strcpy wars, jeez! A proposed resolution.

[00704a-Liber]

In article <6286 at dhw68k.cts.com> david at dhw68k.cts.com (David H. Wolfskill) writes:
>The current dpANS also specifies "If copying takes place between objects
>that overlap, the behavior is undefined."  I would feel rather more
>comfortable with changing that to read "... implementation defined."

I would not!  This would imply that a program which calls strcpy() with
overlapping strings is 'correct', and this is simply not true.

Remember, implementation-defined behavior means (quoted from the draft
section 1.6--Definitions of Terms):

"behavior, for a correct program construct and correct data, that depends
on the characteristics of the implementation and that each implementation
shall document."

If you have overlapping strings you have incorrect data.

If this were to change (something which I am against), all programs that
use strcpy() would be suspect every time a new version of the compiler
comes out (especially since many compilers use inline assembly instead of
doing a function call for strcpy()).  This is not something which should
depend on the implementation.
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