file: module and character special files
klacke@REDACTED
klacke@REDACTED
Tue Mar 2 11:03:36 CET 2004
On Fri, Jan 30, 2004 at 05:15:39PM +0100, Patrik Nyblom wrote:
> Someone decided, a long time ago, that EISDIR was a good return value
> here, when something
> on the line of "this is not a regular file" would have been better. That
> may have been a bad choise.
> However, changing return values isn't all that popular among people
> having miljons of lines of code
> slushing around in systems supposed to have an ISP of 99.999 or better.
Hehehe,
Patrik, assume you're the SW lead for such a software project and have:
1. Requirements to have all thooose nine's in the uptime stats.
2. Programmers that write code that rely on the above bug: such as
for example:
open_dev(F) ->
case file:open(F, read) of
{ok, Fd} ->
do_dev_shit(Fd);
{error, eisdir} ->
%% Ahhhh, it's gotta be /dev/null or somesuch
do_clever_chardev_stuff(F);
{error, Reason} ->
{error, Reason}
end.
Well then, your're most certainly going to loose out
on all thooooose nines anyway.
:-)
I'd recommend promoting the programmer to more
managerial types of tasks where the damage done is better
controlled.
/klacke
--
Claes Wikstrom -- Caps lock is nowhere and
http://www.hyber.org -- everything is under control
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