Re: [PATCH 1/6] fix ambiguous errno treating after mktime()

[David Holland <dholland-tech%netbsd.org@localhost>]

On Mon, Sep 01, 2008 at 01:12:43PM +0700, Robert Elz wrote:
 >   | Principle of least surprise?
 > 
 > Only until the same code runs on some other system which doesn't
 > bother with needless errno preservation, and exhibits odd behaviour.

What same code? We're talking about the library code, not some random
application.

 > It really is best all around to understand the rules right from the start,
 > rather than having them hidden from you by someone trying to save you
 > from having to face reality.

"Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send."

 > ps: it is actually quite hard to preserve errno, as it isn't guaranteed to
 > be an Lvalue, it is quite possible on some systems there's no (reputable)
 > way to assign a value to it, so while obtaining its value to save it is
 > easy, replacing it after some operation that might have changed it that
 > you would prefer to hide is not nearly so easy.

I don't see how this pertains to NetBSD library code. But even so,
regardless of what some standard may say, a lot of existing
application code assigns errno and will fail to compile on such
systems, earning them the classification "broken".

-- 
David A. Holland
dholland%netbsd.org@localhost