Re: [PATCH v1] xstrtol: Remove dead code

[Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>]

Alejandro Colomar wrote:
> >   - Some systems return "wrong" errno values. Example: [1]
> >   - Some systems fail with ENOMEM when memory is tight. Who says that
> >     an implementation of strtol() cannot use malloc() ? Some implementations
> >     of strtod() do use malloc().
> > 
> > So, what you call "dead code", I call "defensive programming". I would not
> > like to apply this patch.
> 
> Makes sense.  I think we should document that possibility in the manual
> page.

Well, I wouldn't want to document just _theoretical_ platforms. The set of
manual pages has a certain scope, regarding platform, probably Linux
(and Hurd, maybe?). It's the behaviour on these platforms which should
be documented, nothing more, nothing less.

Defensive programming means to imagine other behaviours that could
possibly occur. It is subjective; some programmers want to be more cautious
than others.

> Maybe say that other errno values are possible in some systems?

Other errno values are always possible, as far as I understand POSIX.
<https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/V2_chap01.html>
section 1.2 ERRORS.

It would be overkill to state this in hundreds of manual pages, IMO.

Bruno