Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!3comvax!bridge2!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: sprintf(3s) query
Message-ID: <664@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 9 Dec 88 17:54:04 GMT
References: <1102@entropy.ms.washington.edu> <9108@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 10

>Actually the VAX version is wrong.  sprintf() is supposed to return int.
>This wasn't clearly specified in the "good old days", and since one
>implementation accidentally returned the buffer address, somebody thought
>that was supposed to be the definition.

Err, umm, accidentally or deliberately?  It wasn't specified *at all* in
the V7 documentation, as I remember, but at least one piece of *System
III* thought it should return the buffer address (one of the SCCS
commands) - which is kind of amusing, considering the behavior had been
changed by then.