Thread: Why doesn't this work?

int m[3];

scanf( "%1d%1d%1d", &m[0], &m[1], &m[2] );

I would expect input "123" (without the quotes) to store values 1, 2 and 3 in the array.

What am I doint wrong?

I would expect input "123" (without the quotes) to store values 1, 2 and 3 in the array.

I would expect it to do the same. Can you post a complete program which demonstrates the error?

Okay, problem seems to be left over from previous scanf:

int year, data[3];

printf( "Year = " );
scanf( "%d", &year );
printf( "data = " );
scanf( "%1d%1d%1d", &data[0], &data[1], &data[2] );

Year reads into storage ok. Second scanf() doesn't hang up, but doesn't place any values in data[], either. Somehow the CR/LF needs to be handled when reading the year, but I can't figure out how to do it.

Paul

Originally Posted by Salem

> What am I doint wrong?
a) not reading the manual
b) assuming that printf and scanf are perfectly symmetrical in their format strings - they are not.

scanf does NOT have field widths on input, so your attempt to read only 1 digit is broke.

Somebody didn't read the manual, it is true:

Originally Posted by man scanf as posted

In addition to these flags, there may be an optional maximum field
width, expressed as a decimal integer, between the % and the conver-
sion. If no width is given, a default of 'infinity' is used (with one
exception, below); otherwise at most this many characters are scanned
in processing the conversion. Before conversion begins, most conver-
sions skip white space; this white space is not counted against the
field width.

The code you posted reads in 1, 2, and 3 into data[0], data[1], and data[2] respectively on everything I could be bothered to check it on.

Thanks, folks, for trying to help. Here is the solution:

int year, data[3];
char dum;

printf( "Year = " );
scanf( "%d%c", &year, dum );
printf( "data = " );
scanf( "%1d%1d%1d%c", &data[0], &data[1], &data[2], dum );

Apparently the %c takes care of the CR in the first scanf(), leaving the buffer ready for the next one.

What the manual says about this (Harbison and Steele, pg 326) is "Trailing whitespace characters (such as the newline that terminates a line of input) will remain unread unless explicitly matched in the control string. However, doing this may be tricky ..." I had read that, but wasn't bright enough to understand what it meant until I had done a lot of experimentation. Finally got it right.

Again, thanks to you all,

Paul

You need to use &dum, if dum is a char variable.

That will, I suppose, work, but it is overkill since what you had originally worked too.