Subject: Re: Where is random()?
From: [email-masked] (Mumit Khan)

17 Dec 1998 03:37:55 -0800
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>
To: Fergus Henderson <[email-masked]>
Cc: "[email-masked]" <[email-masked]>

Fergus Henderson <[email-masked]> writes:
> This is true.  However, if you're going to choose a set of man pages
> to learn from, the Debian Linux ones are actually not too bad, because
> most of the man pages have a "CONFORMING TO" section which states
> which standard(s) support the function(s) in question. 
> 
> > `random' is not standard ANSI nor is it part of POSIX.
> 
> Right.  For random(), the Debian Linux man page states the following:
> 
> 	CONFORMING TO
> 	       BSD 4.3
> 

Point well taken. However the folks who notice this are the ones who
actually look for it, and it's typically folks who are already familiar 
with portability issues and have a copy of various standards sitting 
close by. Sounds convoluted, but hopefully you get my point.

If you peruse the postings that ask for this various routines, you'll
notice the usual line -- "but my linux box has it, there's even an man
page on it ...", but very few seem to go to the end of the man page and
see the CONFORMING TO section. This section should be at the *top* of
the man pages, not at the bottom.

Regards,
Mumit

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