Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!sun-barr!texsun!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Re^2: scanf(..)
Message-ID: <4529@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 13 Jun 89 13:13:19 GMT
References: <225800176@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu> <11831@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <4734@freja.diku.dk>
Organization: Xenix Support
Lines: 26

scs@adam.pika.mit.edu (Steve Summit) writes:
>It is only a miserable problem when scanf
>is being used for interactive user input, which is what everybody
>uses it for.

Anyone using scanf directly for interactive input... or for any input at
all... should have their head examined.

The only really safe way to use scanf() without freaking out the casual
user of your code is to do something like this:

	fgets(buffer, sizeof buffer, stdin);
	sscanf(buffer, fmt, args...);

Sure, you can probably cons up a format string that does what you want, but
who needs the aggravation?

[ By the way, it really bugs me that stdio is so inconsistant about the
  position of the inevitable 'stream' argument? In an ideal world that code
  would read "fgets(stdin, buffer, sizeof buffer)", no? ]

-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.