Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!wuarchive!psuvax1!psuvm!dxb132
From: DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.programmer
Subject: Re: What's wrong with negative return values?
Message-ID: <91081.230556DXB132@psuvm.psu.edu>
Date: 23 Mar 91 04:05:56 GMT
References: <1991Mar22.080144.23112@ccu.umanitoba.ca>
 <91081.211415UH2@psuvm.psu.edu>
Organization: Penn State University
Lines: 14

In article <91081.211415UH2@psuvm.psu.edu>, Lee Sailer <UH2@psuvm.psu.edu> says:

>for me, too.  Specifically, it prints out "Goodbye, cruel world."
>Then it says, Unable to load "cruel"

I think negative return codes are basically reserved for cases where you
want to tell the user that what he just tried to execute was not a real
executable file. Examples are libraries and devices, which usually start with
moveq #-1,d0 / rts in case the user tries to run them.

This is an (unpublished) convention...different shells could handle return
codes in totally different ways. (But let's hope not :-)

-- Dan Babcock