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I would venture to say that most C programs don't check the return value of printf, including ones that ought not to be "toys"

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I don't know. Most serious programs will use write() and then check the return value. In locations where it does not matter (say a test suite that is guaranteed to signal an error but an fprintf() error message could fail in theory) not checking is fine I think.

You will not see the message if you get a panic either ...

> Most serious programs will use write() and then check the return value.

Similarly in Rust, serious programs will use writeln rather than println, and will receive the standard compiler warning if the Result produced by writeln is ignored.

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