Serious flaw in glibc ?

Alan Cox (alan@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk)
Sun, 11 Oct 1998 18:38:57 +0100 (BST)

> The glibc method is better since it can not be tricked into returning
> non-NULL for something that isn't a directory, but it does have the
> undesirable property that it opens everything in sight, possibly
> rewinding tape devices or setting your controlling terminal. IMO,
> opendir() should do a stat before opening the directory, as well as an
> fstat afterwards.

The glibc method is buggy. If ls rewinds my tapes even as root its bad
dangerous and unexpected behaviour. I hope someone will fix glibc to at
least do

stat
if(directory)
{
open
fstat

Otherwise consider what happens backing up /dev to tape...

Alan

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