an integer, having at most 6 decimal digits;
    <code class="code">%4f</code> reads a float with at most 4 characters; and <code class="code">%8[\000-\255]</code>
    returns the next 8 characters (or all the characters still available,
    if fewer than 8 characters are available in the input).</p>

<p>Notes:</p>

<ul>
<li>as mentioned above, a <code class="code">%s</code> conversion always succeeds, even if there is
      nothing to read in the input: in this case, it simply returns <code class="code"><s