[R6RS] Script exit codes; trademarks

Anton van Straaten anton at appsolutions.com
Tue Jan 16 10:35:25 EST 2007


I've committed some minor changes to programs.tex and scriptlib.tex. 
This includes simplifying the grammar as Kent suggested, and adding some 
text about the command-line procedure.

A couple of other issues:

Exit codes
==========
Formal response #18 said that the script appendix "may specify an exit 
code mechanism that handles both integer and string exit codes."

I have not done this.  Mike proposed a solution here:

http://lists.r6rs.org/pipermail/r6rs-discuss/2006-October/000348.html

However, we didn't ever discuss this amongst the editors, afair, other 
than when approving the formal response, when we decided to postpone the 
details.

Right now, the language regarding exit codes is mostly missing from the 
document(s).  I see three obvious resolutions:

1. The language for numeric exit codes can easily be restored;
2. We could go with something that's agnostic about the type of the exit 
code, leaving the details to the implementation & platform;
3. We could go ahead with Mike's proposal, which allows for writing 
portable code that produces platform-appropriate exit codes even on an 
OS like Plan 9.

Either 1 or 2 are quick & easy to specify.  I think 3 requires some 
discussion at least, or a motion etc.  Thoughts?

Also, should exit codes be documented as a feature of (top-level) 
programs, or only of scripts?  Command line access is a feature of 
programs, so it seems as if exit codes belong there too.


Trademarks
==========
The mention of Mac OS and Windows in scriptappendix.tex probably 
requires some kind of trademark acknowledgement...  I'll look at it 
later today but I just wanted to mention it as an issue.


Anton



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