Re: /usr/lib/apt/methods/http - close(-1)

[Stephen Zander <gibreel@pobox.com>]

>>>>> "Scott" == Scott K Ellis <storm@stormcrow.org> writes:

    Scott> On Fri, 29 Jan 1999, Russell Coker wrote:
    >> What is a close(-1) supposed to do?  The http program does one
    >> and I'm curious as to why...

    Scott> IIRC, close(-1) closes all open file handles.  I'm not
    Scott> certain exactly wher this is documented though.

Actually, it shouldn't do anything.  What's most likely is the source
has multiple code paths after the opening of some file descriptor &
rather than do error checking in each code path, the programmer
elected to to close the file descriptor just prior to exiting that
block of code.  When the open fails for hatever reason, the return
code from open/socket/whatever is -1.

IOW, close (-1) is an ignorable non-op (unless, of course, you were
trying to get to the previous value of errno :))

-- 
Stephen
---
It should be illegal to yell "Y2K" in a crowded economy.  :-) -- Larry Wall