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Issue of the Standard # S0053

Brief

There are no clear requirements on return value of function tdelete() when deleting the root node.

Detailed Description

Standard states: “The tdelete() function shall return a pointer to the parent of the deleted node, or a null pointer if the node is not found.” But there is no information which value should be returned when deleting the root node.

Problem location(s) in the standard

The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 6 IEEE Std 1003.1, 2004 Edition (SUS 3.0), System Interfaces, description of functions tsearch(), tdelete(), tfind(), twalk().

Possible consequences

Possible incorrect behavior of applications that use tdelete() function if developers estimates about the returned value do not correspond to implementation behavior.

Possible solutions

It is proposed to clarify this place in the Standard and define the return value of the function when deleting the root node.

Accepted

POSIX aardvark,
Request Number 139

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