Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!dogie.macc.wisc.edu!uwvax!shorty!engber
From: engber@shorty.CS.WISC.EDU (Mike Engber)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: field width in scanf for reals
Summary: e's don't seem to count
Message-ID: <7562@spool.cs.wisc.edu>
Date: 23 May 89 17:39:43 GMT
Sender: news@spool.cs.wisc.edu
Reply-To: engber@shorty.cs.wisc.edu (Mike Engber)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
Lines: 13


I've found that when reading reals in exponential format using scanf
with a field width specifier that the e for the exponent doesn't seem
to count as part of the field width. To read 1.2e3 you need to use
"%4f". I've tried this out on several UNIX machines and they all seem
to have the same bug/feature. The SUN compiler, however, worked as
you'd expect.  It needed a field width of 5.

Does anyone have an explanation of all this. I assume it's compiler bugs.

please respond via email

-ME