Debian Bug report logs - #239424
realpath(3) out of date

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Thomas Hood <jdthood@yahoo.co.uk>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: realpath(3) out of date

Date: Mon, 22 Mar 2004 18:02:18 +0100

Package: manpages-dev
Version: 1.66-1
Severity: normal

The realpath(3) man page is out of date.  The description fails to note
that resolvedpath can be NULL.  In this case the result is stored in a
malloc'd buffer whose address is returned.

The BUGS section of the man page begins with "Never use this function."
This advice and the explanation that follows it is also out of date.
With resolvedpath=NULL the caller need not allocate a buffer before
calling realpath().

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (800, 'testing'), (700, 'unstable'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.4.24
Locale: LANG=en_IE@euro, LC_CTYPE=en_IE@euro

Versions of packages manpages-dev depends on:
ii  manpages                      1.66-1     Manual pages about using a GNU/Lin

-- no debconf information

Message #10 received at 239424@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Michael Kerrisk" <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>

To: Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>

Cc: 239424@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: #239424 realpath(3) out of date

Date: Tue, 21 Jun 2005 13:16:29 +0200 (MEST)

Hi Martin,

I spotted this report and realized that I already independently 
added some of the information that Thomas Hood is talking about
in man-pages-2.00 (Dec 2004).  I've just now amended that text 
slightly to be more accurate.

I think Thomas probably thinks that setting seolved_path to 
NULL means that realpath() will allocate a buffer that is always
large enough.  This is not the case: it only allocates up to
PATH_MAX bytes.

The current text (as it will appear in man-pages-2.04) is:

NOTES
       The  glibc  implementation  of  realpath() provides a non-
       standard extension.   If  resolved_path  is  specified  as
       NULL,  then realpath() uses malloc(3) to allocate a buffer
       of up to PATH_MAX bytes to hold the resolved pathname, and
       returns a pointer to this buffer.  The caller should deal-
       locate this buffer using free(3).

BUGS
       Avoid using this function. It is broken  by  design  since
       (unless  using the non-standard resolved_path == NULL fea-
       ture) it is impossible to determine a  suitable  size  for
       the  output  buffer,  resolved_path.  According to POSIX a
       buffer of size PATH_MAX suffices, but PATH_MAX need not be
       a  defined  constant,  and  may  have to be obtained using
       pathconf().  And asking pathconf() does not  really  help,
       since on the one hand POSIX warns that the result of path-
       conf() may be huge and unsuitable  for  mallocing  memory.
       And  on the other hand pathconf() may return -1 to signify
       that PATH_MAX is not bounded.

Please close this report.

Cheers,

Michael

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  Grab the latest
tarball at ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages/
and grep the source files for 'FIXME'.

Please submit non-trivial man page suggestions as 
"diff -u" patches.

Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl

Message #15 received at 239424@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: "Michael Kerrisk" <mtk-manpages@gmx.net>

To: 239424@bugs.debian.org

Cc: control@bugs.debian.org

Subject: pending

Date: Thu, 30 Jun 2005 09:21:05 +0200 (MEST)

tags 239424 pending
thanks

-- 
Michael Kerrisk
maintainer of Linux man pages Sections 2, 3, 4, 5, and 7 

Want to help with man page maintenance?  Grab the latest
tarball at ftp://ftp.win.tue.nl/pub/linux-local/manpages/
and grep the source files for 'FIXME'.

Weitersagen: GMX DSL-Flatrates mit Tempo-Garantie!
Ab 4,99 Euro/Monat: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/dsl

Message #22 received at 239424-close@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>

To: 239424-close@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Bug#239424: fixed in manpages 2.04-1

Date: Sat, 12 Nov 2005 22:17:16 -0800

Source: manpages
Source-Version: 2.04-1

We believe that the bug you reported is fixed in the latest version of
manpages, which is due to be installed in the Debian FTP archive:

manpages-dev_2.04-1_all.deb
  to pool/main/m/manpages/manpages-dev_2.04-1_all.deb
manpages_2.04-1.diff.gz
  to pool/main/m/manpages/manpages_2.04-1.diff.gz
manpages_2.04-1.dsc
  to pool/main/m/manpages/manpages_2.04-1.dsc
manpages_2.04-1_all.deb
  to pool/main/m/manpages/manpages_2.04-1_all.deb
manpages_2.04.orig.tar.gz
  to pool/main/m/manpages/manpages_2.04.orig.tar.gz



A summary of the changes between this version and the previous one is
attached.

Thank you for reporting the bug, which will now be closed.  If you
have further comments please address them to 239424@bugs.debian.org,
and the maintainer will reopen the bug report if appropriate.

Debian distribution maintenance software
pp.
Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org> (supplier of updated manpages package)

(This message was generated automatically at their request; if you
believe that there is a problem with it please contact the archive
administrators by mailing ftpmaster@debian.org)


-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Format: 1.7
Date: Sun, 13 Nov 2005 06:55:01 +0100
Source: manpages
Binary: manpages manpages-dev
Architecture: source all
Version: 2.04-1
Distribution: unstable
Urgency: low
Maintainer: Martin Schulze <joey@debian.org>
Changed-By: Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org>
Description: 
 manpages   - Manual pages about using a GNU/Linux system
 manpages-dev - Manual pages about using GNU/Linux for development
Closes: 194842 239424 263109 290880 296183 308359 309578 311680 311800 313607
Changes: 
 manpages (2.04-1) unstable; urgency=low
 .
   * New upstream version
     - Includes updates nice(5) page (Closes: Bug#296183)
     - Fix description of return value in getopt(3) (Closes: Bug#308359)
     - Corrected example in hsearch(3) (Closes: Bug#313607)
     - Added reference to log1p(3) (Closes: Bug#309578)
     - Fix return value for makecontext(3) (Closes: Bug#311800)
     - Fix example in rand(3) (Closes: Bug#194842)
     - Corrections to realpath(3) (Closes: Bug#239424)
     - Corrected header in rcmd(3) (Closes: Bug#311680)
     - Corrected %p type in scanf(3) (Closes: Bug#263109)
     - Corrected info for standard filedes in stdin(3) (Close: Bug#295859)
     - Added missing header to strerror(3) (Closes: Bug#290880)
Files: 
 cb010283c01f88d5984f94ff6fdce46a 584 doc - manpages_2.04-1.dsc
 86619809c53b5d8c6c6c82cb0aa8c4c8 1029542 doc - manpages_2.04.orig.tar.gz
 e31dc334b17d1b981142855dbd46a1a1 45665 doc - manpages_2.04-1.diff.gz
 633a73a4097ca44b14a12b79fa1f0207 398780 doc important manpages_2.04-1_all.deb
 988ac1a7816ccf2b4ed04b0642930179 1089660 doc standard manpages-dev_2.04-1_all.deb

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