P1003 Draft 6, Chapters 6, 7, 8, and 9, comments; V4N14

[Moderator, John Quarterman]

Date: Thu, 12 Dec 85 09:28:06 EST
From: Arnold Robbins <arnold%gatech.csnet at CSNET-RELAY.ARPA>

Chanpter 6: Input and Output Primitives

6.2.1
	The functions _open()_ and _creat()_ assign file descriptors as
	well as having effects of creating a file on the file system...

Should be "as well as having effects of possibly creating a file.."
					^^^^^^^^
Creating a file every time isn't absolutely necessary.

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6.3.1.4 Errors

The word "errrno" should be "errno" (two r's instead of three).

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6.4.1.5 Notes (on dup and dup2)

	One of the options for the _fcntl()_ call operates in the same way
	as the _dup()_ call.

Should be dup2, not dup.

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6.6.1.2 Description (of read())

	... or if the file is a pipe or special file.

Should probably be "is a pipe or character special file."

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6.7.2.2. Description (of fcntl())

	F_SETFL	Set _file_ status flags to value indicated by the third
		parameter, _arg_, taken as type _int_. Only the O_NDELAY
		and O_APPEND flags can set; see <fcntl.h> 6.7.1.

It occurred to me that also allowing O_TRUNC, taking effect at the current
position of the file pointer, would be a very easy way to implement the
4.2BSD truncate() call. This would also be upward compatible with current
System V, since it is currently illegal to use O_TRUNC in an fcntl() call,
so no (working) System V code would contain such a call. I hope that the
committee would consider this idea carefully.

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Chapter 7: Device- and Class Specific Functions

	See Appendix C for provides alternatives being considered.

Delete the word "provides".

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Chapter 8: C Language Library

8.1.3. Notes (on fileno())

	The _fileno_ function may be implemented as a macro and should not,
	therefore, be re-declared.

Add to the end of the sentence "or have its address taken".

===========================================================

Chapter 9: Passwords

9.1.2 Description (of group access routines)

	char **	gr_mem	Null-terminated vector of pointers to the
			individual member names.

Add "or numbers" to the end of this sentence.

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9.2.3 Description (of password file access routines)

	A NULL pointer is returned on error or the end of the database
	is encountered.

Should be "or when the end of the database..."

Volume-Number: Volume 4, Number 14