I use format quite often to generate sort-of manual pages for interfaces, e.g. while programming perl frontends to SAP. Sample output of that particular usage: 
======================================================================
+==========
Interface RFC_READ_TABLE
======================================================================
+==========
+----------------------------------------------------------+----------
+---------+
| TABLE  | DATA                            | LEN        512| INTYPE   
+        4|
| STRUCT | TAB512                                          | VALUE LEN
+       0 |
+--------+---------------------------------+------+--------+--------+-
+---------+
| POS    | NAME                            | LEN  | INTYPE | OFFSET | 
+DECIMALS |
+--------+---------------------------------+------+--------+--------+-
+---------+
|      1 | WA                              |  512 |      0 |        | 
+       0 |
|    --- | - Summe -                       |  512 |        |        | 
+         |


+----------------------------------------------------------+----------
+---------+
| TABLE  | FIELDS                          | LEN        103| INTYPE   
+        4|
| STRUCT | RFC_DB_FLD                                      | VALUE LEN
+       0 |
+--------+---------------------------------+------+--------+--------+-
+---------+
| POS    | NAME                            | LEN  | INTYPE | OFFSET | 
+DECIMALS |
+--------+---------------------------------+------+--------+--------+-
+---------+
|      1 | FIELDNAME                       |   30 |      0 |        | 
+       0 |
|      2 | OFFSET                          |    6 |      6 |     30 | 
+       0 |
|      3 | LENGTH                          |    6 |      6 |     36 | 
+       0 |
|      4 | TYPE                            |    1 |      0 |     42 | 
+       0 |
|      5 | FIELDTEXT                       |   60 |      0 |     43 | 
+       0 |
|    --- | - Summe -                       |  103 |        |        | 
+         |

...

======================================================================
+==========
 Parameter
======================================================================
+==========
|------------------------------------+--------------------------------
+---------+
| PARAMETER DELIMITER                | STRUCTURE (none)               
+         |
| VALUE                     | LEN    | TYPE | INTYPE | DECIMALS | DEFA
+ULT      |
|                           |      1 |   IN |        |        0 |     
+        0|


|------------------------------------+--------------------------------
+---------+
| PARAMETER NO_DATA                  | STRUCTURE (none)               
+         |
| VALUE                     | LEN    | TYPE | INTYPE | DECIMALS | DEFA
+ULT      |
|                           |      1 |   IN |        |        0 |     
+        0|

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There's some ANSI color highlighting that I can't show in a <code> block. This lets me skim through an interface definition while developing whithout having to use the ugly SAP Frontend...

Anyways, doing something like this with printf would be a pain. Same goes for all 'er' of Perl - 'Extraction and Report'. I use format for log file parsing output, mail body assembling, en fin for all stuff I'm loth to use a templating engine for.

--shmem 

_($_=" "x(1<<5)."?\n".q·/)Oo.  G°\        /
                              /\_¯/(q    /
----------------------------  \__(m.====·.(_("always off the crowd"))."·
");sub _{s./.($e="'Itrs `mnsgdq Gdbj O`qkdq")=~y/"-y/#-z/;$e.e && print}

In reply to Re: Useful usage of formats. by shmem
in thread Useful usage of formats. by dmitri

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