Ballot 4 - results

Shane P. McCarron seismo!meccts.mecc.mn.org!ahby
Fri May 1 02:32:08 UTC 1987


	
> I was just rereading ANSI C X3J11 and noticed that strftime and mktime
> are in there.  Since POSIX is a superset (by definition) of ANSI C,
> POSIX will have strftime and mktime, it isn't an option.
	
Actually, at the working group meeting last week, we changed the
definition of POSIX a little bit.  X/OPEN had some reservations about
POSIX requiring X3J11, because it would increase the time before there
could be conforming systems.  Also, a number of people from different
implementors felt that when their companies had signed onto the POSIX
concept, they had not necessarily bought into X3.  These same people
also said that they were planning on providing an X3 conforming
environment, but not in the same timeframe as POSIX.  As a result of
these discussions, we redefined the terms CONFORMING APPLICATION and
CONFORMING PORTABLE APPLICATION.  The new names are PORTABLE
APPLICATION USING EXTENSIONS and POSIX CONFORMING <language>
APPLICATION.  The text of these definitions is:


Portable Application Using Extensions

A Portable Application Using Extensions shall meet the following
requirements:

All extensions beyond those permitted to a Posix Conforming Language
Application and the corresponding language shall be clearly
documented.

The application developer documents all application requirements for
the operating environment that are implementation dependent including
<limits.h> S2.9 characteristics and other related configuration
requirements (linear address space, file store requirements, etc.)


POSIX Conforming Applications

	POSIX Conforming Standard C Language Application

	A POSIX Conforming Standard C Language Application is a strictly 
	conforming program, as defined in the ANSI/X3.159-198x
	standard, which utilizes only those extensions as described by the
	service bindings in this standard.  In addition, a POSIX Conforming
	Standard C Language Application shall not depend on any unspecified,
	undefined, or implementation defined behavior, nor shall it require that
	any symbolic constant in <limits.h> S2.9 be outside its most
	restrictive value.

As a result of these changes, it is possible to have a Conforming
Implementation of POSIX that does not supply an X3 conforming
environment.  What environment it does provide is unspecified at this
time, but the P1003.1 Working Group expects to see something from
X/OPEN about a K&R C Language binding, which uses the X/OPEN
Portability Guide as the basis for the C Language and its libraries.

The unfortunate implication of all this is that strftime and friends
are not really required by the POSIX standard.  And since the POSIX
Working Group decided at the December meeteing to defer to X3 in all
things relating to time, the issue is a bit confused.
--
Shane P. McCarron		UUCP	ihnp4!meccts!ahby, ahby at MECC.MN.ORG
MECC Technical Services		ATT	(612) 481-3589
Secretary, IEEE P1003.1



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