%g format in printf

[Bradford R. Daniels]

> I have seen arguments on both sides of this, but only believe the one
> that says `the number of digits written is the number of significant
> digits'.

Ack.  You're right.  I hang my head in shame...  How quickly we
forget the things we learn in high school.  It should have been
obvious to me from the sentence "... style e (or E) will be used
only if the exponent ... is less than -4 or greater than or equal
to the precision."

BTW - Shouldn't the "only if" in that sentence be "if and only
if"?  It seems like the way it is currently phrased you could
use f format in those cases if you want to.

- Brad

-----------------------------------------------------------------
Brad Daniels			|  Digital Equipment Corp. almost
DEC Software Devo		|  definitely wouldn't approve of
"VAX C RTL Whipping Boy"	|  anything I say here...