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Subject: Re: [PATCH 1/2] Add note on MALLOC_MMAP_* environment variables
To: DJ Delorie <dj@redhat.com>
References: <xnpon6vje5.fsf@greed.delorie.com>
Cc: mtk.manpages@gmail.com, siddhesh@sourceware.org, libc-alpha@sourceware.org
From: "Michael Kerrisk (man-pages)" <mtk.manpages@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6c12230b-f326-309a-a359-2dfffcccd495@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 11 Oct 2016 19:03:00 -0000
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On 10/11/2016 08:18 PM, DJ Delorie wrote:
> 
> Michael Kerrisk <mtk.manpages@gmail.com> writes:
>> I think the notion that because one does not document something, it's
>> not an official part of the ABI is at best highly dubious.
> 
> I wasn't here for the origin of those variables, I'm just thinking that
> we use a leading underscore elsewhere to mean "not official" so the
> trailing underscore here might have similar intent.
> 
> FTR I have no problem with documenting unsupported behavior, I just want
> to make sure we understand how this patch affects the officialness of
> this ABI.

My thought is: not very much. The ABI is out there and is well known.
There's not really anyway to argue to users that it is not "official",
no matter what the original developers might once have thought about
these interfaces.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
Linux man-pages maintainer; http://www.kernel.org/doc/man-pages/
Linux/UNIX System Programming Training: http://man7.org/training/