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Date:      Wed, 24 Sep 1997 12:06:29 -0600 (MDT)
From:      Brandon Gillespie <brandon@roguetrader.com>
To:        freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org
Subject:   crypt() returning an error...
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.3.96.970924115746.6054B-100000@roguetrader.com>

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The man page on crypt() states that a NULL will be returned instead of a
pointer to a string, if an error occurred.  The MD5 crypt does not follow
this, however DES crypt does.  Furthermore, in the attempt to hunt out a
'standard' for handling error codes, I have checked how other crypt()
implementations function.  OpenBSD for some unknown reason returns the
string:

      ":"

Where Digital Unix also returns a NULL, as does Unixware--however their
manual pages do not specify NULL as a valid return value.

With this in mind, I think I will standardize this behaviour to 'crypt()'
in that if an error occurs (there are more possibilities, with the
additional $x$x$x.. possibilities) then a NULL will be returned.  This
means that what currently works with MD5 crypt will no longer be the case.
For instance:

      crypt("", "")

With MD5 will actually return an encrypted value, with a zero-length salt.
After my changes, this will return a NULL instead.

Anybody forsee any problems with this?  I do not, but I figured I would
bring it up...




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