Re: [9fans] echo -n

[Joel Salomon <chesky@plan9.jp>]

> > The only real solution is to change the interface so that
> > end-of-file is not signaled by a zero-length read.  But that
> > convention is far too entrenched to go anywhere any time soon.
> 
> Isn´t it that a write of zero bytes should just not write, instead
> of meaning a write of zero bytes?
> 
> Or did I miss something?

That seems to be the definition under the Unix.  From the Single UNIX
Specification, version 2 man page for write():
	If nbyte is 0, write() will return 0 and have no other results
	if the file is a regular file; otherwise, the results are
	unspecified.
SUS3 is more verbose, but seems to have the same intent.  Does Plan 9 use zero-length writes for something that shouldn’t be changed?

--Joel