133876 - 0xFFFFFFFFUL != -1, LBER_ERROR definition wrong?

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Directory Graveyard :: LDAP C SDK, defect, P2)

Description

[tilps]

liblber ber_printf etc all return -1 for error.
On GCC 3.2 (probably less recent versions as well) - compiling several files in
libldap produces warnings that comparison is always false, or always true
most of these are of the form LBER_ERROR == ber_printf(...)
LBER_ERROR is defined as 0xFFFFFFFFUL, and ber_printf returns an int.
LBER_ERROR is an unsigned long which is greater then MAX_INT so gcc will always
return false, for that case.

Suggest LBER_ERROR be redefined as -1

Comment 1

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

LBER_ERROR is not intended to be a synonym for -1. No code should include a
check like this:

    LBER_ERROR == ber_printf(...)

Instead, the code should text against -1, e.g.,

    -1 == ber_printf(...)

Note that ber_scanf() does return LBER_ERROR upon error (and a BER tag
otherwise). I see problems like you describe in these files:

  libldap/proxyauthctrl.c
  libldap/vlistctrl.c

Did you see any others? Thanks for reporting this... I love compiler warnings!

Comment 2

[tilps]

ahh okay ... 

there are others of the form (berrc = ber_printf(...) ) == LBER_ERROR
where berrc is an int variable, not always called berrc
error.c is the first that comes to mind ( a few != variations as well)

a grep for all cases of LBER_ERROR in the libldap directory are almost all
incorrect (maybe not all of them now that you mention that scanf returns LBER_ERROR)
I can get a list, but not right now.

Comment 3

[Frankie]

Spam for bug 129472

Comment 4

[Mark Smith [:mcs]]

TM = Future

Comment 5

[Jonathan]

Does this compilation error still occur?