From: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@osdl.org>
Date: Sun, 04 Jun 2006 18:40:54 GMT
Subject: Re: Clean up sha1 file writing
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606041139310.5498@g5.osdl.org>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0606041136180.5498@g5.osdl.org>



On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 4 Jun 2006, H. Peter Anvin wrote:
> > 
> > Or if you're getting a SIGWINCH in the middle of it.
> > 
> > Any POSIX system will interrupt the transfer and return a short read on
> > receiving a signal.
> 
> Only for interruptible fd's, though, which normally a real "file" won't 
> be.

And _usually_ only if you actually have a SIGWINCH handler.

Although older Linux kernels were broken in this regard. They'd interrupt 
a socket/pipe read or write even for a signal that ended up being ignored.

So it's absolutely the case that having the loop is always the safer thing 
to do, and it's never the _wrong_ thing to do.

		Linus