On Sep 17, 2008, at 6:16 AM, Malcolm J. Currie wrote:
> I'd be reluctant to change the API of such a low-level library that's
> widely used. While we could change the Starlink code, it may have
> unforeseen impacts elsewhere. Likewise the different token operators
> have been around for twenty-odd years, and I'd be wary of changing
> those too.
Well, the aim was to *not* change the API. But it's simply too much
effort to try to work out whether sprintf will be required. I went
into this assuming that variable args could be counted but since it's
not possible to know how many optional arguments are being used the
string has to be parsed to try to determine whether any are expected.
If I could work out whether any optional args were present then it
would be trivial to retain compatibility with the existing API without
any hoops (simply saying that optional args can only be used if you
are prepared to escape % and not use %ET etc).
--
Tim Jenness
Joint Astronomy Centre
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