Olson, Arthur David (NIH/NCI) said:
for a 2 character field, it probably doesn't matter, except possibly for the value 0 (where a system that likes %.2d might produce just " 0" if given %02d - the "0" in the format (SysIII variant) requires a leading 0 in the result, or something like that, so for 1, you should get 01, but for 0 ...)
"%02d" means "minimum 2 characters, fill with zeroes" "%.2d" means "minimum 2 digits, no fill"; "%0.2d", "%02.2d", and "%2.2d" all mean the same. For values in the range 0 to 9, both generate "00" to "09". For values like -4, the former generates "-4" and the latter "-04". -- Clive D.W. Feather | Work: <clive@demon.net> | Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 Internet Expert | Home: <clive@davros.org> | Fax: +44 870 051 9937 Demon Internet | WWW: http://www.davros.org | Mobile: +44 7973 377646 Thus plc | |