why does sscanf() does not interpret number length attributes?

[Kay Sievers]

I needed a conversion from hex-string to integer and found
this mail from Linus suggesting sscanf:

http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=101414195507893&w=2

but sscanf in linux-2.5/lib/vsprintf.c interpretes length attributes
only when the type is a string. It uses simple_strtoul() and it will
read the buffer until it finds a non-(hex)digit.

int i;
char str[] ="34AFFE45XYZ";
sscanf(str, "%1x", &i);

i will be '0x34AFFE45' instead of the expected '3'.

Is this behaviour intended or is just nobody caring about?

thanks
Kay