From: Richard M. Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Date: Thu, 13 Apr 1995 01:59:20 +0000 (+0000)
Subject: Don't use error count as exit status.
X-Git-Tag: fsf-origin~291
X-Git-Url: http://git.ipfire.org/cgi-bin/gitweb.cgi?a=commitdiff_plain;h=3766de757b47cac4157eff94449ff476973185e7;p=thirdparty%2Fautoconf.git

Don't use error count as exit status.
---

diff --git a/doc/standards.texi b/doc/standards.texi
index d7cb596fb..ecf54b77b 100644
--- a/doc/standards.texi
+++ b/doc/standards.texi
@@ -1059,6 +1059,11 @@ comments in the source.  The relevant data will be in variables, which
 are easy to examine with the debugger, so there is no point moving them
 elsewhere.
 
+Do not use a count of errors as the exit status for a program.
+@emph{That does not work}, because exit status values are limited to 8
+bits (0 through 255).  A single run of the program might have 256
+errors; if you try to return 256 as the exit status, the parent process
+will see 0 as the status, and it will appear that the program succeeded.
 
 @node Errors
 @chapter Formatting Error Messages
diff --git a/standards.texi b/standards.texi
index d7cb596fb..ecf54b77b 100644
--- a/standards.texi
+++ b/standards.texi
@@ -1059,6 +1059,11 @@ comments in the source.  The relevant data will be in variables, which
 are easy to examine with the debugger, so there is no point moving them
 elsewhere.
 
+Do not use a count of errors as the exit status for a program.
+@emph{That does not work}, because exit status values are limited to 8
+bits (0 through 255).  A single run of the program might have 256
+errors; if you try to return 256 as the exit status, the parent process
+will see 0 as the status, and it will appear that the program succeeded.
 
 @node Errors
 @chapter Formatting Error Messages