Comment by jstimpfle

Thanks for the ad hominem, but let's put that into perspective.

My current project is a GUI prototype based on plain Win32/Direct3D/Direct2D/DirectWrite. It currently clocks in at just under 6 KLOC. These are all the format calls in there (used git grep):

        fatal_f("Failed to CreateBuffer(): %lx", err);
        fatal_f("Failed to Map() buffer");
        fatal_f("Failed to compile shader!");
        fatal_f("Failed to CreateBuffer(): %lx", err);
        fatal_f("Failed to create blend state");
        fatal_f("OOM");
        fatal_f("Failed to register Window class");
        fatal_f("Failed to CreateWindow()");
        fatal_f("%s failed: error code %lx", what, hr);
        msg_f("Shader compile error messages: %s", errors->GetBufferPointer());
        msg_f("Failed to compile shader but there are no error messages. "
        msg_f("HELLO: %d times clicked", count);
        msg_f("Click %s", item->name.buf);
        msg_f("Init text controller %p", this);
        msg_f("DELETE");
        msg_f("Refcount is now %d", m_refcount);
        msg_f("Refcount is now %d", m_refcount);
        vfprintf(stderr, fmt, ap);
        fprintf(stderr, "\n");
        fprintf(stderr, "FATAL ERROR: ");
        vfprintf(stderr, fmt, ap);
        fprintf(stderr, "\n");
        snprintf(utext, sizeof utext, "Hello %d", ui->update_count);
        snprintf(filepath, sizeof filepath, "%s%s",
        int r = vsnprintf(m_buffer, sizeof m_buffer, fmt, ap);
        int r = vsnprintf(text_store, sizeof text_store, fmt, ap);
        snprintf(svg_filepath, sizeof svg_filepath, "%s", filepath);

That's theory and practice for you. The real world is a bit more nuanced.

Meanwhile I have 100 other, more significant problems to worry about than printf type safety. For example, how to get rid of the RAII based refcounting that I introduced but it wasn't exactly an improvement to my architecture.

But thanks for the suggestion to use std::format in that set of cases and std::vformat in these other situations. I'll put those on my stack of C++ features to work through when I have time for things like that. (Let's hope that when I get there, those aren't already superseded by something safer).

(Update: uh, std::format returns std::string. Won't use.)