Re: printf and -m

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

On Sat, Aug 22, 2015 at 04:28:32AM +0100, Roy Marples wrote:
 > >I also think we should deprecate %m in syslog, but I don't see how
 > >it's possible to do so in practice.
 > 
 > Could you expand on the rationale for this please?

It is a wart. It's a magic special case; it uses a global variable
under the table; it doesn't accomplish anything that can't be done
clearly and explicitly with strerror(3). 

 > reduces code size

You could make up all manner of other magic special cases to insert in
printf to reduce code size. How about printf("%H") to print "hello
world"? How about adding an option to cat to sort the input data
before numbering the lines?

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