Hi Mark, Thank you for the reply!
Mark H Weaver <m...@netris.org> writes: >> I see. Then what's the intended use of status:exit-val? I've read its >> documentation and viewed its source a few times, and it seems like this >> procedure basically behaves like the identity function. > > I'm not sure where you got that idea, but it's definitely not the > identity function. I didn't realize that additional information was encoded in the integer status value. That explains why I was confused. >> I'm having trouble thinking of a case where one would use >> status:exit-val instead of simply using the integer status value >> directly. > > There's one case where you can use the integer status value directly: > you can check if it's zero, and if it is, that indicates that the > program exited normally with zero exit value. > > If the status value is non-zero, and you want to know more information > about what happened, then you must use the status:* procedures. This makes sense now. > [...] I wonder if it would be enough to simply change "process status > code" to "integer status value" [...]. I agree. I've attached a new patch that makes the change. It also adds a cross-reference that I think is helpful. How does it look? -- Chris
From 720a2069286e983b63b2d66b4471bc4e30a8d2cc Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Chris Marusich <cmmarus...@gmail.com>
Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2018 00:47:23 -0700
Subject: [PATCH] Clarify the manual's "Processes" section.
* doc/ref/posix.texi (Processes): Use the phrase "integer status value"
consistently, and add a cross-reference to the section of the glibc
manual that explains what it is.
---
doc/ref/posix.texi | 7 ++++---
1 file changed, 4 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-)
diff --git a/doc/ref/posix.texi b/doc/ref/posix.texi
index 5cb68a292..388efc368 100644
--- a/doc/ref/posix.texi
+++ b/doc/ref/posix.texi
@@ -1744,13 +1744,14 @@ The return value is a pair containing:
The process ID of the child process, or 0 if @code{WNOHANG} was
specified and no process was collected.
@item
-The integer status value.
+The integer status value (@pxref{Process Completion Status,,, libc, The
+GNU C Library Reference Manual}).
@end enumerate
@end deffn
The following three
-functions can be used to decode the process status code returned
-by @code{waitpid}.
+functions can be used to decode the integer status value returned by
+@code{waitpid}.
@deffn {Scheme Procedure} status:exit-val status
@deffnx {C Function} scm_status_exit_val (status)
--
2.19.1
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