Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!unisoft!greywolf
From: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.programmer
Subject: Re: System call error handling
Message-ID: <3354@unisoft.UUCP>
Date: 6 Feb 91 23:51:13 GMT
References: <14994:Feb207:10:4791@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <27AD7A46.343B@tct.uucp> <10210:Feb505:10:2991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <27AEF248.6C25@tct.uucp>
Reply-To: greywolf@unisoft.UUCP (The Grey Wolf)
Organization: Foo Bar and Grill
Lines: 27

(Dan Bernstein) writes:
[ much deleted to cast a long story to a short one; ]
>>Die with a fatal error, possibly killing a truly critical system program
>>running under pty?

Dan, what in *hell* are you doing running a truly critical system program
under pty in the first place?  I mean, is it *really* necessary?

Truly critical system programs should be run from a real shell.

>
>>Chip, be reasonable. You can't demand of system programs that they check
>>for external system consistency at every step.

If you don't do this, you're setting yourself up for a MAJOR loss.
Moreover, if you're running Truly Critical System Programs that DON'T
check for some degree of sanity, you're just asking for trouble.  Most
system programs that I know of do sanity checks reasonably often.

(Kernels seem to have a problem with this on occasion :-), but that's
another story.)

-- 
thought:  I ain't so damb dumn!	| Your brand new kernel just dump core on you
war: Invalid argument		| And fsck can't find root inode 2
				| Don't worry -- be happy...
...!{ucbvax,acad,uunet,amdahl,pyramid}!unisoft!greywolf