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ID Category Severity Type Date Submitted Last Update
0001219 [1003.1(2008)/Issue 7] System Interfaces Objection Error 2018-12-12 17:29 2018-12-12 21:06
Reporter sebor View Status public  
Assigned To ajosey
Priority normal Resolution Open  
Status Under Review  
Name Martin Sebor
Organization
User Reference
Section snprintf
Page Number 906
Line Number 30447
Interp Status ---
Final Accepted Text
Summary 0001219: snprintf reequirement to fail when n > INT_MAX conflicts with C
Description The snprintf description states that:

  The functionality described on this reference page is aligned with the ISO C standard. Any conflict between the requirements described here and the ISO C standard is unintentional. This volume of POSIX.1-2008 defers to the ISO C standard.

and

  The snprintf() function shall fail if:
  [CX][EOVERFLOW] The value of n is greater than {INT_MAX}.

The requirement conflicts with C. C requires snprintf to succeed regardless of the value of n provided it outputs fewer than INT_MAX bytes. The POSIX requirement prevents implementations from conforming to the C requirement.

For example, the following strictly conforming C snippet must not trigger the assertion:

  char d[1];
  int n = snprintf (d, (size_t)INT_MAX + 1, "");
  assert (n == 0);

while in POSIX the assertion is required to fail.
Desired Action Remove the requirement for snprintf to fail when n > INT_MAX. Same for other variants of the function, such as vsnprintf.
Tags No tags attached.
Attached Files

- Relationships
related to 0000761Resolved 1003.1(2013)/Issue7+TC1 Requirement of error for snprintf with n>INT_MAX may conflict with ISO C 

-  Notes
(0004182)
sebor (reporter)
2018-12-12 17:48

 An alternate solution might be to change C to adopt the same requirement.
(0004183)
sebor (reporter)
2018-12-12 20:29

 I was pointed at the rejected bug 761. Having read through the discussion there, while I think C could and perhaps even should change in this area, I don't entirely agree with the conclusion in comment 0001930 that:

  The C standard does not specify the behavior when n > INT_MAX, so the current specified behavior does not conflict with the C standard.

The C standard does clearly specify the behavior for sprintf calls that produce INT_MAX bytes or less on output, regardless of the value of n: the function returns the size of the output. What C leaves undefined is the behavior of the function when the size of its output is greater than INT_MAX bytes.

So to avoid conflicts with C, POSIX can only specify additional requirements when the size of the function output exceeds INT_MAX. Otherwise, requiring calls like snprintf(d, SIZE_MAX, "") to fail does conflict with C. This causes portability problems to code that conforms strictly to the C requirements, and also to compilers like GCC that optimize snprintf calls based on the C requirements (see GCC bug 87096).

- Issue History
Date Modified Username Field Change
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor New Issue
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Status New => Under Review
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Assigned To => ajosey
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Name => Martin Sebor
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Section => snprintf
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Page Number => 906
2018-12-12 17:29 sebor Line Number => 30447
2018-12-12 17:48 sebor Note Added: 0004182
2018-12-12 20:29 sebor Note Added: 0004183
2018-12-12 21:06 eblake Relationship added related to 0000761

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