From owner-bug-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu  Wed Dec 18 16:13:05 1996
Subject: Re: fscanf reads strange values on Octave 2.0 /linux
From: "John W. Eaton" <jwe at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu>
To: Tapani Stipa <stipa at kuohu dot fimr dot fi>
Cc: bug-octave at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu
Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 16:12:26 -0600

On 18-Dec-1996, Tapani Stipa <stipa at kuohu dot fimr dot fi> wrote:

: As a first number in my data file, I have the date 9508150000. When I
: try to read this as a floating point number into Octave, it gives
: 9508150272. When I read it as a string, it is fine.
: 
: I think the significant digits should suffice for this?

For a double, yes.  For a float, no.

If you use "%lf", I think you will get the result you expect.

However, I'm not sure that Octave should try to follow the semantics
of C this closely.  Perhaps it would be more useful if "%f" and "%lf"
were equivalent.  Does anyone have any strong opinions either way?

Thanks,

jwe