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From: vook@narnia.rtp.dg.com (Eric R Vook)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: space allocation for sprintf()
Keywords: sprintf, space allocation
Message-ID: <1991Jun5.174543.266@dg-rtp.dg.com>
Date: 5 Jun 91 17:45:43 GMT
Sender: usenet@dg-rtp.dg.com (Usenet Administration)
Organization: Data General Corporation, RTP, NC.
Lines: 23


Harbison & Steele p.328 contains the following parenthetical comment
after a discussion of sprintf():

"(It is the programmer's responsibility to ensure that the destination
  string area is large enough to contain the output generated by the
  formatting operation.)"

	      ["C: A Reference Manual," 2nd ed, Harbison & Steele, p.328]

I have just a short question, two-part question:
    How do you know how much space to allocate?
Or
    How do you know when you didn't allocate enough?

My application has a varargs function which needs to eventually get to a
single string to pass to routines which do NOT take a varargs interface.

-Eric

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric R Vook                  |  Face reality as it is,
Data General Corporation     |    not as it was
vook@dg-rtp.dg.com           |  or as you wish it were.  (Jack Welch)