Path: csiph.com!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!nntp.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Tim Rentsch Newsgroups: comp.lang.c Subject: Re: official library of tiny functions lacking in c Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2026 07:25:09 -0700 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 39 Message-ID: <868q4hpkfu.fsf@linuxsc.com> References: <119ajku$15pve$1@dont-email.me> <119gro2$3g678$1@dont-email.me> <119gvoa$3h56b$1@dont-email.me> <119hb3e$lm9$1@reader1.panix.com> <119idn6$3vj3k$1@dont-email.me> <20260930134100.00004ff0@yahoo.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Injection-Date: Thu, 01 Oct 2026 14:25:12 +0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: dont-email.me; logging-data="1275193"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX19azLyxbUPZKR7rbs3pADKNd0T3kapTZpQ="; posting-host="18a74afe15b7c222d977d31c18068e17" User-Agent: Gnus/5.11 (Gnus v5.11) Emacs/22.4 (gnu/linux) Cancel-Lock: sha1:3tncbSj1ED6nw6XpvlxKEx5pJMY= sha1:XyPsYli9nsvqogNcrk5vt9Wu7DI= sha256:VsoFrstwQmbqfbtzvhexq9bzyNdyC6x1GczPLJjbOKc= sha1:YHgauhkxhz3IAIWfB/t438U9ZAQ= sha256:9yjSdyxC/zQNH5crtIxx0B9fshr3xjp+9918hX7OWhQ= Xref: csiph.com comp.lang.c:402620 Michael S writes: > On Wed, 30 Sep 2026 09:28:38 +0200 > David Brown wrote: > >> On 29/09/2026 23:37, Dan Cross wrote: >> >>> In article , >>> Scott Lurndal wrote: >>> >>>> There is a lot to be said for the terseness of *printf formatting, >>>> particularly with compilers that check the type correctness of the >>>> printf varargs list. >>> >>> I'd say the real winning example is `snprintf`, where one can >>> format directly into a character array. It is difficult to >>> understate the utility this; but if `print` were built into the >>> language, you'd lose it, unless you also had a `sprint` builtin. >> >> snprintf is the printf family member I use most, and occasionally >> vsnprintf. >> Other people will likely make heavy use of fprintf too. >> >> And I often use the return value of printf (or rather, snprintf) to >> see if I've cut the output short. > > As was already discussed here 5 years ago, return value of snprintf > does not fit my most common usage pattern, which is to add strings to > buffer until it is full and to drop silently the remaining parts after > buffer is full. I.e. to produce sequences of format calls that behave > similarly to an individual snprintf. > > Interested reader could still find discussion, including code, by > searching comp.lang on Google groups for my_snprintf. > Unfortunately, with recent breakage of GG I no longer can provide a > working link to either individual article or the thread. I haven't done any searching, but let me ask: did what you posted have maybe 15 or 20 lines of code plus a typedef or two?