Re: strlen man-page misinformation

["Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>]

Hello Alan,

On 02/03/2016 06:25 PM, Alan Aversa wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> The 2015-08-08 strlen man-page is incorrect. Here's a diff:
> 
>     --- a/man3/strlen.3
>     +++ b/man3/strlen.3
>     @@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ excluding the terminating null byte (\(aq\\0\(aq).
>      .SH RETURN VALUE
>      The
>      .BR strlen ()
>     -function returns the number of bytes in the string
>     +function returns the number of *characters* in the string that
>     precede the terminating null character

I went for a simpler change: s/bytes/characters/

>      .IR s .
>      .SH ATTRIBUTES
>      For an explanation of the terms used in this section, see
>     @@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ T{
>      T}     Thread safety   MT-Safe
>      .TE
>      .SH CONFORMING TO
>     -POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C89, C99, SVr4, 4.3BSD.
>     +POSIX.1-2001, POSIX.1-2008, C89, C99, C11, SVr4, 4.3BSD.

Fixed.

>      .SH SEE ALSO
>      .BR string (3),
>      .BR strnlen (3),
> 
> Page 392 (PDF p. 390, §7.24.6.3) of the C11 standard
> <http://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg14/www/docs/n1570.pdf> says:
> 
>     The *strlen* function returns the number of characters that precede
>     the terminating null character.

Thanks for the report. Interesting, POSIX.1 still uses the term "bytes"
the spec.

Cheers,

Michael


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/
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