Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!mailrus!husc6!bu-cs!buengc!bph
From: bph@buengc.BU.EDU (Blair P. Houghton)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: An interesting behaviour in printf
Message-ID: <2343@buengc.BU.EDU>
Date: 19 Mar 89 04:29:08 GMT
References: <960@Portia.Stanford.EDU> <15938@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: bph@buengc.bu.edu (Blair P. Houghton)
Followup-To: comp.lang.c
Distribution: na
Organization: Boston Univ. Col. of Eng.
Lines: 21

In article <15938@cup.portal.com> Tim_CDC_Roberts@cup.portal.com writes:
>In <960@Portia.Stanford.EDU>, joe@hanauma (Joe Dellinger) asks:
>
>>	string[0] = '*';
>>	string[1] = '\0';
>>	printf("%s\n", string[1]);
>
>No, I expect it to print out (null)\n.  The '%s' format item expects to
>
>Trivia question: is the '(null)' output of printf standard or widespread?
>I know that Microsoft C does this; do other compilers?

The uVAX/Ultrix C compiler ignores it whole.  The only thing the program emits
is the \n.  (I checked it by "funkyprint | od -bc".  One char out.  \012.
More interesting than I expected.  Smells broken.)

The Encore/Umax C compiler emits \022 \012.  So, like, what's \022?  My
ASCII table says it's a "dc2".

				--Blair
				  "Gesundheit."