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A double argument representing a floating-point number is converted in the
style ?0xh.hhhh p±d, where there is one hexadecimal digit (which is
nonzero if the argument is a normalized floating-point number and is
otherwise unspecified) before the decimal-point character (ISO/IEC 9899:TC3 §7.19.6.1)

Relying on the %a and %A specifiers to not produce values with a leading zero is error prone.

Noncompliant Code Example

TODOThis noncompliant code relies on the %a specifier to produce a result starting with 0x1. or -0x1.
This behavior is guaranteed only for normalized numbers, but may fail for non-normalized values.

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#include <stdio.h>
#include <string.h>

/* Return the index of the first non-zero hexadecimal
   double in the string line. Return NULL if there is
   no double is present in line. */
static char *findHexDouble(char *line) {
  char *index1 = strstr(line, "-0x1.");
  char *index2 = strstr(line, "0x1.");

  if (index1 == NULL && index2 == NULL) {
    return NULL;
  }
  else if (index1 == NULL) {
    return index2;
  }
  return (index1 < index2) ? index1 : index2;
}

static void printDouble(double val) {
  char buf[64];
  char *convertedDouble;
  sprintf(buf, "%.8a", val);
  convertedDouble = findHexDouble(buf);
  if (convertedDouble != NULL) {
    printf("%e is a double\n", val);
  }
  else {
    printf("%e is not a double\n", val);
  }
}

int main() {
  double tiny = 0x1.0p-1020;
  int i;
  for (i = 0; i < 6; i++) {
    printDouble(tiny);
    tiny /= 2;
  }
}

On a 32-bit Linux machine using GCC 4.3.2 this code produces the following output

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 TODO

8.900295e-308 is a double
4.450148e-308 is a double
2.225074e-308 is a double
1.112537e-308 is not a double
5.562685e-309 is not a double
2.781342e-309 is not a double

Compliant Solution

TODO

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 TODO

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