Re: EOF is a misnomer?

[Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>]

* Peng Yu via Libc-help:

> man getchar says
>
> "       fgetc(), getc(), and getchar() return the character read as an unsigned
>        char cast to an int or EOF on end of file or error."
>
> EOF literally stands for end of file. But the above functions can
> return EOF when there is an error.
>
> In feof(), "eof" just means end of file as shown in man feof.
>
>        The function feof() tests the  end-of-file  indicator  for  the  stream
>        pointed  to by stream, returning nonzero if it is set.  The end-of-file
>        indicator can be cleared only by the function clearer().
>
> So the macro name EOF is a misnomer. It could have been named as
> something like EOF_OR_ERR? The fact that its name is EOF is due to
> some historical reasons? Thanks.

It's this way for historical reasons.  EOF can also be a valid character
(if sizeof (int) is 1, as permitted by the C standard), so the whole
interface is a bit questionable.

Thanks,
Florian