In larger programs, that compile time parsing can lead to even more code, as the function is essentially instantiated and compiled separately for each and every

In larger programs, that compile time parsing can lead to even more code, as the function is essentially instantiated and compiled separately for each and every invocation. The type erasure provided by printf, can be a blessing in _some circumstances_. That being said, in those larger programs, it's still likely going to be a negligible part of the binary size, and the additional code paths are unlikely to affect performance unless you're doing string formatting in multiple hot-paths which is generally a poor choice anyway.