On 2017-08-02 11:19:39 +1200, Gavin Flower wrote:
> Returning zero to indicate success is a holdover to the time computers could
> only run one program at a time. At the end of the code there was a jump
> table of 4 byte entries. The first entry with a displacement of zero was
> the location to jump to for a normal exit, subsequent entries where for
> various error conditions. This why often return codes where in positive
> multiples of 4, since we don't use jump tables now - more & more people are
> using any integers they want.
>
> So apart from convention, returning zero is no longer held to be a sacred to
> indicate something exited okay. In fact since, zero could simply mean a
> value was not explicitly assigned, hence it is actually a very dangerous
> value to be used to indicate success!
This has nothing to do with this thread.
- Andres
