Re: System calls without error checks in w32

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 30 May 2010 05:26:32 +0200
> Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> On Sun, May 30, 2010 at 5:02 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> >
> > In any case, the solution you suggest is not a good one, because it
> > obfuscates the source code and makes it harder to read and understand.
> 
> 
> Are you saying that checking the return values of system calls should
> be avoided because it makes the code to difficult to read?

No.

> Remember that what I suggest is basically
> 
>    if (bad_return_value) DebPrint (("error this_function.ApiFunction
> => %d", bad_return_value));

What purpose does this serve?  This isn't "checking return values for
errors", because this has no effect for the majority of users who
don't run Emacs under a debugger.  Their Emacs will still crash if it
hits bad_return_value.  I thought you were arguing for making the
Emacs code more robust in the face of possible failures of the APIs it
calls.

If you want more debugging aids, I don't object, but then I have no
interest in such additions, either.  Typically, such additions are
only good as long as you debug some specific problem, so keeping them
in the code after that is waste of bytes.

>    W32DEBPRINT (this_function, ApiFunction, bad_return_value, 0);

This is even worse, because it's impossible to understand what this
does without looking up the magical W32DEBPRINT macro.