"Worse still: a combination of a return code and a global error code." That's not the worst that exists in C :-) Let me quote a dietlibc developer from http://

"Worse still: a combination of a return code and a global error code." That's not the worst that exists in C :-) Let me quote a dietlibc developer from http://www.koders.com/c/fid1639C203A2255EB1FA11DC6A68D74FEB2B530F8F.aspx#L14 http://www.koders.com/c/fid1639C203A2255EB1FA11DC6A68D74FEB2... /* Oh boy, this interface sucks so badly, there are no words for it. * Not one, not two, but _three_ error signalling methods! (*h_errnop * nonzero? return value nonzero? *RESULT zero?) The glibc goons * really outdid themselves with this one. */