dir

Latest

  • The 25-year-old BSD bug

    by 
    Robert Palmer
    Robert Palmer
    05.13.2008

    Today in 1983, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson may have topped the charts, but a slight bug in the *dir() library was found only a few days ago by OpenBSD developer Marc Balmer (no rela -- oh, wait). OS News has the entire amusing tale of the bug in BSD (the UNIX foundation of Mac OS X) that's been alive and kicking for nearly 25 years. Balmer contacted Marshall Kirk McKusick, the original developer of the *dir() library, who confirmed the error. Thankfully, the fix was simple, but Balmer kidded, "[s]orry that it took us almost 25 years to fix it." Thanks, Cameron!