Path: utzoo!censor!geac!torsqnt!hybrid!scifi!bywater!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!jsq
From: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)
Newsgroups: comp.std.unix
Subject: Re: Is there a standard prototype for `execvp'?
Message-ID: <17528@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 31 Jan 91 19:03:16 GMT
References: <17501@cs.utexas.edu>
Sender: jsq@cs.utexas.edu
Organization: U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory, APG, MD.
Lines: 20
Approved: jsq@cs.utexas.edu (Moderator, John S. Quarterman)
X-Submissions: std-unix@uunet.uu.net

Submitted-by: gwyn@smoke.brl.mil (Doug Gwyn)

In article <17501@cs.utexas.edu> rfg@lupine.uucp (Ron Guilmette) writes:
>Are they "POSIX-conformant" with respect to the qualifiers used to
>declare the types of their formals?

Since "POSIX" did not specify the qualifiers, a conforming implementation
need not provide them in any prototypes in the standard/POSIX headers.
If the implementor wants to be "helpful", he could through judicious use
of "const*" improve the compile-time error checking, but that is not
required.  In a related note in another newsgroup I observe that
"const*const*" is not only not helpful, it is actually harmful and
should not be used in place of "**" in such prototypes.

Basically P1003 didn't have enough qualified people-time to revise the
1003.1 draft to convert it to give genuine prototypes.  However, I would
recommends that all future C bindings do so; it's much cleaner than the
hybrid "UNIX man page SYNOPSIS" format that has been traditionally used.

Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 94