Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!speech1.cs.cmu.edu!phd
From: phd@speech1.cs.cmu.edu (Paul Dietz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.programmer
Subject: Re: LSC 3.0 scanf deletes
Keywords: delete, scanf
Message-ID: <2575@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Date: 4 Aug 88 03:07:18 GMT
References: <2559@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <587@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <5794@haddock.ISC.COM>
Sender: netnews@pt.cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 36

I asked:
>>>I'm tired of fighting this one. Does anybody know how to delete
>>>characters when you make a mistake typing during an LSC scanf?

Apparently, noboby condones the use of scanf:

>>The answer to your question is, DON'T USE SCANF!

>Thus, not only do I never use "scanf" or "fscanf", I seldom use "sscanf".

SO: What do you use for input on your quick little pieces of
code????

Since I move code freely back and forth between UNIX and the Mac,
I'd like a solution which works equally well on both. My first
idea was to fix the scanf routine in the LSC library to handle
deletes properly. Unfortunately, this looked like a great deal
of work. (Apparently, the routine does not buffer the input...)
Next idea was to write a macro to replace scanf with the
appropriate fgets and sscanf calls. This stumbled when I realized
I didn't know how to write macros which took variable number of
arguments. The last idea was to write my own general scanf
replacement and use it everywhere, but this failed with my
not knowing a machine independent way of moving the cursor
and deleting characters.

So, what should I do??? Help.....

Thanks!

Paul H. Dietz                                        ____          ____
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering        / oo \        <_<\\\
Carnegie Mellon University                        /|  \/  |\        \\ \\
--------------------------------------------     | | (  ) | |       | ||\\
"If God had meant for penguins to fly,             -->--<--        / / |\\\  /
he would have given them wings."            _________^__^_________/ / / \\\\-