> On 4 Dec 2022, at 20:42, Alejandro Colomar via Libc-alpha <libc-alpha@sourceware.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi Helge, glibc developers,
> 
> On 12/4/22 10:07, Helge Kreutzmann wrote:
>> Without further ado, the following was found:
>> Issue:    Is the "L" in the bracket (for the NULL character) correct?
>> "The B<wcsncpy>()  function is the wide-character equivalent of the"
>> "B<strncpy>(3)  function.  It copies at most I<n> wide characters from the"
>> "wide-character string pointed to by I<src>, including the terminating null"
>> "wide character (L\\(aq\\e0\\(aq), to the array pointed to by I<dest>."
>> "Exactly I<n> wide characters are written at I<dest>.  If the length"
>> "I<wcslen(src)> is smaller than I<n>, the remaining wide characters in the"
>> "array pointed to by I<dest> are filled with null wide characters.  If the"
>> "length I<wcslen(src)> is greater than or equal to I<n>, the string pointed"
>> "to by I<dest> will not be terminated by a null wide character."
> 
> As an unrelated note.  I've had this running in my mind for some time... your various bug reports for strncpy(3) and similar wide character functions have triggered those thougts.
> 
> I'm going to mark strncpy(3) and similar functions as deprecated, even if no libc or standard has done so.  There's wide agreement (at least in some communities) that strncpy(3) _is evil_.  There's simply no use for it.
> 

Please don't do this unilaterally. Apple did this unilaterally for sprintf which has caused problems, as well.

It's going to cause confusion as people will inevitably ask where/who deprecated it and there won't
be a solid answer. And if we can't get a libc to agree to deprecate it as well, then doing it in the man
pages is wrong. Even if I understand the spirit of the idea.

Best,
sam