Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 21:14:06 +1000 (EST) From: Bruce Evans <bde@zeta.org.au> To: Warner Losh <imp@harmony.village.org> Cc: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com>, Assar Westerlund <assar@FreeBSD.org>, Brian Somers <brian@Awfulhak.org>, cvs-committers@FreeBSD.org, cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/lib/libutil ecalloc.c emalloc.3 emalloc.c erealloc.c estrdup.c Makefile libutil.h Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.4.21.0107232048460.32891-100000@besplex.bde.org> In-Reply-To: <200107230624.f6N6Ooo87330@harmony.village.org>
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On Mon, 23 Jul 2001, Warner Losh wrote:
> In message <001c01c1133a$f2b9ac50$24b244cc@blabber> "Wes Peters" writes:
> : I agree with Alfred, I really don't like the idea of a program exiting
> : willy-nilly and feel this will encourage developers to do so. It is
> : marginally better than not testing return values at all, and hoping
> : for a core file, but only marginally so. The fact that it has been
> : done alot in existing code doesn't make it a good practice, just a
> : common one.
>
> And they should *NEVER* be used in a library. Libraries that exit
> instead of returning an error are lame beyond words. I don't think we
> want to introduce APIs that are safe in cat.c, but unsafe in libc.
Yes, most exit() and err*() calls in libraries are bugs.
Other problems with this idea:
- the new functions don't belong in libutil for various reasons:
+ libutil should not be a home for miscellaneous functions.
+ shared linkage to another library is a pessimization (always in
time and perhaps in space too).
- these functions are often named xmalloc(), etc. (e.g., in gnu utilities).
Are you going to changes all these too? (Certainly not in contrib).
I noticed new copies of these functions growing faster than the initial
version of this change was reviewed. There is another set in rcorder.
Bruce
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