note 8420 added to sscanf

Actually sscanf()_always_ returns an array if you specify less return variables than format specifiers. i may change this to return a scalar if only a single format specifier exists. Note that sscanf() is (almost) the complete functional equivalent of its "C" counterpart, so you can do the following to get the expected effect : sscanf("SN/2350001","SN/%d",&$serial) The array return was a nicety for PHP. http://www.php.net/manual/function.sscanf.php