4.2 sprintf too painful?

[Jim Rees]

I know this has been discussed before, but don't remember the answer.
What does this mean?  It's from the 4.2 stdio.h:

	#ifdef vax
	char	*sprintf();		/* too painful to do right */
	#endif

If I'm on a Gould or a Sun rather than a Vax, does sprintf return an
int, just like the sysV sprintf?  Doesn't seem very portable.
Does "too painful" refer to Vax assembly language programming?

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