exit(3) and sysexits(3) style policy

[Alexander Best]

On Sun Apr 24 11, Garrett Cooper wrote:
> On Apr 24, 2011, at 10:44 AM, Alexander Best <arundel at freebsd.org> wrote:
> 
> > hi there,
> > 
> > i was wondering about this for some time now:
> > 
> > various documents decribe different policies regarding exit(3)'s return values.
> > style(9) e.g. recommends using exit(0), while other man pages such as err(3)
> > recommend using the sysexits(3) return values.
> > 
> > i think i read some time ago on the mailinglists that it was decided that
> > exit(3) should return integers rathers than sysexits(3) values. is this
> > correct? shouldn't then all references such as in err(3) be removed and a
> > note added to sysexits(3) that returnings its values via exit(3) does not
> > according to current FreeBSD programming style?
> 
> Bruce Evans was very anti-sysexits a while ago, and I personally agree -- in part because they're not necessarily portable and their application isn't consistent. 

thanks for the hint. i'll try to find bruce's mail regarding this issue in the mailinglist archives.

-- 
a13x