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Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2008 14:40:37 -0400
From: David Schultz <das@FreeBSD.ORG>
To: Ed Schouten <ed@80386.nl>
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Cc: FreeBSD Standards <freebsd-standards@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject: Re: Ambiguous sentence in POSIX onlinepubs 11.1.11
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On Fri, Mar 28, 2008, Ed Schouten wrote:
> The last couple of days I've been reading the POSIX onlinepubs now and
> then to find out how my new mpsafe TTY implementation conforms to POSIX.
> 
> In section 11.1.11, there is the following sentence:
> 
> 	"The last process to close a terminal device file shall cause
> 	any output to be sent to the device and any input to be
> 	discarded."
> 
> This sentence is quite ambiguous. It could mean:
> 
> 	"The last process to close a terminal device file shall cause
> 	any output to be sent to the device, [but] any input to be
> 	discarded."
> 
> but it could also mean:
> 
> 	"The last process to close a terminal device file shall cause
> 	any output [which still has] to be sent to the device and any
> 	input to be discarded."

I doubt that even the most incoherent standards author would
deliberately use "to" as a participle, infinitive, AND preposition,
all in the same sentence, so I'd go with the first interpretation.
That's also the interpretation that makes more sense, right?