Home » Tip Bank » Tasks and Techniques » String Manipulation

Language: C++
Expertise: All

Feb 20, 2001

Sometimes, sprintf() is unavoidable. For example, when compatibility with C is paramount, Sprintf() has a safer version called snprintf(), which doesn't write past its buffer's limits. However, because snprintf() was added to the ANSI standard only recently, many compilers, including Visual C++ 6.0 and C++ Builder 4.0 still don't support it. As a workaround, these compilers offer a function called _snprinf() with the same functionality. _snprintf() is declared in <stdio.h> as a non-standard extension but you can use it as you would use snprintf().