[swift-server-dev] Posix Module

[Johannes Weiß]

Hi,

Well, correct handling of POSIX functions in Swift is unfortunately a bit harder than just re-exporting Glibc/Darwin depending on the platform.

Errno is an issue. In _many_ libraries I have seen code like this:

let rv = some_syscall(params)
if tv != 0 {
    throw POSIXError(code: errno)
}

this looks correct but technically it isn't. There's no guarantee in Swift that between calling 'some_syscall' and capturing 'errno', errno isn't overridden. ARC might insert 'release' calls at any point. Unfortunately, release calls might cause 'deinit's to be run and they might use syscalls (which could override errno).

So yes, just re-exporting Glibc/Darwin is easy but using these functions correctly is hard.

Another assumption I have seen in Swift libraries is assuming that a successful system call resets errno to 0, that's not true either.

But as others have said, this might be a swift-{users,evolution} question?

Cheers,
  Johannes


> On 28 Oct 2016, at 4:51 pm, Helge Heß via swift-server-dev <swift-server-dev at swift.org> wrote:
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I guess this kinda belongs here:
> 
> I wonder whether we can have a standard Posix module with all the standard Posix stuff in it to avoid the
> 
>  #if os(Linux)
>    import Glibc
>  #else
>    import Darwin
>  #endif
> 
> for things which are standardised in Posix (and hence the same, even on Windoze). I currently have an `xsys` module to alias the definitions, but this is kinda crap :-)
> 
>  https://github.com/NozeIO/Noze.io/tree/master/Sources/xsys
> 
> Or is there a better way to do this already?
> 
> Thanks,
>  Helge
> 
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