Fixing Error "formatspecifier" in Visual Studio 2008

[Luongo]

Hi,

My visual studioes is acting very weird the following code:

#include <math.h>
#define GRAVITY 9.81

int main(void)
{
double range;
double angle;
double initspeed;

printf("enter speed\n");
scanf("%lf", &initspeed);

printf("enter angle\n");
scanf("%lf", &angle);

range=(initspeed*initspeed)/GRAVITY*sin(2*angle);
printf("The range is: %f m/s^2\n", range);

system( "PAUSE" );
return 0;
}

gives an error: 1>formatspecifier - 1 error(s), 2 warning(s)
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========

I'm not sure why? My code seems fine does anyone know what the problem may be? I think it's a compiler error.

 

[mgb_phys]

scroll up the error messages and it will tell you which line it doesn't like

 

[MATLABdude]

This might be dumb, but can you use C-style input/output in C++ instead of cin/cout? (Presumably, you're using Visual C++ or Visual C++ Express)

Ah, I think that might be the problem... You probably need to include the cstdio library to access those sorts of instructions (see the C Library section of the link below):
http://www.cplusplus.com/reference/

But yeah, as mgb_phys says, the compiler should tell you which lines your errors are in.

 

[Borek]

This might be dumb, but can you use C-style input/output in C++ instead of cin/cout?

Any reason why not to?

 

[MATLABdude]

Any reason why not to?

Not as long as the right header (stdio.h or cstdio.h) is included! I suppose that you'd also have to include iostream.h to make use of cin/cout.

 

[mgb_phys]

There's nothing wrong with the program.
It's complaining because you don't have "stdio.h" included so it doesn't know about printf/scanf

 

[Borek]

There's nothing wrong with the program.

I expect unexpected output.

 

[Mark44]

I concur with mgb_phys that the code needs to #include <stdio.h> and I believe Borek is correct that it (might) produce some unexpected output.

This %f format specifier in this line should probably be changed to %lf.

printf("The range is: %f m/s^2\n", range);

I would advise reading up on the proper use of the %f and %lf format specifiers used in both scanf() and printf(). They are a little tricky and somewhat nonintuitive.

 

[mgb_phys]

Using %f in printf is perfectly valid, the printf call doesn't need to know how big the float is it can handle that when generating the output.

But in scanf you do need the "lf" so the call knows how big the destination variable is to copy the result into, you can't necessarily copy a float into a double or float at the same address correctly.

 

[Borek]

Using %f in printf is perfectly valid, the printf call doesn't need to know how big the float is it can handle that when generating the output.

Surprise, I was wrong for 25 years