Is there any reason to use scanf or fscanf over fgets+sscanf

Question

Since you're not reading from the stream it seems much more flexible. Both to mention that since you can easily change the timing/code location of the reads then you can with ac stream(am I wrong, can you make strings, ect into c FILE * streams)?

Plus, I don't know I just feel a bit odd about scanf . Any pros/cons to scanf would be appreciated.

Edit: I meant the use of scanf or fscanf vs the combo of fgets+sscanf

Answer 1

This is well addressed in the C FAQ .

Why does everyone say not to use scanf? What should I use instead?

If you are reading from a trusted file (NOT stdin ), there's no point in using fgets + sscanf instead of fscanf . Indeed using scanf (reading from stdin ) is problematic.

Answer 2

If you were expecting an integer but you read a floating point or some other incompatible type, you can check the return value of scanf . If it returns zero, then you didn't read an integer - but with fgets you can't do that. Also, by checking the return value of scanf you can see the number of items read.