HELP SPRINTF                            Mark Rubinstein  February 1985

    sprintf(<string>, [% item1, item2, ..., itemn %]) -> string;
OR
    sprintf(itemn, ..., item2, item1, <string>) -> string;

SPRINTF is a relatively cheap and cheerful way of getting formatted
strings of the kind printed by PRINTF.  Its use is exactly analogous to
the use of printf (see HELP * PRINTF) and all the same field specifiers
may be used, but instead of printing a string it returns the string as a
result.

For example:

    vars x;
    sprintf('the sum of %p and %p is %p\n', [3  4 7]) -> x;
    x =>
    ** the sum of 3 and 4 is 7

In order to be consistent with PRINTF it allows the two forms of
invocation :-

    sprintf(string, [arg1 arg2 ... argn]);
and
    sprintf(argn ... arg2, arg1, string);

but in order to allow the second form it has to do a certain amount of
preprocessing to turn it into a call of the first form.  Thus the first
form is preferable.