Re: Obsolete and Removed POSIX Functions

[Eric Blake <eblake at redhat dot com>]

On 02/17/2016 10:06 AM, Corinna Vinschen wrote:

> 
> Ok, so there's an example for a dangerous function which is marked
> obsolete.  This may also make sense for mktemp.  But what about
> not so dangerous deprecated functions?

I guess it's on a case-by-case basis what we want to do. Depending on
the name of the function, there are some things that we can leave
declared without polluting the namespace, even if the function is no
longer required by newer standards (for example, anything named str* in
<string.h> is fair game to include in the header, regardless of whether
a standard specifies it); I also think that unconditionally marking
something as deprecated if newer standards no longer provide it is doing
a service for users.  On the other hand, only exposing the deprecation
for newer standards (where the namespace pollution is not an issue),
while letting the function be silently used in older standards, may be
nicest to people that still intentionally try to target older standards.

But most functions that are marked obsolescent in POSIX are because they
are unsafe.

-- 
Eric Blake   eblake redhat com    +1-919-301-3266
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

Attachment: signature.asc
Description: OpenPGP digital signature