From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 MIME-Version: 1.0 In-Reply-To: References: Date: Sat, 7 May 2011 23:00:37 -0700 Message-ID: From: ron minnich To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Subject: Re: [9fans] _xinc vs ainc Topicbox-Message-UUID: e0fb2af6-ead6-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 The type signature reveals all: ainc returns a long, and xinc is void. You really can't test the value of the long * after you call xinc because somebody else might have done an xinc after your xinc but before you test the value. I think, among others, floren and I needed ainc for devtrace years ago. I am sure that there are even better reasons than that. ainc is correct as written, as far as I can tell. I don't think the definition of ainc really requires fairness, since life doesn't either :-) ron