Fwd: [patch] getxattr.2 : Fix RETURN VALUE description

Fwd: [patch] getxattr.2 : Fix RETURN VALUE description

[Abhay Sachan]

Hi,

The manpage for getxattr() says : "On success, a positive number
is returned indicating the size of the extended attribute value."

But in case the value length is zero, we should return the size as
zero (as is done by ext4, xfs). Thus "positive" number kind looks
misleading. So it should be changed to "nonnegative".

--Abhay

diff --git a/man2/getxattr.2 b/man2/getxattr.2
index adc7617..c343c34 100644
--- a/man2/getxattr.2
+++ b/man2/getxattr.2
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ The interface is designed to allow guessing of initial buffer
 sizes, and to enlarge buffers when the return value indicates
 that the buffer provided was too small.
 .SH RETURN VALUE
-On success, a positive number is returned indicating the size of the
+On success, a nonnegative number is returned indicating the size of the
 extended attribute value.
 On failure, \-1 is returned and
 .I errno
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Re: [patch] getxattr.2 : Fix RETURN VALUE description

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On 04/05/2014 11:25 PM, Abhay Sachan wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> The manpage for getxattr() says : "On success, a positive number
> is returned indicating the size of the extended attribute value."
> 
> But in case the value length is zero, we should return the size as
> zero (as is done by ext4, xfs). Thus "positive" number kind looks
> misleading. So it should be changed to "nonnegative".

Thanks, Abhay. Applied.

Cheers,

Michael

> diff --git a/man2/getxattr.2 b/man2/getxattr.2
> index adc7617..c343c34 100644
> --- a/man2/getxattr.2
> +++ b/man2/getxattr.2
> @@ -98,7 +98,7 @@ The interface is designed to allow guessing of initial buffer
>  sizes, and to enlarge buffers when the return value indicates
>  that the buffer provided was too small.
>  .SH RETURN VALUE
> -On success, a positive number is returned indicating the size of the
> +On success, a nonnegative number is returned indicating the size of the
>  extended attribute value.
>  On failure, \-1 is returned and
>  .I errno
> 
> 


-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/
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