[GNUnet-developers] Re: Gratuitous gcry_fast_random_poll

[Marcus Brinkmann]

At Wed, 05 May 2004 20:36:09 +0200,
Werner Koch wrote:
> 
> On Wed, 05 May 2004 19:35:34 +0200, Marcus Brinkmann said:
> 
> > The asserts in the code check if the proper lock/unlock calls are made
> > in the single-threaded case, too.
> 
> Which is a Good Thing.
> 
> > If the locking interface is exported in gcrypt, and users are
> > responsible for their own locking, these assertions should probably be
> > removed.
> 
> Why?  Calling ath_mutex_lock on a locked mutex is a severe error in
> any case.

Yes, but compare it with pthread: you have error checking locks
(robust locks) and fast locks.  And everybody just uses the fast locks
and never checks the error.

It's not a good thing if a library gives an assertion failure, unless
there really is an internal error.  An error value returned would be
better, but nobody would check it.  Oh well.

Marcus