From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 09/01/2022 22:05, Andy Walker wrote:

On 08/01/2022 17:15, James Harris wrote:

If you are not convinced by formatted io then what kind of io do
you prefer?

     Unformatted transput, of course.  Eg,
   print this, that, these, those and the many other things

OK. I would say that that has /default/ formatting but is still
formatted.

    You can say that if you insist, but ISTM to be an abuse of language.  The point about /formatted/ transput is that the user
prescribes some "mould" into which objects such as integers [for
output] or strings [for input] are "poured" for conversion.  So
we get calls like "printf (some_mould, some_value)".  It's a
useful distinction from unformatted transput, where the user does
not specify any mould.

You seem to be thinking about printing a number using some character set
- perhaps even some particular base, such as decimal. All of those are, surely, kinds of formatting. If the default formatting is decimal, with
no leading zeroes and left justified then that's still a way to format a number.
--
James Harris


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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

On 12/12/2023 16:10, James Harris wrote:

On 09/01/2022 22:05, I wrote:

[...] The point about /formatted/ transput is that the user
prescribes some "mould" into which objects such as integers [for
output] or strings [for input] are "poured" for conversion.  So
we get calls like "printf (some_mould, some_value)".  It's a
useful distinction from unformatted transput, where the user does
not specify any mould.

You seem to be thinking about printing a number using some character
set - perhaps even some particular base, such as decimal. All of
those are, surely, kinds of formatting. If the default formatting is
decimal, with no leading zeroes and left justified then that's still
a way to format a number.

Yes, of course it is, but you have [again] lost the distinction
between a format specified by the programmer and a default. Sometimes
you just want to see the numbers [or whatever]; other times, it matters
to you how they are formatted. In the one case, you don't want to have
to spend time thinking about what format to use [esp while debugging];
in the other, the layout of the output is important. It's more stark on
input; a default read should be able to read what's there if /you/ can, whereas a formatted read can [eg] split up "123abc0456hello" into a
6-digit hex integer, a 4-digit decimal integer and a 5-char string.
OTOH, an unformatted read could split "123abc 456 hello" into a hex
integer, a decimal integer and a string without having to be told how
many characters to allow for each. It's not an /essential/ difference,
just a convenience for real-life users. So it's a reason for a language
to provide both.
--
Andy Walker, Nottingham.
Andy's music pages: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music
Composer of the day: www.cuboid.me.uk/andy/Music/Composers/Mendelssohn
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From Newsgroup: comp.lang.misc

Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> schrieb:

Sometimes
you just want to see the numbers [or whatever]; other times, it matters
to you how they are formatted. In the one case, you don't want to have
to spend time thinking about what format to use [esp while debugging];
in the other, the layout of the output is important.

In Fortran, the former is list-formatted output. Using

write (10,*) asdf

will write the value of the expression asdf to unit 10 in a format
of the compiler's choosing, terminating that record (i.e. writing
a newline).

write (10,'(I4)') asdf

will write the value of asdf, if asdf is an integer, to
unit 10 with a width of four characters, right-justified
and filled up with spaces. If the value does not fit, four
asterisks are written instead. This statement will also terminate

If asdf is not an integer, then this is an error, which is usually
caught by the compiler at either compile or run-time.
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