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- Submitted-by: rfg@lupine.uucp (Ron Guilmette)
-
- It is somewhat dated now, but the only book I have about POSIX is
- copyright 1988.
-
- Reading that book, it seems that the POSIX committee didn't want to
- use ANSI C function prototypes for their specification of the C language
- binding because prototypes were too "new-fangled". Specifically, they
- apparently choose not to express the binding in terms of prototypes because:
-
- "... the Working Group was aware that some vendors would wish
- to implement POSIX in terms of a binding to an historical
- variant of the C language..."
-
- So in effect, it seems that the bindings given in the book I'm looking
- at are for "traditional C" (rather than ANSI C).
-
- In addition to avoiding prototypes, the POSIX folks also (apparently)
- decided to avoid the use of ANSI C type qualifiers (i.e. "const" and
- "volatile") in the C binding.
-
- Now even thought I don't really keep up on such things, I assume that
- some progress has been made since 1988. Is there now also an ANSI C
- binding for POSIX? If so, please tell me the exact name of *that*
- document so that I can go buy a copy.
-
- The thing that I most want to know at the moment is the "correct" (or
- "standard") prototype for the `execvp' function. The POSIX book I have
- here doesn't use any ANSI C type qualifiers at all, and so I have no
- idea what (if any) type qualifiers should be used to declare the types
- of the formal parameters for execvp.
-
- For example, my intuition tells me that a "proper" prototype for `execvp'
- should look like:
-
- extern int execvp (const char *, const char *const *);
-
- But somebody else disagrees with me.
-
- It seems that this sort of thing could be an important "standards" issue
- because many variants of UN*X operating systems are now shipping with fully
- prototyped system include files. Are they "POSIX-conformant" with respect
- to the qualifiers used to declare the types of their formals? How would
- one be able know one way or the other?
-
- Please excuse me if this has all been resolved long ago (and if my nearly
- total ignorance is showing).
-
- Volume-Number: Volume 22, Number 87
-
-