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I want to find C source code for scanf implementation on Linux machine. Googling to find scanf implementation does not tell me the way to find it. I tried to find that source code from gcc source tree using ctags and cscope, but I could not find it. Can anybody please tell me where is scanf function definition, i.e. implementation source code?

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You can often obtain this information directly via your distribution. It's easy with Debian/Ubuntu, for example. What is your distribution? – Faheem Mitha Oct 16 '15 at 8:32
    
It's Ubuntu 12.04 LTS – freddy Oct 16 '15 at 8:33
up vote 6 down vote accepted

It's in glibc library scanf.c source

glibc stands for GNU C Library. It is a C standard library implementation. It's not a part of the compiler, because you might have different implementations of it (like Microsoft C run-time for example) as well as different compilers (like clang).

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Thank you for quick answer! could you please elaborate why that source code is not included(?) in my gcc source tree? I don't know what glibc does(support) for my hello_world program. – freddy Oct 16 '15 at 8:21
    
It's the primary library of functions and definitions for C programs. It contains the function you are looking for scanf() – X Tian Oct 16 '15 at 8:34
3  
Just worth pointing out that other C standard libraries and therefore scanf implementations exist as well, e.g. uClibc: github.com/ffainelli/uClibc/blob/master/libc/stdio/_scanf.c – phk Oct 16 '15 at 8:52

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