Re: [gawk-stable] bug: fatal error when getline from directory

[Aharon Robbins]

Hi Everyone.

Thanks for all the discussion / opinions / contributions.

> Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2009 14:43:21 +0100
> To: Eric Blake <address@hidden>
> Cc: Aharon Robbins <address@hidden>, address@hidden,
>         address@hidden, address@hidden
> Subject: Re: [gawk-stable] bug: fatal error when getline from directory
> From: Paolo <address@hidden>
>
> [....]
>
> Re-stating it, back to original bug-rep point, I'm pretty fine with getline
> raising an error on attempt reading a dir, till/unless an extension is avail
>  - actually, I want such behaviour instead of EOF from nawk - yet I deem
> it wrong to issue a fatal: and abort script.
>
> While you've provided arguments for awk not trying to read from a dir, I
> fail to see any single good point for a fatal abort of getline, instead of
> usual & documented rc=-1 on error behaviour, which is the bug reported.

I agree with this.  I will fix gawk-stable such that getline from
a directory returns -1 and sets ERRNO appropriately. I think that
BWK awk's returning 0 in this case is a bug.

For the moment, gawk will continue to treat a directory on the
command line as a fatal error.

Paolo, thanks for the original bug report. Steffen, thanks for bringing
it to my attention.

Arnold