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From: ericblake AT comcast DOT net (Eric Blake)
To: Siegfried Heintze <siegfried AT heintze DOT com>, cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Subject: Re: Documentation on functions
Date: Wed, 14 Sep 2005 14:38:58 +0000
Message-Id: <091420051438.2851.43283602000A885F00000B2322058864420A050E040D0C079D0A@comcast.net>

> > 
> > I noticed that when I boot fedora core 4, the function readdir is documented
> > in man. However, when I boot windows/Cygwin readdir is not available in info
> > or man. When I download the same code for "Beginning Programming in Linux"
> > from the www.wrox.com site I notice that all the code on pthreads compiles
> > and seems to run! But, I notice, pthread_attr_init is not in man or info
> > either. Where is the documentation on these functions?
> 
> Missing because no one has ever contributed it.
> http://cygwin.com/acronyms#PTC
> 

Followup - for standard functions, like readdir or pthread_attr_init,
I usually refer directly to POSIX
(http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/toc.htm) to at
least see what aspects of the function should be implemented
across various systems, although it doesn't document the extensions
that are permitted.  For non-standard functions, google is your
friend (for example, I recently patched newlib's argz_insert, which
was not behaving like BSD's version; googling for 'man argz_insert'
was what let me find out how BSD does it, since POSIX does not
require it).

Furthermore, some of the lack of documentation is the fault of
newlib, not cygwin, but both projects could use improvements.

--
Eric Blake



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