vsscanf – An Implementation for Windows

Environment: VC++ 6.0, Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000

VC++ provides the vsprintf() function but for some strange reason does not provide the complementary vsscanf() function which is available on most Unix systems. The VC++ library defines a static function called input() which is not exposed to end users. This function is exactly what vsscanf() does.

There are two choices that one has:

• Extract the input() source from the VC++ CRT sources and use it in your code.
• Use this alternative implementation

Several C++ implementations exist to plug this hole but most of them do not provide the identical API available on Linux. This implementation enhances the CStringEx::Scanf extension written by Rainer Bauer to provide an identical API to that which is available on Linux.

An example usage of vsscanf() (in a Win32 console application with MFC support) is shown below:

#include “stdafx.h”
#include “vsscanf.h”
CWinApp theApp;
using namespace std;
// ProcessNumEmailMsgs takes variable number of parameters and
// uses vsscanf to parse the parameters.
void ProcessNumEmailMsgs(char *input, char *format, …)
{
  va_list argList;
  va_start(argList, format);
  vsscanf(input, format, argList);
}
int _tmain(int argc, TCHAR* argv[], TCHAR* envp[])
{
  int nRetCode = 0;
  // initialize MFC and print and error on failure
  if (!AfxWinInit( ::GetModuleHandle(NULL),
                   NULL,
                   ::GetCommandLine(),
                   0))
  {
    // TODO: change error code to suit your needs
    cerr << _T(“Fatal Error: MFC initialization failed”) << endl;
    nRetCode = 1;
  }
  else
  {
    int startMsg, endMsg, totalMsg;
    char *input = “Showing 1 – 10 of 100”;
    char *format = “Showing %d – %d of %d”;
    // Variable Number of parameters are passed to this
    // function
    ProcessNumEmailMsgs(input, format, &startMsg, &endMsg, &totalMsg);
    printf(“Input String: %sn”, input);
    printf(“StartMsg    : %dn”, startMsg);
    printf(“EndMsg      : %dn”, endMsg);
    printf(“TotalMsg    : %dn”, totalMsg);
  }
  return nRetCode;
}

Downloads

Download source and demo project – 12 Kb