bin/116413: incorrect getconf(1) handling of unsigned constants gives -1 for ULLONG_MAX

[Garrett Wollman]

The following reply was made to PR bin/116413; it has been noted by GNATS.

From: Garrett Wollman <wollman at hergotha.csail.mit.edu>
To: freebsd-gnats-submit at freebsd.org
Cc:  
Subject: Re: bin/116413: incorrect getconf(1) handling of unsigned constants
	gives -1 for ULLONG_MAX
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2007 12:45:14 -0400 (EDT)

 In article <mit.lcs.mail.freebsd-bugs/200709170733.l8H7XRmS067276 at www.freebsd.org> you write:
 
 >The code /usr/src/usr.bin/getconf/limits.gperf doesn't correctly handle
 >unsigned constants.
 
 It is not clear to me that the POSIX specification allows it to
 "correctly handle unsigned constants".
 
 XCU6 page 516 lines 18634ff:
 
 	Otherwise, if the specified variable is defined on the system, its
 	value shall be written in the following format:
 
 	"%d\n", <value>
 
 The description of "%d\n" in XBD6 chapter 5 ("File Format Notation")
 clearly requires it to output <value> as a signed integer.  This fits
 with the definition of the sysconf() function as returning a signed
 long.
 
 Having said that, supporting these non-sysconf() limits such as these
 is a FreeBSD extension and we need not be bound by POSIX when (and
 only when) querying non-POSIX values.
 
 -GAWollman
 
 -- 
 Garrett A. Wollman   | The real tragedy of human existence is not that we are
 wollman at csail.mit.edu| nasty by nature, but that a cruel structural asymmetry
 Opinions not those   | grants to rare events of meanness such power to shape
 of MIT or CSAIL.     | our history. - S.J. Gould, Ten Thousand Acts of Kindness