Hi, Ken -
> > Is it obvious that such an error must be considered "catastrophic"?
> > The string parameter is now a colon-separated path with directories
> > and/or files. Why would we want to stop after the first "not being
> > able to open", instead of continuing?
>
> For all the use cases I can think of, someone using this routine would be
> doing so with an expectation that the path argument contains only readable
> files and/or directories.
I see what you mean.
> There is no clearly "right" answer for all of the (low probability, I would
> expect) corner cases, so I think the behaviour I've implemented is OK until
> I hear a plausible use case where this is produces unexpected results.
I suggest that this particular error handling mode is itself a corner
case. There are many possible causes of error. By classifying only
some as "catastrophic" - and not definining that term but rather
listing just one examplar, an application programmer can't use the
negative RC any differently than a zero RC. It does not really convey
actionable information.
- FChE
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