Escape all special characters in printf()

Question

Is there an easy way to escape all special characters in the printf() function?

The reason why I would like to know how to do this is because I am print

Answer 1

#include 
#include 


/* Converts a buffer of specified lenth to
 * ASCII representation as it was a C string literal.
 * Returns how much bytes from source was processed
 * (ideally ret == src_sz)
 */
int binbuf_to_escaped_C_literal(const char *src_buf, size_t src_sz, char *dst_str, size_t dst_sz)
{
    const char *src = src_buf;
    char *dst = dst_str;

    while (src < src_buf + src_sz)
    {
        if (*src == '\\')
        {
            *dst++ = '\\';
            *dst++ = *src++;
        }
        else if (isprint(*src))
        {
            *dst++ = *src++;
        }
        else
        {
            switch(*src)
            {
                case '\n':
                    *dst++ = '\\';
                    *dst++ = 'n';
                    break;
                case '\r':
                    *dst++ = '\\';
                    *dst++ = 'r';
                    break;
                case '\t':
                    *dst++ = '\\';
                    *dst++ = 't';
                    break;
                case '\0':
                    *dst++ = '\\';
                    *dst++ = '0';
                    break;
                default:
                    sprintf(dst, "0x%x", *src);
                    dst += 4;
            }
            src++;
        }

        // next iteration requires up to 5 chars in dst buffer, for ex.  "0xab\0"
        if (dst > (dst_str + dst_sz - 5)) {
            break;
        }
    }

    *dst = '\0';

    return src - src_buf;
}


int main(int argc, char **argv)
{
    const char binbuf[] = "strange \n\r\t\0\0\0\0\0\\\\ string";
    size_t sz = sizeof(binbuf) - 1; // drop trailing nul terminator

    char escaped[128];

    if (binbuf_to_escaped_C_literal(binbuf, sz, escaped, sizeof(escaped)) != sz) {
        fprintf(stderr, "Destination string buffer is too small\n");
        return 1;
    }

    printf("Escaped: %s\n", escaped);

    // $ ./escape-binary-buf                                          //
    // Escaped: strange \n\r\t\0\0\0\0\0\\\\ string                   //

    return 0;
}