From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!lime!burdvax!oster Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Title: Re: %r format item in some printf implementations Article-I.D.: burdvax.167 Posted: Mon Sep 20 07:56:41 1982 Received: Tue Sep 21 06:15:40 1982 Re: "Due to the lack of a clearly portable way to provide routines like: warn("Cannot open %s", filename); Steve Daniel (duke!mcnc!swd) used the following for "A news": char bfr[BIGENOUGH]; /* handy global buffer */ ... sprintf(bfr, "Cannot open %s", filename); warn(bfr);" The trouble with this is, that among the things %r stands for, it stands for "recursive" -- if the argument that matches the %r itself has %r's in it, the above will bomb. Since implementation of printf is compiler and hardware dependent anyway, you might as well bite the bullet and implement the whole thing.