Re: May close() return any error code?

Pavel Machek
2015-08-02T07:42:23Z

On Wed 2015-07-29 12:46:59, Takashi Iwai wrote:
> Hi,
>
> while debugging a problem of X and gdm with the old systemd-210, we
> encountered a sudden death of systemd-logind, and this turned out to
> be an unexpected errno from close(). The close() call for input
> devices returns ENODEV error. The logind in systemd-210 treats this
> error code as fatal, triggers assert() and eventually kills itself.
> The details are found in an openSUSE bugzilla thread:
> https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/show_bug.cgi?id=939571
>
> This seems coming from evdev_flush(). As there is no fd leak, it's no
> big problem per se. But, now the question is whether returning such
> an error code is correct behavior at all. At least, it doesn't seem
> defined in POSIX:
>
http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/close.html

Returning an error from close() would imply that file descriptor is
not closed.... seems like bad idea. Just fix the kernel not to do it.

--
(english) http://www.livejournal.com/~pavelmachek
(cesky, pictures) http://atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz/~pavel/picture/horses/blog.html