[comp.std.c] ANSI draft interpretation question: scanf

chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) (01/04/90)

According to the December 1988 draft, `*' as a scanf flag (between
a `%' and a conversion character) is an assignment suppression flag.
However, `%n' does not count as an assignment, nor is it a regular
conversion character (since no input is converted).  This leaves
me with the question:

  Does `%*n' write to anything, or is the `assignment' suppressed?

Note that `%*n' is completely useless if it is suppressed, since it
affects neither the stream nor any object.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 7163)
Domain:	chris@cs.umd.edu	Path:	uunet!mimsy!chris

gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (01/05/90)

In article <21623@mimsy.umd.edu> chris@mimsy.umd.edu (Chris Torek) writes:
>  Does `%*n' write to anything, or is the `assignment' suppressed?

The paragraph around line 40 on page 136 of the December draft makes it
clear that the result of the conversion for the n specifier is subject
to assignment suppression by *.  (Yes, there IS a conversion, just no
input operation.)