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Groups > comp.lang.c > #101541
| From | Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | comp.lang.c |
| Subject | Re: standard error codes |
| Date | 2017-01-12 11:39 -0800 |
| Organization | None to speak of |
| Message-ID | <lnshoonk3c.fsf@kst-u.example.com> (permalink) |
| References | (16 earlier) <o566pk$nok$1@dont-email.me> <87o9zdtgzo.fsf@gmail.com> <o57o66$urn$1@dont-email.me> <lnwpe0nq6n.fsf@kst-u.example.com> <o58gg3$d6i$1@dont-email.me> |
Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> writes:
> On 12/01/17 17:28, Keith Thompson wrote:
>> David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> writes:
>>> On 11/01/17 22:38, Gareth Owen wrote:
>>>> BartC <bc@freeuk.com> writes:
>>>>> It just reinforces my point that strcmp by itself is unintuitive.
>>>
>>> I would say that strcmp is a useful function, but the name is not ideal.
>>> It would make more sense, IMHO, if it were called "strdiff".
>>
>> strdiff would be a good name for a function that returns a Boolean
>> result indicating whether its argument strings differ. strcmp can
>> be used that way, but IMHO the name strdiff would be more misleading
>> than strcmp. What it really does is *compare* two strings.
>>
>> It's nice for a function that returns a result to have a name
>> that relfects the meaning of that result, but it's not always
>> practical.
>
> Actually, I agree with David here: strdiff would be a better name, for
> the same reason that diff(1) is well-named (see below).
I still disagree, for the reasons I've stated, but it's not a big deal.
>> And in the case of strcmp, you can think of the
>> negative/zero/positive result it returns as a *comparison*, which
>> makes the name strcmp, perfectly sensible. It's not the most
>> intuitive name, but it's more than good enough.
>
> Yes. Although strdiff would be a better name, strcmp will do.
>
>> (A somewhat irrelevant example: the Unix "diff" command returns
>> a result indicating success if the two files do *not* differ.
>> That probably bothered me for a couple of minutes when I first
>> learned about it.)
>
> diff returns 0 if the diff is 0. What's to be bothered about?
The status returned by a command is not a count, it's a success/failure
indication, with an opportunity to distinguish among different kinds of
failures (at least on Unix-like systems, where EXIT_SUCCESS==0 and any
non-zero status (modulo 256) denotes failure).
The shell's "if" statement treats a successful status of 0 as
a true condition. One might naively assume that:
if diff file1 file2 ; then
echo yes
else
echo no
fi
would print "yes" if the files differ. (csh/tcsh use different syntax,
but the same idea holds.) And typically the output of the diff command
is of more interest than its status.
Again, this is not a big deal, just a small thing you have to learn
if you want to use the diff command. It's far more important to
be aware that the command returns 0 (success) if the files are
the same, 1 (generic failure) if they differ, and 2 if there's
an error, than to worry about whether that makes sense given the
command's name.
The fact that 0 and 1 sometimes mean false and true, respectively, and
sometimes mean success and failure, can be confusing. There are good
reasons the convention is the way it is, and even if there weren't we'd
still just have to deal with it.
--
Keith Thompson (The_Other_Keith) kst-u@mib.org <http://www.ghoti.net/~kst>
Working, but not speaking, for JetHead Development, Inc.
"We must do something. This is something. Therefore, we must do this."
-- Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn, "Yes Minister"
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standard error codes Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2017-01-08 06:34 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-08 11:05 -0800
Re: standard error codes Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2017-01-09 03:33 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-09 04:55 -0800
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-09 09:06 -0800
Re: standard error codes Thiago Adams <thiago.adams@gmail.com> - 2017-01-09 09:52 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-09 21:50 +0000
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-09 22:36 +0000
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-09 14:51 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-09 23:39 +0000
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-09 15:51 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-09 16:08 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-09 18:51 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-10 02:02 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-10 07:34 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-10 01:39 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-10 09:07 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-10 09:59 -0800
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-10 12:02 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-10 12:53 -0800
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-10 13:03 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-10 15:41 -0800
Re: standard error codes Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2017-01-11 02:56 +0000
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-11 07:42 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-10 12:59 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-10 18:14 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-10 12:12 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-10 20:35 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-10 13:00 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-11 08:16 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 18:25 +0000
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-11 19:09 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-11 12:03 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 20:10 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-11 12:19 -0800
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-11 20:31 +0000
Re: standard error codes Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2017-01-11 15:32 -0500
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 20:48 +0000
Re: standard error codes Lew Pitcher <lew.pitcher@digitalfreehold.ca> - 2017-01-11 15:58 -0500
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-11 13:01 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 21:05 +0000
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-11 21:08 +0000
Re: standard error codes Gareth Owen <gwowen@gmail.com> - 2017-01-11 21:38 +0000
Re: standard error codes BartC <bc@freeuk.com> - 2017-01-11 21:58 +0000
Re: standard error codes David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-01-12 12:11 +0100
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-12 09:28 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-12 18:06 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-12 11:39 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-12 19:50 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-12 13:03 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-12 21:13 +0000
Re: standard error codes <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2017-01-12 20:00 -0800
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-13 01:56 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-13 12:54 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-13 09:35 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-13 17:38 +0000
Re: standard error codes James Kuyper <jameskuyper@verizon.net> - 2017-01-13 13:06 -0500
Re: standard error codes raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-01-18 12:00 +0000
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-18 12:13 +0000
Re: standard error codes Malcolm McLean <malcolm.mclean5@btinternet.com> - 2017-01-12 16:43 -0800
Re: standard error codes <william@wilbur.25thandClement.com> - 2017-01-12 19:34 -0800
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-13 09:27 -0800
Re: standard error codes raltbos@xs4all.nl (Richard Bos) - 2017-01-12 19:33 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-12 12:10 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-11 11:50 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 20:38 +0000
Re: standard error codes jadill33@gmail.com - 2017-01-11 12:26 -0800
Re: standard error codes Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-01-11 20:44 +0000
Re: standard error codes Keith Thompson <kst-u@mib.org> - 2017-01-09 09:03 -0800
Re: standard error codes supercat@casperkitty.com - 2017-01-08 11:40 -0800
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