DN>> The scanf() functions are difficult to use at best, and something
 DN>> probably  best avoided by a novice user (use fgets()). They are,

 FA> I certainly do avoid it :)
 FA> Is there any way of aborting input in scanf() ?
 FA> I mean detecting  on an empty line.
 FA> That was the primary reason why i stopped using it.

That depends entirely on what your parser string is, but yes, this is
indeed one of the problems.  You should understand that scanf() and family
is for *parsing data*, not providing a user interface. When the latter is
important (ie. when use interactively), then you need to be a bit more
clever at what is done, namely:

   if (fgets(buffer,buflen,fp)==NULL)
     abort ...
   if ((p=strchr(buffer,'\n'))  /* chop off newline */
     *p = '\0';
   if (sscanf(buffer,pattern,args...)==number_of_parse) {
     /* do your processing */
   }

And at this point, you're free to provide OTHER patterns on the same
string, which is something you don't get an opportunity to do with scanf(),
not to mention that the problem you mention does not exist.

--- MaltEd/2 1.0.b6