sc - A scanf-like command for formatted input 

EXAMPLES:

sc "%lf%s" "#2 $"			Read a number from the current file
					and put it into numeric global 2,
					read the following string into global
					string 0.

sc "%lf%s" ".bbb $" str:.aaa		Same as above, but read from the user
					string variable .aaa and store the
					number into the user variable .bbb.

ro t:;rt rc:2,5 ptol:3;ro q:;em 2	Get the numbers and relative coordinates
					of all of the stacks
					within 3' of 2,5 and write them in
					~/comb.out; empty stack 2.  Then

sc "%*s%le (%lf,%lf)" "# #1 #2";do w:".test>0" {rt #;co;sc}
					Read the stack numbers and rc's into
					globals #0-#2 one at a time
					(skipping over the first field on
					each line), retrieve each stack and
					combine them in stack2

sc "%lf" stch:1_128;p .numpt1=.test	Read values for 128 chans of stack1
					(unless EOF or non-numeric input is
					encountered) and set the number of chans
					in stack1.

sc "%*%lf" stch:1_128;p .numpt1=.test	Variation on above if input has two
					columns and the channel values are in
					in the 2nd column.

sc "%lf" stch:1_10 stdin:		Read values for 10 chans of stack 1
					from the standard input. 

sc "%lf" ".ra"				Read the value of right ascension of
					stack1 from the current input file.

sc "%s %lf" "$1 #1" stdin:		Read a string and a number (separated by
					a space) from the standard input.

sc sc "%lf%s" "#2 $" w:no		Do not issue a warning message if the 
					end of file marker is reached before 
					the first token was read in. The default 
					is to warn.


DESCRIPTION:

Sc is a command that interfaces directly to the C library function
scanf (see "man -s 3S scanf").  The input may come from a file
(defaults to $HOME/comb.out), a global string, the standard input, or a
string (which may contain string variable(s) of any kind).  The results
may be assigned to any of the header or user variables, global strings,
global variables, or a sequence of channels in stack1.  Up to 10
variables or 16384 channels may be converted in a single command.

Alternately, if the rw: flag is given the only action will be to reopen
the file at its beginning (rewind it).  When reading from the standard
input, the read is terminated when the last token is encountered.

The only conversion characters which will work are:
	s, le, lf, and lg
Header variables are double and require that you use 'l' (e.g., %lf.)
But use 'l' for floats as well as doubles. 

The list of variables to which the results are to be assigned is given
in a string of the form "#4 .rms1 $2 # $8".  It is up to the user to
match the format string to the assignment string.

The header variable .test is set to what scanf returns, i.e. the number
of successful conversions that were made or -1 if EOF was encountered
before the first conversion was made.  A result of less than the
requested number may indicate that there were characters in the file
which didn't match the requested conversion (alphas in a numeric field)
or that EOF was reached after the first conversion.  In the case of
reading into stack1 channels, it will be set to the number of channels
successfully read.  When assigning to stack 1 channels with the stch:
option, the format string is still used, so it should be set to "%le"
(the default) or "%lf" unless you need to skip some of the input.  The
value of .test can be used to set .numpt1 if all of the chans are read
at once.  

If the w: flag is set to "yes" (the default), sc will warn you if EOF
was encountered before the first conversion was made. If EOF was
encountered AFTER the first conversion was made, you will not be warned
until the next read (next use of sc). A bit confusing, but this is
the behavior of scanf.


This document was last updated on Tue Oct 17 16:24:05 EDT 2000 by Marc W. Pound.