https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=42042 Summary: strchr(3) and memchr(3) should explain behaviour when character 'c' is '\0'. Product: Documentation Version: unspecified Platform: All OS/Version: Linux Tree: Mainline Status: NEW Severity: normal Priority: P1 Component: man-pages AssignedTo: documentation_man-pages@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ReportedBy: jamesodhunt@xxxxxxxxx Regression: No PROBLEM ------- strchr(3) and memchr(3) do not explain the behaviour if the character to search for is specified as a null character ('\0'). According to my copy of Harbison and Steele, since the terminator is considered part of the string, a call such as: strchr("hello", '\0') ... will return the address of the terminating null in the specified string. RATIONALE --------- strchr(3) and memchr(3) are inconsistent with index(3) which states: "The terminating NULL character is considered to be a part of the strings." Adding such a note to strchr(3) and memchr(3) is also important since it is not unreasonable to assume that strchr() will return NULL in this scenario. This leads to code like the following which is guaranteed to fail should get_a_char() return '\0': char string[] = "hello, world"; int c = get_a_char(); if (! strchr(string, c)) fprintf(stderr, "failed to find character in string\n"); SUGGESTED UPDATE ---------------- I'd suggest adding something like the following to strchr(3) and memchr(3): If 'c' is '\0' (the terminating null character), strchr() will return the address of the terminating null character in 's'. -- Configure bugmail: https://bugzilla.kernel.org/userprefs.cgi?tab=email ------- You are receiving this mail because: ------- You are watching the assignee of the bug. -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
