Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!sun-barr!decwrl!shlump.nac.dec.com!hiatus.dec.com!grue.dec.com!daniels
From: daniels@grue.dec.com (Bradford R. Daniels)
Newsgroups: comp.std.c
Subject: Re: %g format in printf
Message-ID: <1442@hiatus.dec.com>
Date: 6 Sep 89 20:02:19 GMT
References: <19426@mimsy.UUCP> <1439@hiatus.dec.com>
Sender: news@hiatus.dec.com
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Lines: 20

> I have seen arguments on both sides of this, but only believe the one
> that says `the number of digits written is the number of significant
> digits'.

Ack.  You're right.  I hang my head in shame...  How quickly we
forget the things we learn in high school.  It should have been
obvious to me from the sentence "... style e (or E) will be used
only if the exponent ... is less than -4 or greater than or equal
to the precision."

BTW - Shouldn't the "only if" in that sentence be "if and only
if"?  It seems like the way it is currently phrased you could
use f format in those cases if you want to.

- Brad

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Daniels			|  Digital Equipment Corp. almost
DEC Software Devo		|  definitely wouldn't approve of
"VAX C RTL Whipping Boy"	|  anything I say here...