Re: strtonum(3) from OpenBSD?

[Iain Hibbert <plunky%rya-online.net@localhost>]

On Wed, 24 Jun 2009, der Mouse wrote:

> [tls]
> > As I pointed out, the API for this function, *as specified by the
> > manual page*, distinguishes error return cases by way of *specific
> > strings given in the manual page* (which is why it is not
> > localizable) which it does not distinguish by different errno values.
>
> To be fair, Thor, we should note that, since those strings are not
> really human-interface strings but rather a peculiar representation for
> members of a very small set of error conditions, localizing them is not
> really relevant.

I will say, while producing the patch for bioctl the other day I noticed
that the original behaviour would be to exit with nonsensical (even in
english) messages when parsing the locator string "channel:target.lun", eg

bioctl: Target 3:444.3: too big

bioctl: Target -5:44.7: too small

and while that is a separate issue it comes from relying on a library
function to do the right thing when it was a poor fit in the first place,
which is more or less the 'problem' that this function purports to fix..

iain