%a format

[Skip Montanaro]

    John> Is there any reason python's printf-style formatting is missing
    John> the (C99) '%a' specifier?

I suspect because nobody's implemented it yet, most likely because nobody's
needed it.  (Yours is the first mention I've seen of it.)  Python's C
implementation currently supports C89, not C99, and since %a is apparently a
new thing, it's not all that surprising the Python doesn't yet support it.
Can you provide a patch against Objects/stringobject.c in the distribution?
Note that Python uses sprintf() to do its dirty work, so any patch would
have to implement %a itself to remain compatible with C89.

Skip