2019-10-03 13:58:40 -0400, Chet Ramey: > On 10/2/19 11:38 AM, Stephane Chazelas wrote: > > > BTW, what's the point of the check_dev_tty() function? It seems > > it just attempts to open the tty (the controlling one or the one > > open on stdin), closes it, but doesn't return anything about the > > success of failure in doing so. > > It's to make up for an old bug that's probably gone everywhere. Back > in the day, there were systems and services that would start interactive > shells without a controlling terminal. Opening and closing /dev/tty > forced the controlling terminal to be allocated. [...]
Thanks. I suspected it may be something like that. Though I thought, without actually double-checking it, that the rest of the code would end up opening the terminal device (without O_NOCTTY) anyway. It may be worth adding a comment to document that purpose of the function, and maybe rename it to something like control_tty_if_not_already_controlled or something that more accurately describes its intent. -- Stephane
