Re: * NEWS: Mention 2011-02-08 change to stdlib.

[Eric Blake]

On 02/19/2011 08:38 AM, Simon Josefsson wrote:
> Paul Eggert <address@hidden> writes:
> 
>> +2011-02-08  stdlib          Unless the random_r module is also used, this
>> +                            module no longer guarantees that the following 
>> are
>> +                            defined: struct random_data, RAND_MAX, random_r,
>> +                            srandom_r, initstate_r, setstate_r.
>> +
> 
> This feels a bit surprising -- usually including a gnulib header module
> should make it POSIX compliant, but if stdlib.h is missing RAND_MAX it
> wouldn't be a POSIX compliant header replacer.  Have I missed
> discussions of changing the gnulib policy here?

Of all of these, RAND_MAX is the only value required by POSIX; it is
also the value that is easiest to provide without also defining all the
other structs and interfaces.  Maybe we should tweak things to provide
RAND_MAX always.

> 
> (The reason I added struct random_data detection to stdlib.h was IIRC
> that I only needed the struct and not the functions, so pulling in the
> entire functions would be wasteful for me.)

However, that won't help with your desire to get struct random_data;
maybe that means we need an intermediate module for the struct, where
you could use that module and where random_r could depend on that
intermediate module.  Conversely, what use do you have for struct
random_data that does not involve random_r?  Nothing else in the
standard requires it, and if you aren't using random_r, why can't you
maintain your own struct for pseudo-random generator state?

-- 
Eric Blake   address@hidden    +1-801-349-2682
Libvirt virtualization library http://libvirt.org

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