S

It is a string formatting syntax (which it borrows from C).

Please see "PyFormat":

Python supports formatting values into strings. Although this can include very complicated expressions, the most basic usage is to insert values into a string with the %s placeholder.

Here is a really simple example:

#Python 2
name = raw_input("who are you? ")
print "hello %s" % (name,)

#Python 3+
name = input("who are you? ")
print("hello %s" % (name,))

The %s token allows me to insert (and potentially format) a string. Notice that the %s token is replaced by whatever I pass to the string after the % symbol. Notice also that I am using a tuple here as well (when you only have one string using a tuple is optional) to illustrate that multiple strings can be inserted and formatted in one statement.

sprintf is a wrapper for a C function that uses %s to represent "insert a string here" and %i to represent "insert an integer here". Arguments after the string get pasted into the string in order.

%s most likely means a string. Sort of like a placeholder or variable.

In some languages you can write something like:

string name = "Joe";
printf("Hi %s", name);

Which would print out: "Hi Joe".

"/s" is suppose to imply sarcasm.

For both *printf and *scanf, %s expects the corresponding argument to be of type char *, and for scanf, it had better point to a writable buffer (i.e., not a string literal).

char *str_constant = "I point to a string literal";
char str_buf[] = "I am an array of char initialized with a string literal";

printf("string literal = %s\n", "I am a string literal");
printf("str_constant = %s\n", str_constant);
printf("str_buf = %s\n", str_buf);

scanf("%55s", str_buf);

Using %s in scanf without an explcit field width opens the same buffer overflow exploit that gets did; namely, if there are more characters in the input stream than the target buffer is sized to hold, scanf will happily write those extra characters to memory outside the buffer, potentially clobbering something important. Unfortunately, unlike in printf, you can't supply the field with as a run time argument:

printf("%*s\n", field_width, string);

One option is to build the format string dynamically:

char fmt[10];
sprintf(fmt, "%%%lus", (unsigned long) (sizeof str_buf) - 1);
...
scanf(fmt, target_buffer); // fmt = "%55s"

EDIT

Using scanf with the %s conversion specifier will stop scanning at the first whitespace character; for example, if your input stream looks like

"This is a test"

then scanf("%55s", str_buf) will read and assign "This" to str_buf. Note that the field with specifier doesn't make a difference in this case.

%s is usually used in a format string meaning "place a string here"

In this case it probably means the folder name. Try nemo $HOME in a terminal.

What you are seeing there is the string substitution patterns that are built into console.log() or console.debug().

The pattern goes as I have presented below:

%s for a String

%d or %i for Number

%f for Floating points

%o for an Object

%j for an JSON

So essentially you are replacing the specifier with the values supplied as so:

var name = 'Chris';
console.log('Hi, my name is %s.', name);
// Hi, my name is Chris.

console.debug('Hi, my name is %s.', name);
// Hi, my name is Chris.

Docs:

• Docs for Chrome
• Docs for Firefox
• Docs for IE
• Docs for Node.js
• Docs for Spec

The slash signals the end of a tag in HTML code. For example, if you write <bold>random text</bold> on a web page source code, your browser will display "random text" in bold font AND will hide the underlying tag. You can think of it as a command to begin bold and end bold in hypertext language.

Whenever you see a slash followed by a qualifier, it is meant to be understood that the preceding statement should be regarded — interpreted — with whatever descriptor is used. There is no need for a begin command because the computer is not the target, the reader is.

If I write /rant at the end of a paragraph, it means that I am done bitching.

The s tag is just an abbreviation of the qualifier-descriptor sarcasm; by convention, most people understand the whole expression without the need to spell it all out, just like a TL;DR or a PS etc.