Re: [PATCH v1 12/15] man/man3type/id_t.3type: HISTORY: Mention change in datatypes of [pug]id_t(3type)

[Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org>]

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Hi Seth,

On Wed, Jan 07, 2026 at 02:08:38AM +0000, Seth McDonald wrote:
> On Wednesday, 7 January 2026 at 00:13, Alejandro Colomar <alx@kernel.org> wrote:
> > Hi Seth,
> >
> > On Tue, Jan 06, 2026 at 05:08:01PM +1000, Seth McDonald wrote:
> > > pid_t(3type), uid_t(3type), and gid_t(3type) were initially not
> > > specified as integer types, but as arithmetic types:
> > >
> > > "All of the types listed in Table 2-1 shall be arithmetic types; pid_t
> > > shall be a signed arithmetic type."[1]
> > >
> > > This technically means the types could be floating-point arithmetic
> > > types in systems conforming to early versions of POSIX.1.
> >
> > But did any implementations do this? As far as I know, there were none,
> > which turns this into something that was only true in paper, and can be
> > entirely ignored.
> 
> While I'm not the most knowledgeable on past implementations, I too
> can't think of any that used non-integer values for these types.  The
> rationale for them doesn't mention floating-point types,[1] which does
> suggest there weren't any such implementations to consider.
> 
> The purpose of this patch was mainly to document a quirk in the language
> of early specifications, rather than to imply that such quirky
> implementations exist and should be accounted for.  However, if this
> isn't appropriate and no such implementations can be found, then I'd
> agree the paragraph probably shouldn't be added.

I think it would be better to ignore it as a defect in the specification
that didn't get noticed by implementors, and never affected real users.
It would be a waste of manual page real estate.


Have a lovely day!
Alex

> ----
> [1] IEEE Std 1003.1-2024, Volume 4, Appendix B.2.11.1 "Defined Types",
> p. 3838.
> <https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9799919799/xrat/V4_xsh_chap01.html>
> 
> ----
> Seth McDonald.
> sethmcmail at pm dot me (mailing lists)
> 2336 E8D2 FEB1 5300 692C  62A9 5839 6AD8 9243 D369




-- 
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