Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!std-unix From: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown) Newsgroups: comp.std.unix Subject: Re: open file range Message-ID: <8301@ut-sally.UUCP> Date: Thu, 18-Jun-87 12:12:39 EDT Article-I.D.: ut-sally.8301 Posted: Thu Jun 18 12:12:39 1987 Date-Received: Mon, 22-Jun-87 02:12:25 EDT References: <8271@ut-sally.UUCP> Sender: std-unix@ut-sally.UUCP Reply-To: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown) Organization: Computer Science Department, Edinburgh University Lines: 32 Approved: jsq@sally.utexas.edu (Moderator, John Quarterman) From: simon@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Simon Brown) In article <8271@ut-sally.UUCP> Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) writes: >From: Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) > >I submitted a proposal to X3J11 that fflush((FILE*)NULL) would >flush ALL output buffers, since there is no other good way to >accomplish that. It seems that close(-1) might be a similar >solution for POSIX. (Since nobody is supposed to be doing this >currently, it is available for assigning new semantics to.) > Arghhh, no! Don't do that! Ok, it might seem a truly wonderful idea, but it would mean that things like fd = open(some-random-filename,something); do-something-bizarre-with-fd; close(fd); will do a "close(-1)" if the open happened to fail for some reason or other, which is harmless at the moment (just returns -1, errno=EBADF), but would be a bit tragic with this new semantics! Yes, I know this isn't a problem if everyone always checks the return-value from open(), creat(), etc..., but lots of programs aren't that pessimistic! -- ---------------------------------- | Simon Brown | UUCP: seismo!mcvax!ukc!{its63b,cstvax}!simon | Department of Computer Science | JANET: simon@uk.ac.ed.{its63b,cstvax} | University of Edinburgh, | ARPA: simon%{its63b,cstvax}.ed.ac.uk ... | Scotland, UK. | @cs.ucl.ac.uk ---------------------------------- "Life's like that, you know" Volume-Number: Volume 11, Number 74