[PATCH] strtol.3: Clarify that the base should be tested beforehand, if at all

[PATCH] strtol.3: Clarify that the base should be tested beforehand, if at all

[Alejandro Colomar]

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Normally, the base need not be tested, and the only interesting errno
value should be ERANGE.

If the base needs to be tested, it should be tested in a call that
would not otherwise fail.  Otherwise, it would be easy to trigger
Undefined Behavior.  Consider the following example:

errno = 0;
val = strtol("foo", &end, -42);

There's no portable way to know if the call failed due to the string or
the base.

Cc: Matthew House <mattlloydhouse@gmail.com>
Signed-off-by: Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>
---
 man3/strtol.3 | 28 +++++++++++++++++++++++++---
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)

diff --git a/man3/strtol.3 b/man3/strtol.3
index 1f1f98216..4b30b3269 100644
--- a/man3/strtol.3
+++ b/man3/strtol.3
@@ -184,8 +184,8 @@ .SH NOTES
 .I errno
 to 0 before the call,
 and then determine if an error occurred by checking whether
-.I errno
-has a nonzero value after the call.
+.I errno == ERANGE
+after the call.
 .P
 According to POSIX.1,
 in locales other than "C" and "POSIX",
@@ -206,6 +206,21 @@ .SH NOTES
 .BR strtoll ()
 or to
 .BR strtol ().
+.SH CAVEATS
+If the
+.I base
+needs to be tested,
+it should be tested in a call where the string is known to succeed.
+Otherwise, it's impossible to portably differentiate the errors.
+.P
+.in +4n
+.EX
+errno = 0;
+strtol("0", NULL, base);
+if (errno == EINVAL)
+    goto unsupported_base;
+.EE
+.in
 .SH EXAMPLES
 The program shown below demonstrates the use of
 .BR strtol ().
@@ -260,13 +275,20 @@ .SS Program source
 \&
     str = argv[1];
     base = (argc > 2) ? atoi(argv[2]) : 0;
+\&
+    errno = 0;    /* To distinguish success/failure after call */
+    strtol("0", NULL, base);
+    if (errno == EINVAL) {
+        fprintf(stderr, "The base is not supported\en");
+        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
+    }
 \&
     errno = 0;    /* To distinguish success/failure after call */
     val = strtol(str, &endptr, base);
 \&
     /* Check for various possible errors. */
 \&
-    if (errno != 0) {
+    if (errno == ERANGE) {
         perror("strtol");
         exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
     }
-- 
2.42.0


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