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Subject:  Re: Don't use Scanf()

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From:         Henry Spencer <henry at utzoo.uucp>
Subject:      Re: Don't use Scanf()
Comments: To: info-c at BRL-SMOKE.arpa
To:           Vic Kapella <SXJVK at ALASKA>

>     For example, if you want to print a string fast, you would write
> a routine that uses only putc...

!!NO!!  If you want to print a string fast, you use fputs and insist that
your supplier implements it properly.  Putc has to do things like buffer-
overflow checking on every character; a fast implementation of fputs can
inspect the buffer *once*, note that there is room for N more characters,
copy N characters at high speed, and then update counts and so forth *once*.
This is a major efficiency win over putc if you are doing it a lot.

Unfortunately, not all implementors make the effort to make stdio fast.
In general, System V stdios are fast and 4BSD ones are not.  (There are
exceptions to this, both ways, and I believe the 4BSD one is going to be
improved.)
--
Those who do not understand Unix are |  Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
condemned to reinvent it, poorly.    | {allegra,ihnp4,decvax,utai}!utzoo!henry