On 23/10/10 13:38, Alan Gauld wrote:
"Steven D'Aprano" <st...@pearwood.info> wrote
It would have to be a *very* old version. The use of * as the width
parameter in format strings goes back to the Dark Ages of Python 1.5:
...
I believe this is a virtual copy of string formatting from C, in which
case it probably goes back to the 80s or even the 70s.
This got me wondering so I dug out my copy of the original K&R (1978)
and there is no mention of * in the format specifiers description.
(There is for scanf but there it is a field suppressor)
I don't have an ANSI C version of K&R at home so can't say if it got
added as part of the ANSI C process - around 1990? - but neither
of my ANSI C books mention it either.
So it may not be a part of C after all.
Interesting, I wonder where it did first appear?
Alan G.
It is indeed in the ANSI version of K&R.
"Width or precision or both may be specified as *, in which case the
value is computed by converting the next argument(s), which must be
int." (The C Programming Language; B. W. Kernighan, D. M. Ritchie; 1988)
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