Aga wrote:
> - the returned value of the *printf family of functions dictates their
> limits/range, as they return an int, this can be as INT_MAX mostly
Yes, we need new implementations of the *asprintf functions that are not
limited to returning strings of maximum length INT_MAX.
> - as since there is a "risk"¹ that someone has to take at some point
> (either the
> programmer or the underlying library code (as strdup() does)), the
> designed
> interface should lower those risks
I agree with the goal. How to do it precisely, is an art however.
> In the case of an error, returns > 0 which is either:
> #define EDSTPAR -1 /* Error : bad dst parameters */
> #define ESRCPAR -2 /* Error : bad src parameters */
> #define EMODPAR -3 /* Error : bad mode parameter */
> #define ETRUNC -4 /* Error : not enough space to
> copy/concatenate
> and truncation not
> allowed */
I don't think an interface for string concatenation with that many error
cases will be successful. Programmers are lazy, therefore
- some will not check the errors at all,
- some will only check for the fourth one (because "I'm not passing invalid
arguments, after all"),
- among those few that implement all 4 checks, half will get it wrong
(that's my experience with similarly complex functions like mbrtowc() or
iconv()).
For an interface to be successful, it needs to be simpler than that.
Bruno
