printf in mawk 1.9.9.6 is much slower than mawk 1.3.3

[jack6th]

mawk-1.9.9.6, Windows 10 64bit 1903, MinGW64 GCC 9.3.0

mawk "BEGIN{while(i++<100000)printf i}" > a.txt
This command takes 37.76 seconds. While mawk 1.3.3 takes only 0.06 seconds.

[mogando668]

mawk-1.9.9.6, Windows 10 64bit 1903, MinGW64 GCC 9.3.0

mawk "BEGIN{while(i++<100000)printf i}" > a.txt
This command takes 37.76 seconds. While mawk 1.3.3 takes only 0.06 seconds.

Using macOS 10.15.7 with gcc not the true GNU one but "Apple clang version 12.0.0 (clang-1200.0.32.21)", I can get it to run fine (even slightly faster) as long as you have the proper formatting string to go with printf. (it's not ideal but at least something works). mawk2 has been amazing - i've switched most of my scripts to it (sans the one that need time functions or substring of unicode code points .

mogando668 $ time mawk 'BEGIN { while ( i++ < 1E5) { printf("%s", i); }; exit; }' | xxh128sum

b891e1653db8d08ec258ab2377eab1ae stdin
real 0m0.036s

mogando668 $ time mawk2 'BEGIN { while ( i++ < 1E5) { printf("%s", i); }; exit; }' | xxh128sum

b891e1653db8d08ec258ab2377eab1ae stdin
real 0m0.034s

[jack6th]

The problem is printf need formatting string like printf("%s", i) to work correctly.
Awk allow user not use formatting string like printf i
It is a bug.

[mogando668]

"Awk allow user not use formatting string like printf i "

i just tried reading the awk posix spec (link just below), the mawk-133's man page, gawk 511's man page, plus various sites detailing C-language printf( )

(posix spec for awk: https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/)

While some awks might've allowed such a fmt-statement-less statement/function call for end users' convenience, there's no specific language in any of the resources from above saying the formatting expression must be optional, or even "could be/conditionally be" optional. Maybe I'm missing something.

But there were plenty of C-printf( ) tutorial sites that do say the formatting string is mandatory, but rest are optional, while posix awk spec specifically mentions it must be a "character string" and "not graphical representation of it".

so this is valid call of it

•       printf( "\n" )
  

It lacks any secondary arguments, but since format-string is already a proper character string, it is valid. I also tested printf RS straight up. While not lightning speed fast, it's acceptable.

but doing it via i++ makes a numeric type, which isn't strictly correct per POSIX spec.

at least that's how I've interpreted the language in the POSIX spec.