Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!ihlpb!gregg From: gregg@ihlpb.ATT.COM (Wonderly) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: Weird Problem with cat Message-ID: <9146@ihlpb.ATT.COM> Date: 5 Dec 88 23:31:14 GMT References: <360@stca77.stc.oz> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois Lines: 34 >>How can we get programmers to do this right? > From the security point of view, it is right. > > Having said all that, I agree that messages like "Permission Denied" are > a severe pain when one is trying to debug a system. I tend towards the > view that you always provide additional information - just not necesssarily > in a form useful to the end user (like giving the source file/line and > internal error numbers when an error occurs) when the end-user is just > a user. The biggest problem is getting people to use the OS error messages and capabilities instead of inventing their own. Time after time I have changed. if ((fd = creat (file, 0600)) == -1) { printf ("Can't create some file\n"); handle_the_error_exit(); } to if ((fd = creat (file, 0600)) == -1) { perror (file); handle_the_error_exit(); } in code I have ported from the net. Perror(3) (and the associated sys_errlist array) is one of the MOST useful parts of the C-library under UN*X (please don't start another 'errno should not be global' war though). -- It isn't the DREAM that NASA's missing... DOMAIN: gregg@ihlpb.att.com It's a direction! UUCP: att!ihlpb!gregg