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From: Bruce.Hoult@bbs.actrix.gen.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: New Think C user
Message-ID: <1991Feb10.093129.15589@actrix.gen.nz>
Date: 10 Feb 91 09:31:29 GMT
References: <21005@sri-unix.SRI.COM>
Sender: Bruce.Hoult@actrix.gen.nz (Bruce Hoult)
Organization: Actrix Information Exchange, Wellington, New Zealand
Lines: 23
Comment-To: mxmora@sri-unix.sri.com

Matt Mora writes:

>Why do you have to use a double percent sign in a string literal to have
>it print a percent sign when all logic would indicate that a backslash
>percent sign should work?

Unfortunately, that's the wrong logic  :-)

>So you would think that since the percent sign is the mask in a string
>literal that if a backslash was before it, the compiler would do the
>right thing.

It does.  :-)

When you use \% the compiler does exactly the right thing -- it puts a % into
the compiled format string, just the same as typing a % by itself does.  The
problem is that the format string isn't interpreted by the compiler, but by
the runtime library, which sees only the %, not the \%.
-- 
Bruce.Hoult@bbs.actrix.gen.nz   Twisted pair: +64 4 772 116
BIX: brucehoult                 Last Resort:  PO Box 4145 Wellington, NZ
"And they shall beat their swords into plowshares, for if you hit a man
with a plowshare, he's going to know he's been hit."