On Tuesday 25 January 2011 19:34:37 Roland McGrath wrote: > I don't think this was part of the original intent when the calls were > added, but I suppose it makes sense. More importantly, even if it was never meant this way, anyone could have assumed that it was and started using the system call in this way. > > Treating the empty string special for AT_FDCWD is rather pointless, but > > at least consistent. > > I agree about the consistency point. However, one could also call it > consistent if the empty string fails to resolve when operating on either a > directory file descriptor or AT_FDCWD but works on a non-directory file > descriptor. Yes. > POSIX does not mandate that *at calls fail with ENOTDIR when > passed a non-directory file descriptor (it's a "may fail" error, not a > "shall fail" error). So that behavior would be consistent both with the > POSIX requirements as I read them, and with the desire you mentioned to let > the fblahat system call serve to implement fblah as well as blah. Then > libc would not have to wrap the *at calls with any special check to conform > to POSIX. Makes sense. Arnd -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-api" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
