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Re: _ATFILE_SOURCE Obsoletion
- From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk dot manpages at gmail dot com>
- To: Rical Jasan <ricaljasan at pacific dot net>
- Cc: Andreas Schwab <schwab at suse dot de>, Joseph Myers <joseph at codesourcery dot com>, libc-alpha <libc-alpha at sourceware dot org>, "Carlos O'Donell" <carlos at redhat dot com>, Zack Weinberg <zackw at panix dot com>
- Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2017 16:34:40 +0200
- Subject: Re: _ATFILE_SOURCE Obsoletion
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
- References: <e960475e-bde6-0a05-496a-35ae1cf95892@pacific.net> <mvm60bc4wt5.fsf@suse.de> <5c341bc2-bde3-1762-802a-a09c28b4ee63@pacific.net>
- Reply-to: mtk dot manpages at gmail dot com
On 18 October 2017 at 13:01, Rical Jasan <ricaljasan@pacific.net> wrote:
> On 10/18/2017 02:41 AM, Andreas Schwab wrote:
>> On Okt 18 2017, Rical Jasan <ricaljasan@pacific.net> wrote:
>>
>>> Does it really serve a useful purpose to broaden the definition of
>>> _ATFILE_SOURCE? I understand the desire to cease support of historical
>>> artifacts, but I would rather remove support entirely than merely change
>>> the definition. While POSIX.1-2008 may imply __USE_ATFILE,
>>> _ATFILE_SOURCE does not necessarily imply all of POSIX.1-2008.
>>
>> Is _ATFILE_SOURCE actually used in the wild in the strict sense?
>
> It is prevalent enough to make determining that an ordeal. There are
> roughly 50 packages on https://codesearch.debian.net/ that use it.
> Whether any use it in a context that doesn't expect or requires
> _POSIX_C_SOURCE to not be at least 200809L, is practically an audit.
Given that _ATFILE_SOURCE first appeared in 2006, 2 years ahead of the
relevant POSIX.1-2008, it would not surprise me if there are still
(perhaps rare) usages in the wild in the strict sense.
Also, broadening the meaning of _ATFILE_SOURCE to imply
_POSIX_C_SOURCE==200809L sems a little risky to me, in terms of
possibly creating developer pain.
Cheers,
Michael
--
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/