In article <Pine.NEB.4.53.0304071310050.1632@server.duh.org> you write:
>On Mon, 7 Apr 2003, David Laight wrote:
>
>: > This is a severe problem.  I've seen other code which depends on basename
>: > returning an in-situ pointer, and the change to libc (without versioning the
>: > call because of the ABI change) is alarming.
>:
>: Such code is non-portable (aka broken).
>
>However, it was relying on a historic behavior of basename() that is *not*
>uncommon -- and *was* the behavior in NetBSD prior to the change.

Has anyone come up with any rationale _for_ the change?  "It's permitted by
X/Open" is hardly much of a reason on its own.

>(See what I said about versioning the call because of the ABI change.  This
>is about compatibiltiy with a precompiled executable, not compiling anew.)

That could be said for any change to the system's behaviour.  For instance,
the change to top-down allocation of mmap'ed space might break a
particularly silly application, but that didn't mean that we needed to
version the ABI for it.  Versioning the ABI is only sensible when an
application compiled before a change would break after it, but would work if
recompiled after the change.

-- 
Ben Harris