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Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: net.bugs
Subject: Re: XENIX 3.0 toupper() and tolower() broken
Message-ID: <6009@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 1-Oct-85 14:09:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: utzoo.6009
Posted: Tue Oct  1 14:09:28 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 1-Oct-85 14:09:28 EDT
References: <764@fisher.UUCP>, <195@chinet.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 18
Keywords: carelessness, idiot-proofing, history

> This is not the only bug running around in toupper/tolower.  While
> some systems have this implementation, other versions (among which
> is the Fortune) do not do any sanity check, they just add/subtract
> 0x20, thus transforming numerals into control codes or letters,
> depending on the direction of conversion...

This was the original definition of toupper/tolower.  It was not a bug;
the domain of legal arguments was letters of the opposite case, period.
This way if you knew the nature of the argument, the overhead of the
check was unnecessary; if you didn't, you were supposed to do the check
first.  So many people were sloppy about it that inadequate domain
checking became a characteristic error when using these macros.  So the
definition was eventually changed.  Implementations that don't check are
not buggy:  they are conforming correctly to an earlier, and arguably less
desirable (certainly less idiot-proof), version of the specs.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry


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