Re: select.2: s/minimum/maximum/

["G.raud" <graud-KK0ffGbhmjU@public.gmane.org>]

> Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 09:22:32 +0200
> From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages-Re5JQEeQqe8AvxtiuMwx3w@public.gmane.org>
> Subject: Re: select.2: s/minimum/maximum/
> 
> On 08/20/13 01:00, G.raud wrote:
> > In this part of the manpage:
> > 
> > " The timeout argument specifies the minimum interval that select()
> >   should block waiting for a file descriptor to become ready.        "
> 
> This isn't correct (though maybe there is room for a better wording).
> 
> The 'timeout' places a ceiling on how long the call will block,
> but that ceiling has the *minimum* value provided by the argument.
> See what I mean?

The text that you cite and that is not correct is extracted from the
present manpage.  The corrected text should be:

 " The timeout argument specifies the maximum interval that select()
   should block waiting for a file descriptor to become ready.  "

which is close to the POSIX description and is correct in that "specify"
does not mean "is equal to" but can be understood as "is close to",
which is all most of the programmers need to know.

I suggest prepending the following before the complete description bewtween
parentheses if a better (i.e. more explicit) wording is desired:

  " timeout is a lower bound on the actual maximum waiting time."

-- 
G.raud Meyer
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