> > why the caller needs to change values?
> 
> like i said, the man-page explains that sometimes pw_policy_load() will
> fail in loading a policy from /etc/passwd.conf -- perhaps because the
> file doesn't exist, or there are no password policies in it.
> 
> in such a case, it may be desired for the caller to set it's own default
> policy values (and there's a code example that does just that in the
> man-page).

what's wrong with:

	if (policy_is_loaded) {
		check with pw_policy_test();
	} else {
		check default;
	}

YAMAMOTO Takashi