sscanf - match substrings in a string

int sscanf( string str, string fmt, mixed var1, mixed var2, ... );

Parse a string 'str' using the format 'fmt'.  The format 'fmt'
consists of text to match against 'str', separated by patterns which
begin with '%'.  The following patterns are supported:

<DL>
* '%%' - matches '%'
* '%x' - matches a hexidecimal number
* '%d' - matches a decimal number
* '%f' - matches a floating point number
* '%(regexp)' - matches anything that matches the regular
expression 'regexp' (see the regexp() efun for details)
* '%s' - matches a string; see below
</DL>

Note that the third and following arguments are NOT expressions; they
must be valid lvalues (locations which can be assigned to).  As
matches are encountered in the string, the corresponding values are
put directly into the third and following arguments.  If a problem
is encountered (either some of the text between patterns doesn't
match, or a pattern can't be matched to the corresponding input)
the number of matches so far is returned, and the remaining arguments
are left unchanged.  If a '*' comes immediately after the '%' in the
format, then that pattern is matched, but not assigned to a variable.
It is counted in the return value.

'%s' is handled as follows.  If it is followed by text, '%s' matches
up the the next ocurrence of the text.  For example, the format
"%sxy%s" will match "fox" to the first %s when used on the string
"foxxybarxyz".  If the %s occurs at the end of the string, the
remainder of the string is matched.  If it is followed immediately
by another pattern, then %s matches up to the first valid match for
the following pattern.  "%s%s" is illegal. 

See also:
 explode,
 replace_string,
 strsrch

 Tim Hollebeek  Beek@ZorkMUD, Lima Bean, IdeaExchange, and elsewhere