title: What does this statement mean ? printf("[%.*s] ", (int) lengths[i],
body: <p>I was reading this page 
  <a href="http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysql-fetch-row.html" rel="nofollow">http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/mysql-fetch-row.html</a>
  there is one line </p>
  
  <pre><code>printf("[%.*s] ", (int) lengths[i],
                row[i] ? row[i] : "NULL");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>from code </p>
  
  <pre><code>    MYSQL_ROW row;
  unsigned int num_fields;
  unsigned int i;
  
  num_fields = mysql_num_fields(result);
  while ((row = mysql_fetch_row(result)))
  {
     unsigned long *lengths;
     lengths = mysql_fetch_lengths(result);
     for(i = 0; i &lt; num_fields; i++)
     {
         printf("[%.*s] ", (int) lengths[i],
                row[i] ? row[i] : "NULL");
     }
     printf("\n");
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>}</p>
  
  <p>what does <code>[%.*s]</code> mean in that code ?</p>