Question

I am using printf via assembly code. I note that in the following example if I ommit the expected argument, garbage is printed.

    .386
    .model flat, c
    .stack 100h
printf PROTO arg1:Ptr Byte, printlist:VARARG
    .data
msg3fmt byte 0Ah,"%s",0Ah,"test output",0Ah,0
    .code
main proc
    INVOKE printf, ADDR msg3fmt
    ret
main endp
    end

My question is why? Is there a set memory address printf uses expecting to find an argument? Why is anything printed at all since no argument is passed?

Answer 1

The reason is that the format specifiers tell printf how many arguments it should have received. Printf gets its data from the stack; if you don’t provide any data for it then it will pull whatever happened to be on the stack and treat as an argument.