🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DDt13K.K22@ukpsshp1.serigate.philips.nl>, baynes@ukpsshp1.serigate.philips.nl (Stephen Baynes) writes
: ....
: To what extent should the programing language change to suite the operating
: system and to what extent should the operating system change to suite the
: programing language? Exit codes sounds like a case where one could expect
: ones OS to make sensible use of a simple integer value system rather than
: try and fit the program to the system. In a sense we have this, but only
: two values portable - 0/EXIT_SUCCESS and EXIT_FAILURE.
It has been pointed out that not all OSes uze integer exit-codes.  It is not
a good idea to deeper burie C in the mire of thus restricting exit-status,
and not letting that which the C program "returns" be the same as that which
the OS gets.  Therefore, call 0 not portable.  Decreeing it portable was
a mistake from the outset.

: Perhaps one should have a guarentee of 128 distinguishable exit status. 
This is far too manie.  If one restricts oneself to degree of success, then the
most that I hav seen in general use amounts to full success, warning, error,
and fatal/severe error, which makes the program too soon quit.  In one case I
hav seen a yet severer error, but that is that the program was not even
started, not sumthing useful from a program that runs.

If one wants also to map the notion what faild, as in VMS,
this is far too few.

: [I use exit-status to mean the value returned from main and OS-status as the
: OS's program exit status.]
This furthers the mistake, unless all of them are macros, as "EXIT_SUCCESS"
and "EXIT_FAILURE" are.

: ....
: If you want to make use of OS specific features of its program exit status
: system then you will always have to use OS specific functions or OS
: specific knowlege. It is just as you do if you want to use any other OS 
: specific feature such as IPC or interactive graphics or special file formats.
With correct dezign of "exit" and kin --all hidden under macros and types--
this need not be so.