Messages in this thread |  | | | Date | Tue, 21 Dec 1999 16:13:32 +0000 (GMT) | | From | Tigran Aivazian <> | | Subject | Re: Ok, making ready for pre-2.4 and code-freeze.. |
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On Tue, 21 Dec 1999, Rogier Wolff wrote: > Tigran Aivazian wrote: > > > The return code for unix system calls should be defined as "negative" > > > for error, and not "-1". > > > > I beg to differ because lseek(2) has the right to return negative offsets > > on some implementations (of UNIX) on some architectures (notably i386). > > I beg to differ: lseek has no right to return a position before the > start of the file. > > * Upon successful completion, lseek returns the resulting > * offset location as measured in bytes from the beginning of > * the file. > > Maybe, some OSes are "breaking the rules" a bit by allowing larger > files than a 31-bit return value for lseek(2) allows, but that's their > problem.
Dear Rogier,
have a look at Stevens' APUE, the page that describes lseek(2) (it is not at hand and I can't remember page number) it will tell you which particular flavour (AT&T SVR3 or something similar) did that. I definitely (but vaguely, 5-6 years ago or so) remember situations where negative offsets off /dev/kmem were valid and useful.
Regards, Tigran.
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