Re: aug-2001 libstdc++ outstanding

[Nathan Myers <ncm at nospam dot cantrip dot org>]

On Tue, Sep 04, 2001 at 10:41:26AM -0700, Benjamin Kosnik wrote:
> > > 2001-08-09
> > > 	Opinions on libstdc++/3955 patch?
> > > 	http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/libstdc++/2001-08/msg00066.html
> > 
> > I posted an article to the newsgroups asking what the intention was,
> > but got nothing back; I still think the patch should be applied.
> 
> I'm pretty sure that this patch is wrong. I remember talking to Nathan 
> about this when I first started on the stringstream code, and distinctly 
> remember the current behavior as being what was intended. (I believe 
> other vendors also implement similar semantics.)

The initial position has been discussed a couple of times in the 
Library Working Group.  Everybody agrees it's not necessarily 
intuitive to start it in the standard place, but everybody also 
agrees the standard is clear, uncontradictory, implementable, and 
not obviously wrong in this area, so there's no change expected.  
The correct behavior is understandable as being the same as opening 
a file with the initialized contents.

I don't recall any discussion about openmode == app behavior.
It seems to me that it would imply that the pointer starts in
the standard place, but jumps to the end if you do a write, but
I haven't scoured the standard recently.

Nathan Myers
ncm at cantrip dot org