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From: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: exit(-1), 0 is sometimes magic
Keywords: exit, zero, flaming
Message-ID: <1868@bsu-cs.UUCP>
Date: 16 Jan 88 19:04:11 GMT
References: <502@cresswell.quintus.UUCP> <6935@brl-smoke.ARPA> <1179@wjvax.UUCP> <6983@brl-smoke.ARPA> <7208@ki4pv.uucp> <23160@cca.CCA.COM> <1843@bsu-cs.UUCP> <2305@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU>
Reply-To: dhesi@bsu-cs.UUCP (Rahul Dhesi)
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana
Lines: 24
Posted: Sat Jan 16 14:04:11 1988

I gave a number of example attempting to show that zero is inherently
a unique integer and therefore not a "magic number" in the usual
sense of the term.

In article <2305@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> eichin@athena.mit.edu (Mark W.
Eichin) gives a number of counter arguments.

I respond thus.

Zero symmetrically divides the number line.  If one had to choose ONE
of the values on the number line as being unique, it would have to be
zero.  It is the only value that isn't arbitrary, the only one that
doesn't have a mirror-image counterpart (of opposite sign), the only
one that can't be a legal divisor, the only one that, in short,
stands out as "different" from all the other values.

It seems to make perfect sense to me that in the non-VMS world in which
a single successful termination value, and multiple failure termination
values, are needed, zero should be the successful termination value.

Therefore the use of exit(0) for successful termination is not
arbitrary.  It is intuitively correct.
-- 
Rahul Dhesi         UUCP:  <backbones>!{iuvax,pur-ee,uunet}!bsu-cs!dhesi