strcpy wars, jeez! A proposed resolution.

[The Beach Bum]

In article <6683 at dhw68k.cts.com> david at dhw68k.cts.com (David H. Wolfskill) writes:
>[I had suggested that strcpy() on overlapping objects ought to be
>"implementation-defined," rather than "undefined," behavior.  Liber
>then wrote "If you have overlapping strings you have incorrect data."

this is exactly what we don't need.  the purpose of creating a standard
is for all implementations of the standard to function identically.
if each different implementation has a different behavior, all of which
are being relied on quite heavily, then software will cease to be
portable.

"undefined" is "defined".  stating that the behavior is unknown will
force the user to not rely on questionable behavior, or to write the
code herself to perform the copy in the correct fashion.

- john.
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