Clean code to printf size_t in C++ (or: Nearest equivalent of C99's %z in C++)

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I have some C++ code that prints a size_t:

size_t a;
printf("%lu", a);

I'd like this to compile without warnings on both 32- and 64-bit architectures.

If this were C99, I could use printf("%z", a);. But AFAICT %z doesn't exist in any standard C++ dialect. So instead, I have to do

printf("%lu", (unsigned long) a);

which is really ugly.

If there's no facility for printing size_ts built into the language, I wonder if it's possible to write a printf wrapper or somesuch such that will insert the appropriate casts on size_ts so as to eliminate spurious compiler warnings while still maintaining the good ones.

Any ideas?

Edit To clarify why I'm using printf: I have a relatively large code base that I'm cleaning up. It uses printf wrappers to do things like "write a warning, log it to a file, and possibly exit the code with an error". I might be able to muster up enough C++-foo to do this with a cout wrapper, but I'd rather not change every warn() call in the program just to get rid of some compiler warnings.

size-t printf c++
9 Answers
#include <cstdio>
#include <string>
#include <type_traits>

namespace my{
    template<typename ty>
    auto get_string(ty&& arg){
        using rty=typename::std::decay_t<::std::add_const_t<ty>>;
        if constexpr(::std::is_same_v<char, rty>)
            return ::std::string{1,arg};
        else if constexpr(::std::is_same_v<bool, rty>)
            return ::std::string(arg?"true":"false");
        else if constexpr(::std::is_same_v<char const*, rty>)
            return ::std::string{arg};
        else if constexpr(::std::is_same_v<::std::string, rty>)
            return ::std::forward<ty&&>(arg);
        else
            return ::std::to_string(arg);
    };

    template<typename T1, typename ... Args>
    auto printf(T1&& a1, Args&&...arg){
        auto str{(get_string(a1)+ ... + get_string(arg))};
        return ::std::printf(str.c_str());
    };
};

Later in code:

my::printf("test ", 1, '\t', 2.0);
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