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From: geoff@utcsstat.UUCP (Geoff Collyer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: _print/_doprnt; curses on sys III
Message-ID: <1973@utcsstat.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 16-Jun-84 02:09:55 EDT
Article-I.D.: utcsstat.1973
Posted: Sat Jun 16 02:09:55 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 16-Jun-84 03:07:59 EDT
References: <148@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Toronto, Canada
Lines: 18

Any program that calls _doprnt (or _print or whatever) directly is
*broken*.  The internals of a given stdio implementation are the
business of no one but its author(s) and maintainer(s).  If you think
you need to call _doprnt or whatever, try sprintf'ing into a buffer and
passing the buffer.

Many people, especially those at Berkeley, seem to think that there is
only one stdio implementation, Dennis Ritchie's.  It ain't so, folks.
I know of one stdio implementation in progress in which *all* the
internal names, including names in stdio.h that aren't documented, are
different or static so as to forcibly break programs that use the
internal names.

Some people may think that deliberately changing the names hurts
portability; on the contrary, demonstrating that broken programs really
are broken is a favour to their authors.  The authors can fix their
programs before they reach a wider audience and are a greater
embarrassment than they are today.