From 172106717d8dabd9c96d5f2daeae4c24cd8c0b1e Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Axel Kohlmeyer <akohlmey@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 30 Sep 2022 15:05:41 -0400
Subject: [PATCH] must match the entire string

---
 src/variable.cpp | 2 +-
 1 file changed, 1 insertion(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/src/variable.cpp b/src/variable.cpp
index 61e29f4186..1142c6b27b 100644
--- a/src/variable.cpp
+++ b/src/variable.cpp
@@ -389,7 +389,7 @@ void Variable::set(int narg, char **arg)
   //   3rd is filled on retrieval
 
   } else if (strcmp(arg[1],"format") == 0) {
-    constexpr char validfmt[] = "% ?-?[0-9]*\\.?[0-9]*[efgEFG]";
+    constexpr char validfmt[] = "^% ?-?[0-9]*\\.?[0-9]*[efgEFG]$";
     if (narg != 4) error->all(FLERR,"Illegal variable command: expected 4 arguments but found {}", narg);
     int ivar = find(arg[0]);
     if (ivar >= 0) {