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To: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com>
Cc: "David S. Miller" <davem@redhat.com>, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: close return value
References: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0207161817560.4794-100000@home.transmeta.com>
From: Florian Weimer <Weimer@CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE>
Date: Sat, 20 Jul 2002 10:00:00 +0200
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.44.0207161817560.4794-100000@home.transmeta.com> (Linus
 Torvalds's message of "Tue, 16 Jul 2002 18:23:18 -0700 (PDT)")
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Linus Torvalds <torvalds@transmeta.com> writes:

> Yes, EAGAIN doesn't really work as a close return value, simply because
> _nobody_ expects that (and leaving the file descriptor open after a
> close() is definitely unexpected, ie people can very validly complain
> about buggy behaviour).

Returning an error and still doing the operation is slightly awkward.
Are there any other syscalls which do similar things?

Of course, a significant portion of TCP related code would leak
descriptors like hell if the behavior of close() ischanged (there are
quite a few protocols which do not avoid race conditions resulting in
ECONNRESET connection teardown).

-- 
Florian Weimer 	                  Weimer@CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE
University of Stuttgart           http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT                          fax +49-711-685-5898