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atof considers locale under linux?
count
Member #5,401
January 2005

I recently tested my game under linux just to see that it doesn't work correctly.
I hunted the problem down to some float values being 0 which should not be.
All those values are converted to float from string using atof().

The problem now is that atof under linux seems to take the locale of my machine into account.

I'm on a german windows xp so normally float values are written like 0,5 not like 0.5.

This code works under windows:

char * c = "0.5";
float f = atof(c); // f = 0.5

But on linux it behaves like this:

char * c1 = "0.5";
char * c2 = "0,5";
float f1 = atof(c1); // f1 = 0
float f2 = atof(c2); // f2 = 0.5

What did I miss?
Why is there the behavior different? And how should I deal with this problem?
I'm very surprised that atof is locale aware! ???

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

It seems atof and strtod are locale dependant. You'll probably want to set the locale to C in your program.

setenv("LC_ALL", "C"); might be all you need. Or if you only want to change the numerics: setenv("LC_NUMERIC", "C");

editInf:

libc might not notice env vars in a running program, I don't know, if it doesn't try:

#include <locale.h>
setlocale(LC_NUMERIC, "C");

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

count
Member #5,401
January 2005

strtod behaves exactly the same.
So i will check out how to set the locale. Never did so with c++.
Did I understand you correctly that "C" is an own locale?

EDIT:
Missed your edit :)
Thanks for the infos! Will try that.

EDIT2:
But why is it different for windows and linux?

Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

Did I understand you correctly that "C" is an own locale?

Yup. Its a simplified locale that libc uses when nothing else is set. Its also the default fairly often if you don't select one on install.

Quote:

But why is it different for windows and linux?

Probably because windows doesn't support "Locales".

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

count
Member #5,401
January 2005

Probably because windows doesn't support "Locales".

Ok. Sounds reasonable.

It is working now.
Thank you very much!
(Forgot to make this a cookie thread :-/)

X-G
Member #856
December 2000
avatar

Windows does support locales. We were bitten by this problem when some code that used sscanf() under MSVC stopped working mysteriously.

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Thomas Fjellstrom
Member #476
June 2000
avatar

X-G said:

Windows does support locales.

Standard libc locale's? or its own notion?

--
Thomas Fjellstrom - [website] - [email] - [Allegro Wiki] - [Allegro TODO]
"If you can't think of a better solution, don't try to make a better solution." -- weapon_S
"The less evidence we have for what we believe is certain, the more violently we defend beliefs against those who don't agree" -- https://twitter.com/neiltyson/status/592870205409353730

count
Member #5,401
January 2005

How did you solve it?
Like Thomas suggested?

X-G
Member #856
December 2000
avatar

Standard libc locale's? or its own notion?

Standard libc locales, yes.

How did you solve it?

setlocale(LC_ALL, "C"); as a hack, fixed it properly by getting rid of sscanf (which is a horrid function anyway).

(EDIT, Protip: Under C++, you can imbue() an iostream with the locale you want.)

--
Since 2008-Jun-18, democracy in Sweden is dead. | 悪霊退散!悪霊退散!怨霊、物の怪、困った時は ドーマン!セーマン!ドーマン!セーマン! 直ぐに呼びましょう陰陽師レッツゴー!

count
Member #5,401
January 2005

X-G said:

Protip: Under C++, you can imbue() an iostream with the locale you want.

Nice! That's pretty useful.

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