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Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 15:07:27 -0700
To: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: close return value (was Re: [ANNOUNCE] Ext3 vs Reiserfs benchmarks)
Message-ID: <20020717220727.GA3966@eskimo.com>
References: <1026867782.1688.108.camel@irongate.swansea.linux.org.uk> <20020717043853.GA31493@eskimo.com> <je65zel8pr.fsf@sykes.suse.de> <20020717164933.GA2136@eskimo.com> <ah4act$1n5$1@penguin.transmeta.com>
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From: Elladan <elladan@eskimo.com>
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On Wed, Jul 17, 2002 at 05:43:57PM +0000, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> In article <20020717164933.GA2136@eskimo.com>,
> Elladan  <elladan@eskimo.com> wrote:
> >
> >Consider what this says, if a particular OS doesn't pick a standard
> >which the application can port to.  It means that the *only way* to
> >correctly close a file descriptor is like this:
> >
> >int ret;
> >do {
> >	ret = close(fd);
> >} while(ret == -1 && errno != EBADF);
> 
> NO.
> 
> The above is
>  (a) not portable
>  (b) not current practice
> 
> The "not portable" part comes from the fact that (as somebody pointed
> out), a threaded environment in which the kernel _does_ close the FD on
> errors, the FD may have been validly re-used (by the kernel) for some
> other thread, and closing the FD a second time is a BUG.

That somebody was me.  It appears we're in extremely violent agreement
on this issue.  We both agree the code I wrote is crap.  :-)

-J