OPEN_MAX and other constants - are they desireable?

[Moderator, John Quarterman]

Date:     Tue, 19 Nov 85 20:57:51 EST
From: Dan Franklin <dan at BBN-PROPHET.ARPA>

> I have another argument against the desirability of these constants.  It does
> not allow people to do implementations that don't have any limitations (other
> than availability of resources).  It would be fairly easy to design a system
> that would allow you to have an "unlimited" number of files, by allocating
> a new table when the current table gets full.

Even given such a system, I think it would still be desirable to place SOME
limit on the number of open files per process to limit the consequences of
error.  A runaway program could conceivably open an unlimited number of files
and use up the common resources (and also make it difficult to kill the
process).  Limiting a process to 500 or so open files seems like a good idea
(just like most systems put some huge, but definite, limit on the size of a
user's stack).  This arbitrary limit would be the one that the limit facility
would return.

	Dan Franklin

Volume-Number: Volume 3, Number 38