**** a simple question ****

[Rick Jones]

In article <793 at babcock.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu> siping at cathedral.cerc.wvu.wvnet.edu (Siping Liu) writes:
>How can I print out ONLY the significant digits of
>a float number? As you know, "%f" fills in zero's if
>the number does not have enough non-zero digits after
>the point.

Ever tried the "%g" format?

e.g.
	printf ("%g", x);

You can control the number of significant digits with e.g.:

	printf ("%.10g", x);

	note the parameter is significant digits, NOT decimal places

IEEE doubles are not generally reliable beyond 15 sig. digits, so

	printf ("%.15g", x);

	will give you only significant digits, up to the maximum effective
	precision

For very large or very small numbers, this format defaults to the equivalent of
%e or %f respectively.  For more info, read the manual!

-- 
Rick Jones			Nothing ever happens, nothing happens at all
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rick at tetrauk.uucp						- Del Amitri