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Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'...

From Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk>
Newsgroups comp.lang.c
Subject Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'...
Date 2015-07-22 22:28 +0100
Organization A noiseless patient Spider
Message-ID <87mvyn51bm.fsf@bsb.me.uk> (permalink)
References <moorva$su7$1@speranza.aioe.org>

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"Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> writes:

> How in the heck can I use the `%a' format specifier in conjunction
> with sprintf/sscanf so that I can convert a floating point to a
> string, and back? I have some code, but it does not work with
> `%a'. Damn!

Judging by your posts in sci.crypt, the problem is the default precision
use by MSVC's C library.  The MSVC 2015 documentation says the default
precision is 6 digits, but the C standard mandate that it be enough to
represent the number (or at least to distinguish all numerical values):

7.19.6.1 p8:

  "... if the precision is missing and FLT_RADIX is a power of 2, then
  the precision is sufficient for an exact representation of the value;
  if the precision is missing and FLT_RADIX is not a power of 2, then
  the precision is sufficient to distinguish 245) values of type double,
  ..."

It looks like MSVC simply has a bug.  You could calculate the number of
digits you need but that would be fiddly to get right in every single
case.

<snip>
-- 
Ben.

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Thread

Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 12:46 -0700
  Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2015-07-22 16:19 -0400
    Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 13:49 -0700
      Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 14:01 -0700
      Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2015-07-22 17:18 -0400
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:22 -0700
  Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 13:40 -0700
    Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:01 -0700
      Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 14:12 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:20 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:24 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... glen herrmannsfeldt <gah@ugcs.caltech.edu> - 2015-07-22 21:30 +0000
            Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:39 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2015-07-22 19:49 -0600
  Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-07-22 22:28 +0100
    Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 14:34 -0700
      Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 14:58 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 15:43 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 15:45 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 15:51 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Robert Wessel <robertwessel2@yahoo.com> - 2015-07-22 18:21 -0500
            Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 16:58 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 16:52 -0700
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 17:08 -0700
      Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-07-23 00:01 +0100
        Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-22 19:40 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2015-07-22 22:32 -0700
          Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-07-23 11:07 +0100
            Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2015-07-23 11:25 +0100
              Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-24 11:44 -0700
            Re: Floating point to string, and back via `%a'... "Chris M. Thomasson" <nospam@nospam.nospam> - 2015-07-24 11:47 -0700

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