From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "G.raud" Subject: Re: select.2: s/minimum/maximum/ Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 17:38:49 +0200 Message-ID: <20130822153850.29990@gmx.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: QUOTED-PRINTABLE Return-path: Sender: linux-man-owner-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org To: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" Cc: linux-man-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org List-Id: linux-man@vger.kernel.org > Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2013 09:22:32 +0200 > From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" > Subject: Re: select.2: s/minimum/maximum/ >=20 > On 08/20/13 01:00, G.raud wrote: > > In this part of the manpage: > >=20 > > " The timeout argument specifies the minimum interval that select() > > =C2=A0 should block waiting for a file descriptor to become ready. = =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0" >=20 > This isn't correct (though maybe there is room for a better wording). >=20 > 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. =C2=A0The corrected text should be: " The timeout argument specifies the maximum interval that select() =C2=A0 should block waiting for a file descriptor to become ready. =C2= =A0" 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 bewt= ween parentheses if a better (i.e. more explicit) wording is desired: =C2=A0" timeout is a lower bound on the actual maximum waiting time." --=20 G.raud Meyer -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-man" in the body of a message to majordomo-u79uwXL29TY76Z2rM5mHXA@public.gmane.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html