Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!brl-adm!brl-smoke!gwyn
From: gwyn@brl-smoke.ARPA (Doug Gwyn )
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: exit(-1)
Message-ID: <7132@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: 19 Jan 88 15:02:45 GMT
References: <6935@brl-smoke.ARPA> <6983@brl-smoke.ARPA> <7208@ki4pv.uucp> <23160@cca.CCA.COM> <7097@brl-smoke.ARPA> <2306@bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> <304@fig.bbn.com> <7121@brl-smoke.ARPA> <21531@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Reply-To: gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB) <gwyn>)
Organization: Ballistic Research Lab (BRL), APG, MD.
Lines: 11
Keywords: exit, zero

In article <21531@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> leichter@yale-celray.UUCP (Jerry Leichter) writes:
>On the other hand, the NAMES and their respective meanings would make sense
>on any operating system.

No!  Many operating systems cannot return such a variety of termination
statuses.  And it would do little good to have several of them mapped
into the same value.  Plus, there are zillions of possible reasons for
program failure, and any pre-established list cannot cover enough of them.

I think we're doing quite well to get just the two, generic failure and
generic success, standardized.