ANSI vs POSIX on <sys/types.h>

[Bob Lenk]

From:  Bob Lenk <rml at hpfcdc.fc.hp.com>

In article <719 at longway.TIC.COM> karl at IMA.IMA.ISC.COM (Karl Heuer) writes:

> In an earlier thread in this newsgroup, it was decided that this is in fact a
> requirement of POSIX.  (Clarified in the Supplement, I believe.)  If the user
> himself has not included <sys/types.h>, then the name `pid_t' is not reserved
> to the implementation, and so it falls in the user's namespace.

It is worth pointing out that official interpretations of an IEEE
standard can only be issued by the IEEE.  Discussions in this newsgroup
(including this posting) can be very informative and useful, but they do
not decide the meaning of the standard.  In fact, there has been an
official request for an interpretation in this area, and I understand
the interpretation being issued is that all namespace reserved for the
implementation by the 1003.1-1988 standard is reserved whenever any
header mentioned in the standard is #included with _POSIX_SOURCE
#defined.

Draft 5 of the 1003.1a revision (actually 1003.1-199x) makes some changes
in this area, but clearly reserves names ending in _t when any POSIX.1
header is included.

		Bob Lenk
		rml at hpfcla.hp.com
		hplabs!hpfcla!rml

Volume-Number: Volume 20, Number 28