Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!jarthur!usc!wuarchive!emory!gatech!mcnc!duke!bent.mc.duke.edu!bet
From: bet@bent.mc.duke.edu (Bennett Todd -- gaj)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Error checking/reporting library
Summary: I'll post it -- where?
Message-ID: <21728@duke.cs.duke.edu>
Date: 29 Oct 90 20:25:51 GMT
Sender: news@duke.cs.duke.edu
Organization: Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC
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Nntp-Posting-Host: bent.mc.duke.edu


Yow! I mentioned a library I wrote, and I've gotten a steady rain of
requests for it. I'll post it -- somewhere. Are there any general sources
groups that aren't defunct right now?

The point to this library is to make it easier for me to get programs
written. It includes three kinds of things, basically. First, it always
#includes a file <libc.h> (which I wrote, which I include) which documents,
for the compiler, the full ANSI function prototype information for most
everything out of sections 2 and 3 of the UPM. I'll probably axe this if and
when I get ANSI compliant header files for /usr/include. I ain't got 'em
now. Second, for most of the routines I call at all, it contains routines
whose names are prefixed with 'e', which don't return unless they succeed.
If there is an error they fprintf a suitable message to stderr and exit.
Third, there are some additional routines I use occasionally, which just
make my life easier. Oddballs like standrand, a linear congruential PRNG
whose sole claim to fame is an actual honest to god literature reference
justifying it. Then there's soundex(3), which generates amusing hash
keys:-). And my favorite, getline(3). The brute force answer to gets(3). It
won't overflow the buffer. And it won't truncate the line.

So anyway, I wanna post this. Will people dump all over me and crucify me
and so on if I just slide it up here? This is where all the folks who asked
me to mail it to them saw it.... Is comp.sources.misc working? This really
isn't a package of the scope, or the polish, to justify comp.sources.unix.

I guess what I'd like is for folks who feel strongly about whether I should
post this thing (two shar archives, one 38K, the other 47K) to
comp.unix.internals, to send me mail. Lemme know if you really think I
shouldn't post it here (and suggest a more apt place, please). Lemme know if
you'd ruther I just posted it in the discussion group and the heck with it.

-Bennett
bet@orion.mc.duke.edu