What's so bad about scanf anyway???

Kim Christian Madsen kimcm at diku.dk
Mon Nov 12 22:20:32 AEST 1990


rjc at uk.ac.ed.cstr (Richard Caley) writes:

>In article <VXogs2w163w at cybrspc> roy%cybrspc at cs.umn.edu (Roy M. Silvernail) writes:

>    The problem with scanf() is that it can behave unpredictably when you
>    give it badly formatted input. It's better, IMHO, to gets() a whole
>    line, check its validity and _then_ sscanf() it into the target
>    variables.

>Maybe it was just a typo, but repeat after me

>	`GETS is EVIL'

>This has been un unpayed anouncement by paranoids anonymous.

gets can get you into a lot of trouble if used for in a non-controlled
manner, e.g. for user input. Then you be better off by using fgets or
reading char-by-char with getchar() or family. But using scanf() for user
input is asking for trouble!

				Kim Chr. Madsen
just as 



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