On Thursday 07 January 2016 15:05:38 Niels Möller wrote:
> Tim Ruehsen <[email protected]> writes:
> > But what's wrong with providing a larger buffer than needed ?
>
> I don't think about it as the size of the provided buffer, but as the
> requested size of the digest (intended for the usecase of truncated
> digests). And it's not defined how to produce a 20-byte md5 digest. If
>
> md5_digest(&md5, 20, digest);
>
> were allowed, what should it do? Write 16 bytes, and leave the remaining
> 4 bytes untouched?
You put the answer into my mouth... yes, that seems intuitive to me.
> > Some admins have their jobs due to 'stop-by-assertion' software - at least
> > that is good thing about assertions ;)
>
> I suspect that 'continue-with-silent-data-corruption' software would
> give them even more work...
Definitely. That's why I try to avoid either of them.
An assertion doesn't give the higher layers a chance to intervene. The process
is being killed, eventually leaving corrupted data in persistent memory while
all information to recover anything is gone with the killed process.
Returning a proper error value at least gives the ones who care for the chance
to recover. I am working in the telephony area where recovering from faults is
a basic design (even on protocol level). Also in mind that a single process
may control hundreds of connections - a sudden stop may kill people (just
calling the ambulance / police, maybe no chance to call again).
Regards
Tim
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