Extended Data Formatting Using Sfio

The ANSI-C Standard defines Stdio as the I/O library for C programs. Despite its ubiquitous use, Stdio has well-documented deficiencies in various areas including data formatting. The Sfio library provides an alternative to Stdio with improved functionality; robustness and performance. In particular, Sfio extends the data formatting functions so that applications can deal with arbitrary scalar objects, avoid unsafe operations and even define their own conversion patterns. This paper discusses these formatting enhancements.