Re: ANSI C and POSIX (was Re: C/C++ knocks the crap out of Ada)

[dewar@cs.nyu.edu (Robert Dewar)]

Chuck said

"There are a lot of things that are intentionally not spelled
out by standards.  Sometimes this is because the standard
writers want to limit the scope of the document to keep it
legible and usable, and sometimes it's because they don't want
to preclude implementors from offering usable products
based on current technology or from adding capabilities and
value to future products."

This is a sorry excuse for an obvious oversight if you ask me. All that
is needed for read is one of the following two sentences:

The buffer must be long enough to accomodate the data actually read

or


The buffer must be at least the length corresponding to the value of
the count parameter.

I don't really care which is chosen, I prefer the second but could 
certainly live with the first, but I do NOT find it acceptable to
leave this unstated. This kind of carelessness in specification
which seems endemic in the C runtime library, is bound to lead
to misunderstandings and portability problems. No one is asking
for over-specification, or for exhaustive and exhausting formality,
just for a clear informal statement of what is intended!