Should ngx_atoi and ngx_atof functions change their signature?!

[Valentin V. Bartenev]

On Thursday 10 December 2015 14:55:32 Wandenberg Peixoto wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> today I realized a possible problem on the ngx_atoi and ngx_atof functions
> (may be on all ngx_ato* functions).
> 
> There is no way to distinguish between an error and a valid "-1" string.
> 
> For instance,
> 
> ngx_str_t some_string = ngx_string("-1");
> ngx_int_t x = ngx_atoi(some_string.data, some_string.len);
> 
> if (x == NGX_ERROR) {
>   ngx_log_debug(NGX_LOG_DEBUG, ngx_cycle->log, 0, "ERROR");
> } else {
>   ngx_log_debug(NGX_LOG_DEBUG, ngx_cycle->log, 0, "SUCCESS %d", x);
> }
> 
> this code will produce an "ERROR" as output instead of "SUCCESS -1".
> The same result as if the some_string had a value like "xyz".
> 
> I know that this is unlikely to happen that you have a string with "-1",
> but it is possible.
> 
> What do you think about change these function signature, or add a new one,
> to receive the output as a parameter something like
> 
> ngx_int_t
> ngx_atoi(u_char *line, size_t n, ngx_int_t *result)
> 
> using the "result" parameter to store the parsed value and return NGX_OK or
> NGX_ERROR.
> 

What makes you think that these functions are able to parse negative numbers?

  wbr, Valentin V. Bartenev