Re: sys_nerr and strerror()

From: Dancer <dancer@dont-contact.us>
Date: Mon, 26 Jul 1999 19:10:10 +1000

"Jens-S. Voeckler" wrote:
>
> On Sat, 24 Jul 1999, Henrik Nordstrom wrote:
>
> ]> supported by the 64 bit environment any longer. On the other hand,
> ]> strerror() is guaranteed to return a NULL pointer for illegal error
> ]> numbers. I don't know if that is always true on all platforms (doubt it,
> ]> though), or even if it is prescribed by POSIX.
> ]
> ]I don't have access to the POSIX standard document, but the Open Group
> ]"The Single UNIX ® Specification, Version 2" does not guarantee that
> ]strerror returns NULL for unknown errors:
> ]
> ] On error errno may be set, but no return value is
> ] reserved to indicate an error.
>
> So, what is "no return value"? An undefined value? A null pointer? The

Any valid value that can be returned in a pointer. In most cases, I
think you'll find that it's something like the pointer to the EGREGIOUS
error string...but the notion is probably that if strerror goes wrong,
you're screwed anyway.

> guarantee I was talking about was just an empiric study of Solaris 7/64.
> Anyway, would the Squid gurus have me continue poking into the Squid/64?
> Not that I have much time left for it ;-)
>
> ]The strerror() interface is also not required to be reentrant. Not that
> ]it matters much.
>
> Le deagh dhùrachd,
> Dipl.-Ing. Jens-S. Vöckler (voeckler@rvs.uni-hannover.de)
> Institute for Computer Networks and Distributed Systems
> University of Hanover, Germany; +49 511 762 4726
Received on Tue Jul 29 2003 - 13:15:59 MDT

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