🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thursday, in article <824407293snz@pdlmail.demon.co.uk>
     pete@pdlmail.demon.co.uk "Peter Disdale" wrote:

PD> In article <824266350snx@trmphrst.demon.co.uk>
PD>            nikki@trmphrst.demon.co.uk "Nikki Locke" writes:
PD> 
PD> > In article <824028106snz@pdlmail.demon.co.uk>
PD> >   Peter Disdale <Pete@pdlmail.demon.co.uk> writes:
PD> > > [ in defence of sprintf... ]
PD> >
PD> > What's wrong with ...
PD> >
PD> >    sprintf (buf, "%.511s", p);
PD> >
PD> (Dusts off K&R)
PD> Hmm.. nothing at all, it would seem.  It's a fair cop.
PD> 
PD> (..just doesn't *look* right :-) )

I'm not sure if its ANSI C, but in Turbo C this can be done slightly
more flexibly as

    sprintf (buf, "%.*s", width, p);

But there's still no neat way that I can see to control the width of
a more complex sprintf call such as

    sprintf(buf, "%s  %8ld %c %s", ...

A bit of parrallel arithmetic seems to be required, and an overall
width parameter would be much more elegant.

-- 
/ Philip McNab  // philip@siberia.demon.co.uk /