GENERAL: LIMIT STRING OUTPUT IN PRINTF USING %S

Information in this article applies to:

• C51 Version 7 or higher
• CX51 Version 7 or higher
• C251 Version 2 or higher
• C166 Version 4 or higher
• CARM any Version

QUESTION

I am using the following sprintf statement to limit a string output. However it outputs more than the 5 characters specified. In fact, it even outputs a new line ('\n') sequence that is part of str.

  sprintf (buf, "string = %5s", str)

Is this a problem with the Keil C Compiler?

ANSWER

No, this is standard ANSI behaviour. You need to specify a precision (number after the dot '.') in the %s format parameter to limit size of the string printed. The precision field is a non-negative number that specifies the number of characters to print.

Example:

  sprintf (buf, "string = %.5s", str)

Using this format string, the string passed by str will be truncated after five characters.

MORE INFORMATION

• Refer to printf in the Cx51 User's Guide.
• Refer to printf in the C166 User's Guide.
• Refer to printf in the CARM User's Guide.
• You may wish to refer to a good General Programming Book like The C Programming Language by Kernigan & Ritchie.

Last Reviewed: Friday, July 15, 2005