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authorJim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>1999-04-04 14:30:30 +0000
committerJim Meyering <jim@meyering.net>1999-04-04 14:30:30 +0000
commit42edc330edf5617544515398ebef84916b6f044f (patch)
tree6c86cf4baa70ea6286649d63ef2da6fe54016764 /lib/closeout.c
parente0e1dc0bf8e287e08f32d4b6c75060da42d6a67a (diff)
downloadcoreutils-42edc330edf5617544515398ebef84916b6f044f.tar.xz
fix comments
add FIXME
Diffstat (limited to 'lib/closeout.c')
-rw-r--r--lib/closeout.c21
1 files changed, 13 insertions, 8 deletions
diff --git a/lib/closeout.c b/lib/closeout.c
index f828d0def..46c9f5750 100644
--- a/lib/closeout.c
+++ b/lib/closeout.c
@@ -43,14 +43,19 @@ extern int errno;
#include "error.h"
/* Close standard output, exiting with status STATUS on failure.
- If a program writes *anything* to stdout, that program should close
- stdout and make sure that the close succeeds. Otherwise, suppose that
- you go to the extreme of checking the return status of every function
- that does an explicit write to stdout. The last printf can succeed in
- writing to the internal stream buffer, and yet the fclose(stdout) could
- still fail (due e.g., to a disk full error) when it tries to write
- out that buffered data. Thus, you would be left with an incomplete
- output file and the offending program would exit successfully.
+ If a program writes *anything* to stdout, that program should `fflush'
+ stdout and make sure that it succeeds before exiting. Otherwise,
+ suppose that you go to the extreme of checking the return status
+ of every function that does an explicit write to stdout. The last
+ printf can succeed in writing to the internal stream buffer, and yet
+ the fclose(stdout) could still fail (due e.g., to a disk full error)
+ when it tries to write out that buffered data. Thus, you would be
+ left with an incomplete output file and the offending program would
+ exit successfully.
+
+ FIXME: note the fflush suggested above is implicit in the fclose
+ we actually do below. Consider doing only the fflush and/or using
+ setvbuf to inhibit buffering.
Besides, it's wasteful to check the return value from every call
that writes to stdout -- just let the internal stream state record