Then I stand corrected. Like I said, I've never dealt with modifying printf or putchar. In fact, I've never used printf on an 8052.

I'm surprised printf does it that way, though. It seems it could use a smaller buffer and be more efficient if the constant aspects of the formatting string were just output immediately and only formatted variables were stored temporarily in a working buffer prior to being sent out. Seems like copying the constant to a buffer and then later going back and sending it out all at once is an additional and unnecessary step. It also seems that that would put an artificial limitation on the length of a string that could be handled by printf when the only real limitation should (in my opinion) be on the length of the individual variable formatting; not on the overall string itself.

Regards,
Craig Steiner