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From: truesdel@sun217..nas.nasa.gov (David A. Truesdell)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: POSIX
Message-ID: <3600@amelia.nas.nasa.gov>
Date: 27 Oct 89 05:03:15 GMT
References: <3819@ast.cs.vu.nl> <1989Oct26.143100.4916@world.std.com> <3842@math.cs.vu.nl>
Sender: news@amelia.nas.nasa.gov
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ast@cs.vu.nl (Andy Tanenbaum) writes:
>Perhaps it wasn't a bug previously, but has to be regarded as a bug now
>because POSIX explicitly requires a call to closedir() with a rotten
>argument to return EBADF, not to crash, trap or do anything else. (See
>Sec. 5.1.2.4 of P1003.1).

I bet to differ!  I consider this to be pointing out a bug in the implementation
of free().  Calling free(), with a grabage pointer, shouldn't result in a
trap either.  It shouldn't be layed at the feet of a portable library package
to work around possible bugs in the underlying environment.

A call to free() should (IMHO) result in either the storage being added
to the free pool, if a valid looking header is found, or no action at all
if garbage is presented.


T.T.F.N.,
dave truesdell (truesdel@prandtl.nas.nasa.gov)