Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ucla-cs!rutgers!cmcl2!kramden.acf.nyu.edu!brnstnd
From: brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein)
Newsgroups: comp.sources.d
Subject: Re: v01INF1: Status - Status of comp.sources.reviewed
Message-ID: <1307:Apr1702:20:0991@kramden.acf.nyu.edu>
Date: 17 Apr 91 02:20:09 GMT
References: <1991Apr14.232818.15851@athena.mit.edu> <12409:Apr1513:14:4 <1991Apr16.131650.24389@scuzzy.in-berlin.de>
Organization: IR
Lines: 30

In article <1991Apr16.131650.24389@scuzzy.in-berlin.de> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume) writes:
> brnstnd@kramden.acf.nyu.edu (Dan Bernstein) writes:
> >> |> Yes. I invite you---any of you---to explain what comp.sources.reviewed
> >> |> would have done for my latest package, volume24/yabbawhap in c.s.unix.
> i would have told you that it lacks basic error checking.
> try it on a full filesystem some time.

Okay, I just did; it quit with ``yabba: fatal: output error'' when the
filesystem filled up. I assume putchar() returned EOF, and since the
code tests for EOF throughout, there's no way an output error could have
slipped through.

What's the problem? Perhaps you accidentally tested compress instead of
yabba; compress does not test for I/O errors. Or did you see some
problem in the code? It's true that ``output error'' isn't too helpful,
but I didn't want to sacrifice portability just to get UNIX error
messages. I welcome suggestions for how to solve this.

If you ever do find a bug in my code, by the way, you should post it to
comp.sources.bugs as well as sending it to me. Thanks. I hope, by the
way, that reviews in comp.sources.reviewed are slightly more useful,
informative, or at least comprehensive than the above report. I would
recommend that in future reports you list your system architecture and
OS, as well as compile options, and explain the circumstances under
which you saw whatever behavior you say you saw. You might start by
looking at FORMLETTER in the yabbawhap package---out of the hundred or
so reports I've received on yabbawhap, more than ninety used FORMLETTER
to reply. (Yeah, I was surprised by this too.)

---Dan