atof() General Function atof() Convert ASCII strings to floating point double atof(string) char * string; atof converts string into the binary representation of a double- precision floating point number. string must be the ASCII representation of a floating-point number. It can contain a leading sign, any number of decimal digits, and a decimal point. It can be terminated with an exponent, which consists of the let- ter `e' or `E' followed by an optional leading sign and any num- ber of decimal digits. For example, 123e-2 is a string that can be converted by atof. atof ignores leading blanks and tabs; it stops scanning when it encounters any unrecognized character. ***** Example ***** For an example of this function, see the entry for acos. ***** See Also ***** atoi(), atol(), float, general functions, long, printf(), scanf() ***** Notes ***** atof does not check to see if the value represented by string fits into a double. It returns zero if you hand it a string that it cannot interpret. COHERENT Lexicon Page 1