Variadic functions

 

C++

Language

Standard Library Headers

Freestanding and hosted implementations

Named requirements

Language support library

Concepts library (C++20)

Diagnostics library

Utilities library

Strings library

Containers library

Iterators library

Ranges library (C++20)

Algorithms library

Numerics library

Localizations library

Input/output library

Filesystem library (C++17)

Regular expressions library (C++11)

Atomic operations library (C++11)

Thread support library (C++11)

Technical Specifications

 

Utilities library

Language support Type support (basic types, RTTI, type traits) Library feature-test macros (C++20) Dynamic memory management Program utilities Error handling Coroutine support (C++20) Variadic functions launder (C++17) initializer_list (C++11) source_location (C++20) Three-way comparison (C++20) 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_neqis_ltis_lteqis_gtis_gteq (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(C++20)

General utilities Date and time Function objects Formatting library (C++20) bitset hash (C++11) integer_sequence (C++14) Relational operators (deprecated in C++20) rel_ops::operator!=rel_ops::operator>rel_ops::operator<=rel_ops::operator>= Integer comparison functions cmp_equalcmp_not_equalcmp_lesscmp_greatercmp_less_thancmp_greater_than (C++20)(C++20)(C++20)(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) forward (C++11) move (C++11) move_if_noexcept (C++11) as_const (C++17) Common vocabulary types pair tuple (C++11) apply (C++17) make_from_tuple (C++17) optional (C++17) any (C++17) variant (C++17) Elementary string conversions to_chars (C++17) from_chars (C++17) chars_format (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 appears after the list of parameters, e.g. int printf(const char* format...);, which may be preceded by an optional comma. 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...) // C-style "const char* fmt, ..." is also valid
{
    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

See also

C documentation for Variadic functions