformat | url= https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc-14.2.0/gcc/ | section= 3.8 Options to Request or Suppress Warnings | title= GCC 14.2 Manual | author=Free Software Foundation | author-link=Free Software Foundation | publisher= self-published | year= 2024 | accessdate= 2025-02-12 }}</ref>

Since the compiler is inspecting {{code|printf}} format specifiers, enabling this effectively extends the C++ syntax by making formatting a part of it.