Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store?

From	Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com>
Newsgroups	comp.lang.c
Subject	Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store?
Date	2020-05-23 14:25 -0700
Organization	None to speak of
Message-ID	<87tv06qr7q.fsf@nosuchdomain.example.com> (permalink)
References	(3 earlier) <86mu6exxpw.fsf@linuxsc.com> <r9c0kj$8on$3@solani.org> <r9c1fg$9pu$1@solani.org> <86k112u2kx.fsf@linuxsc.com> <rabpuk$ufa$1@solani.org>

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Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> writes:
[...]
> The correct thing to do would be to file a bug against the gcc package
> in Ubuntu (after all it is an Ubunt-specific patch that makes gcc
> non-stdandard-compliant - on upstream GNU GCC the non-compliant
> behaviour would need to be explicitly requested by the user). However, I
> guess the bug report would be rejected, as Ubuntu considers
> non-standard-compliance in this respect a feature (much like OpenBSD
> with their non-standard-compliant rand()).
> I'll just leave the filing of a bug report to a real Ubuntu user.

I don't think I had heard this about OpenBSD's rand().

Here's the man page: https://man.openbsd.org/rand

    Standards insist that this interface return deterministic
    results. Unsafe usage is very common, so OpenBSD changed the
    subsystem to return non-deterministic results by default.

They add a non-standard srand_deterministic() that causes rand() to
yield the required deterministic results.

Personally, I think this was a very bad idea.  Portable code can rely on
rand() yielding *repeatable* results, which can be important in some
contexts; this breaks such code.  Most rand() implementations are known
to be fairly low quality, and not suitable for cryptography, for
example.  This encourages programmers to assume that rand() is
non-deterministic and having their code break when ported to anything
other than Open BSD.

-- 
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com
Working, but not speaking, for Philips Healthcare
void Void(void) { Void(); } /* The recursive call of the void */

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How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 13:30 +0200
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2020-05-11 13:55 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 14:01 +0200
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-05-11 09:08 -0400
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 15:19 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2020-05-11 18:32 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 18:59 +0200
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 17:42 +0000
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 20:30 +0200
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-05-12 00:29 -0400
              Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2020-05-12 14:41 +0200
              Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2020-05-12 16:19 +0200
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2020-05-11 13:03 +0100
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 14:07 +0200
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 15:20 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 16:31 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Barry Schwarz <schwarzb@delq.com> - 2020-05-11 10:06 -0700
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 15:58 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-05-11 10:24 -0400
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 16:52 +0200
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Manfred <noname@add.invalid> - 2020-05-11 18:55 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2020-05-11 15:51 +0000
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 19:01 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 17:33 +0000
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 20:57 +0200
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 19:17 +0000
              Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2020-05-11 19:41 +0000
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 20:01 +0000
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 19:19 +0000
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> - 2020-05-11 20:24 +0200
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 20:59 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 19:17 +0000
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 21:24 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> - 2020-05-11 22:30 +0200
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 16:44 +0200
    Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 16:54 +0200
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 16:57 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 17:07 +0200
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Bonita Montero <Bonita.Montero@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 17:08 +0200
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-05-11 11:25 -0400
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-11 09:06 -0700
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 19:05 +0200
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 19:19 +0200
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-23 07:51 -0700
              Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-23 20:27 +0200
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2020-05-23 14:25 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-26 07:09 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-26 07:14 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2020-05-26 16:00 +0000
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-29 21:23 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Spiros Bousbouras <spibou@gmail.com> - 2020-05-30 20:08 +0000
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-06-03 08:46 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-06-03 10:18 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-06-23 05:35 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-06-26 06:32 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2020-06-04 20:34 +0000
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 17:39 +0000
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Autist <autist69@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 19:42 +0200
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-11 20:28 +0200
            Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-05-11 18:37 +0000
              Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 11:50 -0700
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2020-05-12 20:02 +0100
                Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Malcolm McLean <malcolm.arthur.mclean@gmail.com> - 2020-05-12 13:12 -0700
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2020-05-11 19:56 +0000
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Tim Rentsch <tr.17687@z991.linuxsc.com> - 2020-05-24 16:49 -0700
      Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 14:19 -0700
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2020-05-11 14:22 -0700
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Philipp Klaus Krause <pkk@spth.de> - 2020-05-12 09:17 +0200
        Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2020-05-24 16:12 +0000
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Keith Thompson <Keith.S.Thompson+u@gmail.com> - 2020-05-24 15:10 -0700
          Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? James Kuyper <jameskuyper@alumni.caltech.edu> - 2020-05-24 22:58 -0400
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? richard@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin) - 2020-05-11 20:07 +0000
  Re: How many wide characters may mbstowcs store? Andrey Tarasevich <andreytarasevich@hotmail.com> - 2020-06-25 21:42 -0700

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