Public Comment Number PC-UK0089

ISO/IEC CD 9899 (SC22N2620) Public Comment

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Date: 1998-02-25
Author: N.M Maclaren
Author Affiliation: Self
Postal Address:
    University of Cambridge,
    Computer Laboratory,
    New Museums Site,
    Pembroke Street,
    Cambridge CB3 3QG,
    United Kingdom
E-mail Address: <nmm1@cam.ac.uk>
Telephone Number: +44 1223 334761
Fax Number:       +44 1223 334679
Number of individual comments: 1


Comment 1. 

Category: Normative change to existing feature retaining the original intent

Committee Draft subsection: 7.13.3

Title: Requiring line buffering on stderr


Detailed description:

Paragraph 7 is unimplementable under many systems.  There are systems that
support only full buffering for some classes of file - including Unix!  Try
writing stderr to fixed-block tapes on Unix systems where write() will not
reblock, for example.  It is also COMPLETELY impossible to implement under
MVS, CMS and probably VMS, as buffering is an inherent property of the type
of file and cannot be changed by the connexion.

It is not reasonable to require that every single MVS implementation
ignores the C standard (even if in such a minor respect.)  I suggest
changing the wording to:

    ...  When opened, the standard error stream is not fully buffered,
    except in implementation-defined circumstances where only full
    buffering is available; ...