Re: On PATH_MAX

[Jonathan S. Shapiro]

On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 20:49 +0100, Michal Suchanek wrote:
> On 11/4/05, Jonathan S. Shapiro <address@hidden> wrote:
> > On Fri, 2005-11-04 at 08:00 +0100, Marcus Brinkmann wrote:
> >
> > > This is completely wrong (and I made the same wrong statement before).
> > > First, you only need to recompile the programs using PATH_MAX.
> >
> > Actually, not. You only need to recompile existing programs when
> > PATH_MAX *shrinks*.
> >
> I wonder what happens to all those programs that use PATH_MAX to
> allocate a static buffer and then receive a longer pathname bacause
> the constant has been increased.

They break.

But you aren't thinking about the big picture. PATH_MAX growth is *very*
rare, and it is almost always the result of a change in a single
program. The rest of the world, in practice, can almost always wait for
the next release cycle.

shap