reading formatted strings: readf("%s", &stringvar)

[Tyro[17]]

On Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 15:14:07 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
wrote:
> On 3/27/12 6:54 AM, Tyro[17] wrote:
>> On Tuesday, 27 March 2012 at 00:05:51 UTC, Andrei Alexandrescu 
>> wrote:
>>> On 3/26/12 2:52 PM, Tyro[17] wrote:
>>>> Couldn't the state of stdin be checked upon entrance into 
>>>> readf
>>>> and reopened if it is already closed?
>>>
>>> That won't work.
>>
>> But this does:
> [snip]
>
> Very interesting! But then what if people press Ctrl-C? That 
> would end the input instead of ending the program.
>
>> Could that technique be used to implement readf for stdin?
>
> I don't think we should pursue this path.
>
>>>> Wouldn't that accomplish the desired effect while avoiding
>>>> the pitfalls of scanf?
>>>
>>> I don't think this is a pitfall. Essentially you don't have a
>>> definition of what constitutes a chunk of input. Once you get 
>>> that
>>> define, you should be able to express it more or less easily.
>>>
>>
>> I'm of the opinion that Ctrl-D defines the boundary of that
>> chunk of input. We simply have to prevent it from closing
>> the stream when working with stdin.
>
> You're in a sparse minority at best. Every Unix application out 
> there uses Ctrl-D for end-of-console-input, and your users 
> would be surprised by your exotic use of it.

Point taken.

> Why not pick any other character for end of chunk - double 
> newline, Ctrl-S, pretty much anything but Ctrl-D? It's a waste 
> of your time to fight a long-established standard.
>

Thanks for the clarification. That's me just not knowing. I've
settled on  Ctrl-X (\x018) because i have access to it without
doing anything special as opposed to Ctrl-S and no operating
system (as far as I know) uses it as a Command line shortcut.
Thanks for keeping the conversation going so I could find a
solution. Now, is it too much it the standard terminator
for string input from stdin?

>
> Andrei

Andrew