[haiku-development] Re: POSIX error code

On 2008-05-19 at 17:08:43 [+0200], Axel Dörfler <axeld@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 
wrote:
> 
> The latest and current POSIX standard demands that error codes have to
> be positive numbers.
> Since this would cause a great deal of changes and possible
> compatibility problems for Haiku, I would like to get our POV to the
> people responsible for revising those standards.
> It looks like the OpenGroup Austin Group maintains the POSIX standard,
> and I just subscribed to a public mailing list where we can actually
> make our voice heard.
> 
> I would like to submit the following mail there:
> -------------8<------------
> Subject: Positive error codes since Issue 6
> 
> The change history of POSIX errno states for issue 6:
> "Values for errno are now required to be distinct positive values
> rather than non-zero values. This change is for alignment with the ISO/
> IEC 9899:1999 standard."
> 
> I'm writing on behalf of the Haiku project (http://www.haiku-os.org/)
> which is an open source implementation of BeOS.
> In BeOS, the values for errno were actually defined as negative values,
> and software written for BeOS may rely on that. BeOS is older than the
> ISO 1999 standard, and hence, it does not comply to it. Since Haiku is
> compatible with BeOS, we're bound to the same restriction.
> 
> Not surprisingly, there are already applications out there that assume
> positive error codes, and those are hard to port to our otherwise POSIX
> compliant system.
> 
> Is there any way this change can be reverted, or limited in a way that
> allows Haiku to be POSIX compliant without breaking compatibility with
> previous versions of BeOS?
> 
> -------------8<------------
> 
> Any comments, or suggestions for improvements?

I would be more careful with the term "POSIX compliant". Haiku is still 
quite a bit away, and BeOS was worse.

Anyway, it certainly doesn't harm to try, but I have little hope that this 
will have any effect. If the standard maintainers consider the request, 
they are in a dilemma. Undoing the Issue 6 error codes change means that 
all the applications that relied on it would become non-conforming.

CU, Ingo

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