SAMPLE: Code Replaces sscanf in Windows DLLs

 Last reviewed: February 15, 1996
Article ID: Q76684
The information in this article applies to:
  • Microsoft Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) for Windows versions 3.0 and 3.1

SUMMARY

The Microsoft C run-time library function sscanf is not compatible for use with a dynamic-link library (DLL) for the Microsoft Windows graphical environment.

WSSCANF is a file in the Software Library that can serve as a limited replacement for this function.

Download WSSCANF.EXE, a self-extracting file, from the Microsoft Software Library (MSL) on the following services:

  • Microsoft Download Service (MSDL) 

          Dial (206) 936-6735 to connect to MSDL
      Download WSSCANF.EXE (size: 21212 bytes)
  • Internet (anonymous FTP) 

          ftp ftp.microsoft.com
      Change to the \SOFTLIB\MSLFILES directory
      Get WSSCANF.EXE (size: 21212 bytes)

MORE INFORMATION

The sscanf(), fprintf(), and scanf() functions are not available for Windows DLLs.

There are two factors that cause these functions to be incompatible:

  1. These functions rely on near pointers.

  2. These functions expect SS == DS.

Because neither of these conditions is true when a function in a DLL uses data from an application, these functions are not available.

The WSSCANF file in the Software Library contains the source code to a wsscanf() function that can serve as a limited replacement for the sscanf function. It does not support floating point. The wsscanf() code is based on the sscanf() source code in the Microsoft C 6.0a run-time library. The source code has been modified to work correctly in a DLL, and requires that all parameters are specified as FAR pointers. The following code demonstrates using the wsscanf() function: 

   char   szBuf[] = "1 3 b000:0200";
   int    nValue1, nValue2;
   LPSTR  lpPtr;

   wsscanf(szBuf, "%d %d %p", (int FAR *)&nValue1,
            (int FAR *)&nValue2, (LPSTR FAR *)&lpPtr);
NOTE: The first two parameters are not explicitly typecast in the function call. The function prototype typecasts the first two parameters automatically; however, the application must typecast each subsequent parameter. If the application does not typecast each parameter, when the application calls wsscanf an unrecoverable application error (UAE) occurs.

The wsscanf() function does not support floating point numbers (the %f, %g, and %e format specifiers).

Additional reference words: 3.00 3.10 softlib WSSCANF.EXE
KBCategory: kbprg kbfile
KBSubcategory: TlsMisc

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Last reviewed: February 15, 1996
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