> Whenever you do lexical analysis on syntax containing numbers. If that was an intention C should have a full set of lexical analysis functions, but it doesn'

> Whenever you do lexical analysis on syntax containing numbers. If that was an intention C should have a full set of lexical analysis functions, but it doesn't (scanf doesn't count). strtol being able to distinguish two error cases and thus being marginally useful for lexical analysis is most likely accidental.