What are the disadvantages of using printf() in the embedded system programming?

The major disadvantages of using printf() in the embedded system programming are as follows:

• Using printf() adds greatly to the code size of the application. This is because, as defined by the ANSI library standard, printf() supports all the different format string, including formatting octal numbers, floating point, etc even if you do not use them in your programming.
• It uses a lot of stack space. This is because, printf() handles all the formatters plus the variable argument list. Depending on the printf() implementation, it can easily adds 512-1024 bytes on the stack, resulting in stack overflow.
• Printf() is a constant source of programming errors. For example:

  void printString(char *str) {
    printf(str);
  }
  

  When the the function received a string with % in it, it crashes or opens a program vulnerability. This is because the printf() parses the % and then will pop arguments from the stack which do not exist, causing a stack error.

Hence, it is not recommended to use printf() in embedded system programming.