"printf" lookalike from shell-level (for VAXen)

[Jack V. Briner, Jr.]

In a series of articles people have been working on how to get a printf
function for the shell.  I would like to refine Sam Black's so that it
avoids an unnecessary piped command.  Try:

     alias printf "awk 'BEGIN {printf(\!*); exit;}'"

This will have to be modified if your history character is a "!".  If your
history character is a "," you will have to be careful about its usage.