Wow. That's more than perl.com had listed...

NAME
printf - output a formatted list to a filehandle

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SYNOPSIS
printf FILEHANDLE FORMAT, LIST

printf FORMAT, LIST

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DESCRIPTION
Equivalent to print FILEHANDLE sprintf(FORMAT, LIST), except that $\ (the output record separator) is not appended. The first argument of the list will be interpreted as the printf() format. If use locale is in effect, the character used for the decimal point in formatted real numbers is affected by the LC_NUMERIC locale. See the perllocale manpage.

Don't fall into the trap of using a printf() when a simple print() would do. The print() is more efficient and less error prone.
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>> That's like looking something up in "help" and it just gives you a description instead of a solution.

"The Buffer Override Error is an error that occurs when the buffer is overridden."