meaning of p in %pa[p] in the printk formats

The question is with regard to the printk formats. The documentation that I’m reading is located here

Here is an excerpt that I’m asking about:

Physical addresses types phys_addr_t:

    %pa[p]  0x01234567 or 0x0123456789abcdef

    For printing a phys_addr_t type (and its derivatives, such as
    resource_size_t) which can vary based on build options, regardless of
    the width of the CPU data path. Passed by reference.

What does [p] in %pa[p] stand for? What does it mean?

Answer

The p in [p] stands for phys_addr_t when used in %pap. This is analogous to the d in %pad stands for dma_addr_t, as seen in the cited document:

DMA addresses types dma_addr_t:

    %pad    0x01234567 or 0x0123456789abcdef

    For printing a dma_addr_t type which can vary based on build options,
    regardless of the width of the CPU data path. Passed by reference.

Since it provides no documented difference between %pa and %pap, it means that they behave the same. The contents inside the brackets indicate optional modifiers. This is seen in the definition of %*pE later in the document:

Raw buffer as an escaped string:

    %*pE[achnops]
...
    The conversion rules are applied according to an optional combination
    of flags (see string_escape_mem() kernel documentation for the
    details):
        a - ESCAPE_ANY
        c - ESCAPE_SPECIAL
        h - ESCAPE_HEX
        n - ESCAPE_NULL
        o - ESCAPE_OCTAL
        p - ESCAPE_NP
        s - ESCAPE_SPACE
    By default ESCAPE_ANY_NP is used.