[Python-Dev] Python and POSIX (original) (raw)

Martin v. Löwis martin at v.loewis.de
Tue Sep 16 15:52:26 EDT 2003

Marc Recht <recht at netbsd.org> writes:

I had a quick glance at the Solaris 8 headers and it seems that's influenced by EXTENSIONS, too. So it should be the same as without the macros.

While that is true, I would hope that you come to the conclusion that these macros can potentially do much more than simply hiding library functions. Instead, their primary purpose is to request Single Unix behaviour in case a platform implements both the standard behaviour, and the traditional one (regardless of which tradition the system follows).

So I would be very careful to enable these macros only for a few translation units; I'm pretty sure that the "law" would be on the vendor's side if inconsistent usage of these defines would be found to cause problems, in Irix 27, or ValueBSD 3.

That's a bit harder since I don't have access to all "relevant" systems. I could test on the open-source x86 platforms, though. And IIRC CompileFarm has Solaris, too.

If the change is only for 2.4, that would be fine - that code hopefully will get testing on several other platforms before 2.4 is released.

And I believe that - since these changes came up with Python 2.3 (with the exception of POSIX1SOURCE and POSIXSOURCE) - that it will break not much or anything at all if at least XOPENSOURCE are moved XOPENSOURCEEXTENDED to an internal header (or an internal part of pyconfig.h).

Believes should not be trusted too much when it comes to portability. If you can think of an obscure interpretation of some standard, it is almost certain that there is some vendor out there who has chosen that interpretation.

Regards, Martin

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