From: Paul Eggert <eggert@cs.ucla.edu>
To: Bruno Haible <bruno@clisp.org>
Cc: Gnulib bugs <bug-gnulib@gnu.org>, Jonas Termansen <sortie@maxsi.org>
Subject: Re: critique of gnulib
Date: Sat, 31 Aug 2019 16:20:35 -0700 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <6db86ac1-944f-cc42-cc49-35351f0c9fd8@cs.ucla.edu> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <1704385.skmA4EAMxR@omega>
Bruno Haible wrote:
> https://gitlab.com/sortix/sortix/wikis/Gnulib
>> sprintf calls.
> What do you mean? sprintf is a standardized libc function.
I imagine Jonas is referring to the practice of avoiding sprintf and using
snprintf instead, under the theory that sprintf can be dangerous. Gnulib does
not follow that practice; instead, it avoids dangerous uses of sprintf.
Similarly for strcpy and for several other C functions that can be dangerous if
misused.
The Gnulib style for sprintf helps avoid the common problem of inadvertently
truncating strings.[1] Admittedly (and as Bruno knows) this has long been a
controversial area.[2][3]
[1]
https://wiki.sei.cmu.edu/confluence/display/c/STR03-C.+Do+not+inadvertently+truncate+a+string
[2] https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-gnulib/2004-09/msg00181.html
[3] https://sourceware.org/ml/libc-alpha/2002-01/msg00133.html
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2019-08-31 23:20 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 13+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2019-08-31 21:46 critique of gnulib Bruno Haible
2019-08-31 23:20 ` Paul Eggert [this message]
2019-09-01 21:53 ` Jonas 'Sortie' Termansen
2019-09-01 22:46 ` Paul Eggert
2019-09-08 17:08 ` critique of gnulib - string allocation Bruno Haible
2019-09-08 17:47 ` Ben Pfaff
2019-09-08 20:17 ` Paul Eggert
2019-09-08 20:58 ` Bruno Haible
2019-09-08 23:29 ` Paul Eggert
2019-09-09 1:04 ` critique of gnulib - cross-compilation guesses Bruno Haible
2019-09-08 17:20 ` critique of gnulib - stdioext Bruno Haible
2019-09-08 17:28 ` critique of gnulib - malloc wrapper Bruno Haible
2019-09-09 1:24 ` critique of gnulib - disabling workarounds Bruno Haible
Reply instructions:
You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:
* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
and reply-to-all from there: mbox
Avoid top-posting and favor interleaved quoting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Posting_style#Interleaved_style
List information: https://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gnulib
* Reply using the --to, --cc, and --in-reply-to
switches of git-send-email(1):
git send-email \
--in-reply-to=6db86ac1-944f-cc42-cc49-35351f0c9fd8@cs.ucla.edu \
--to=eggert@cs.ucla.edu \
--cc=bruno@clisp.org \
--cc=bug-gnulib@gnu.org \
--cc=sortie@maxsi.org \
/path/to/YOUR_REPLY
https://kernel.org/pub/software/scm/git/docs/git-send-email.html
* If your mail client supports setting the In-Reply-To header
via mailto: links, try the mailto: link
Be sure your reply has a Subject: header at the top and a blank line
before the message body.
This is a public inbox, see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox;
as well as URLs for read-only IMAP folder(s) and NNTP newsgroup(s).