cfree

cfree

[Jonny Grant]

Hello
Is it time to remove this old man page? it's two years since it was removed from glibc

2017-08-02: glibc 2.26 released

https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/cfree.3.html

Thank you, Jonny

Re: cfree

[Ponnuvel Palaniyappan]

In case it's deemed necessary to keep it, I think the sentence
"Starting with version 2.26, it has been removed from glibc." from the
DESCRIPTION section can be removed because:
    0. It's already been noted under VERSIONS
    1. DESCRIPTION is probably not the best place for this info in any case

Thanks,
Ponnuvel

On Tue, Jun 23, 2020 at 4:11 PM Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org> wrote:
>
> Hello
> Is it time to remove this old man page? it's two years since it was removed from glibc
>
> 2017-08-02: glibc 2.26 released
>
> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/cfree.3.html
>
> Thank you, Jonny



-- 
Regards,
Ponnuvel P

Re: cfree

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 at 17:10, Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org> wrote:
>
> Hello
> Is it time to remove this old man page? it's two years since it was removed from glibc
>
> 2017-08-02: glibc 2.26 released
>
> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/cfree.3.html

The general philosophy is to maintain historical info in man-pages,
since new manual pages may be installed on an old system. Also, people
may need to look at old code, and understand what it does.

Thanks,

Michael


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

Re: cfree

[Jonny Grant]

On 24/06/2020 09:09, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 at 17:10, Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org> wrote:
>>
>> Hello
>> Is it time to remove this old man page? it's two years since it was removed from glibc
>>
>> 2017-08-02: glibc 2.26 released
>>
>> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/cfree.3.html
> 
> The general philosophy is to maintain historical info in man-pages,
> since new manual pages may be installed on an old system. Also, people
> may need to look at old code, and understand what it does.

Fair enough.

Although I would imagine anyone trying to use a function called cfree() would already understand they should use free()

Could the key point that cfree() is deprecated and removed be highlighted at the top of the man page?

I'd be temped to just have :-


DEPRECATED
       This function should not be used, it was non-standard and removed in glibc version 2.26 2017-08-02.

NAME
       cfree - free allocated memory


Regards
Jonny

Re: cfree

[Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2020 at 16:46, Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> On 24/06/2020 09:09, Michael Kerrisk (man-pages) wrote:
> > On Tue, 23 Jun 2020 at 17:10, Jonny Grant <jg@jguk.org> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello
> >> Is it time to remove this old man page? it's two years since it was removed from glibc
> >>
> >> 2017-08-02: glibc 2.26 released
> >>
> >> https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man3/cfree.3.html
> >
> > The general philosophy is to maintain historical info in man-pages,
> > since new manual pages may be installed on an old system. Also, people
> > may need to look at old code, and understand what it does.
>
> Fair enough.
>
> Although I would imagine anyone trying to use a function called cfree() would already understand they should use free()
>
> Could the key point that cfree() is deprecated and removed be highlighted at the top of the man page?
>
> I'd be temped to just have :-
>
>
> DEPRECATED
>        This function should not be used, it was non-standard and removed in glibc version 2.26 2017-08-02.
>
> NAME
>        cfree - free allocated memory

I think the existing first sentence of DESCRIPTION suffices.

Thanks,

Michael

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