Is it considered to be ok to not check the return code of close(2) in base?

[Eugene Grosbein]

30.12.2017 21:06, Rodney W. Grimes wrote:

>> Of course, there are cases when that's irrelevant, f.e. closing temporary file
>> that is no more needed and being unlinked anyway.
> 
> No error on close should be treated as irreleveant, they signify something
> has gone wrong and itis best to inform the user and let the user decide
> if this is irrelevant or not.
> 
> Code that does not test return codes from EVERY single thing that can
> return an error should be taken out back shown the danish axe, clean it
> up or get it out of our tree!

An application checks for error code after writing to stderr to report an error
and finds it failed too; and what should be done then? :-)

> One should never code to the "normal" conditions situation, it makes for
> code that does not work well when the "abnormal" conditions arrise.
> 

In real world, there are cases of temporary errors like some transient
system resource shortage; application's own short timeout on close()
because of NFS-server responding slow due to short network malfunction;
temporary DNS failure etc. Not every such case deserves user attention
as system must have some level of self-healing (retry, disregard etc.)

> I would argue that in the above sample of "closing and unlinking" it
> would actually be better to exit if the close failed possibly leaving
> behind the evidence of why/what failed rather than blindling forging
> ahead and potentially destroying the evidecnce by unlinking the file.
>
> If someone wants to go chasing after "failure to check exit codes" please
> begin with /etc/rc.d/*, these scripts are so full of it I laugh every
> time I see a system come up multiuser after 10+ errors have happendend
> in them.

Mostly it is NOT better to halt and sit instead of proceeding to multiuser anyway.