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Date: Wed, 24 Dec 2014 18:16:17 +0000
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To: Levi Morrison <levim@php.net>
Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] About SUCCESS/FAILURE
From: ajf@ajf.me (Andrea Faulds)


> On 24 Dec 2014, at 18:13, Levi Morrison <levim@php.net> wrote:
>=20
> On Wed, Dec 24, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Andrea Faulds <ajf@ajf.me> wrote:
>>=20
>>> On 24 Dec 2014, at 17:22, Levi Morrison <levim@php.net> wrote:
>>>=20
>>> Hmm. This thread doesn't seem to mention it, but why must failure be
>>> negative? I understand the non-zero part but not negative. Aside =
from
>>> the fact we probably have code relying on it to be negative at this
>>> point is there some other reason?
>>=20
>> Hey Levi,
>>=20
>> I believe it's a convention among C APIs: 0 for success, negative for =
some error
>=20
> I'm asking for specific things. The reason is that some API's do a
> non-zero error code; the fact that they are negative is a detail that
> we should not need to care about.

Actually, that email was cut off: unfortunately iOS doesn=E2=80=99t =
require confirmation to send an email and my finger slipped.

The main point of negative values AIUI, is that you can return useful =
information for positive or zero values and error codes for negative =
values. For example with strpos(). For some APIs you only need 0 and -1, =
mind you, but being able to do if (foo() < 0) for everything is pretty =
neat.
--
Andrea Faulds
http://ajf.me/