scan string format varname1 ?varname2 ...? This command parses fields from an input string in the same fashion as the C sscanf procedure. String gives the input to be parsed and format indicates how to parse it, using % fields as in sscanf. All of the sscanf options are valid; see the sscanf man page for details. Each varname gives the name of a variable; when a field is scanned from string, the result is converted back into a string and assigned to the corresponding varname. The only unusual conversion is for %c. For %c conversions a single character value is converted to a decimal string, which is then assigned to the corresponding varname; no field width may be specified for this conversion.