Re: style, sysexits(3), and man RETURN VALUES for sys programs

[tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost]

Le Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 12:25:01PM +0000, Taylor R Campbell a écrit :
> > Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2023 14:12:21 +0200
> > From: tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost
> > 
> > Le Sat, Jun 03, 2023 at 12:02:20PM +0000, Taylor R Campbell a écrit :
> > > > Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2023 13:45:44 +0200
> > > > From: tlaronde%polynum.com@localhost
> > > > 
> > > > So I suggest to add a mention of sysexits(7) to style.
> > > 
> > > I don't think sysexits(7) is consistently used enough, or really
> > > useful enough, to warrant being a part of the style guide.  Very few
> > > programs, even those in src, use it, and I don't think anything
> > > _relies_ on it for semantics in calling programs.
> > 
> > But I think it is a loss of information to put everything in
> > EXIT_FAILURE. All in all, the majority of scripts will simply test
> > against 0, so being more fine grained (there are only 15 exit values at
> > the moment) doesn't cause problems and, IMHO, adds some value that can
> > be useful.
> 
> It's not really a loss of information: usually the error message
> printed to stderr is much more informative.
> 
> The question is whether it's useful for composition, so that calling
> programs can make meaningful decisions to take useful action on the
> basis of the called program's exit code -- like the convention of zero
> for success, nonzero for failure, which is absolutely useful for
> composition.
> 
> Unless you're devising a scheme to do that with sysexits(3), and
> implementing it systematically so that other programs derive some
> benefit from it, spending time to make inetd(8) scrupulously adhere to
> the sysexits(3) ontology of failure modes is likely a distraction from
> your main goals.

Don't worry: it is already fixed and was only a matter of minutes.

I still plan to release the alpha on Monday the 5th (of June 2023...).
-- 
        Thierry Laronde <tlaronde +AT+ polynum +dot+ com>
                     http://www.kergis.com/
                    http://kertex.kergis.com/
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