🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1995Sep11.221423.6651@forte.com> mikes@forte.com (Mike Schilling) writes:
>Why couldn't the standard define another function called, say 
>
>	void sys_exit(OS_RET_TYPE)
>
>which does what exit does in terms of cleanup, and then exits with 
>OS-specific exit status.  The standard couldn't specify the actual type
>of OS_RET_TYPE, of course, or how to map OS-specific exit statuses into
>C types.  Much of the usefulness of sys_exit *would* be a quality of 
>implementation issue.  Still, writing largely portable programs which 
>use OS-specific features where possible and appropriate would be far eaiser
>if this kind of thing were encouraged and where possible mandated.

This is getting pretty silly.  Why have the standard define something
completely undefined?  It would be impossible for a conforming program
to use such a sys_exit() without knowing what OS_RET_TYPE is, which
means it can't be used unless a specific OS is targeted, which means it
would be non-portable.  There's no point in having the standard define
a feature which can't be used portably.

The standard defines two states a program can terminate with:  success
and failure.  If you want to communicate a non-standard state to the
environment, you have to use a non-standard interface, and have it
become a non-conforming program.  By definition, the standard doesn't,
and shouldn't, cover non-standard interfaces.

	J