[Guido]
I expect that the right solution here is indeed to write our own stdio-like library from the ground up. That can solve any number of problems: telling how many characters are buffered (so you don't have to use unbuffered mode when using select or poll), platform- independent line end recognition, and super-efficient readline() to boot.
We also have the old http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=5470& atid=105470&func=detail&aid=210821 complaining that use of FILE* in our C API can make it impossible to (in that fellow's case) write an app in Borland C++ on Windows that tries to use those API functions (cuz Borland's FILE* is incompatible with MS's FILE*). I'm not sure the best solution to *that* is to give them a FILE* that's incompatible with everyone's, though <wink>>
But it's a lot of work, and won't be compatible with existing extensions that use FILE* (not too many I believe).
I'm more concerned about the "lot of work" part, with which I agree. OTOH, Plauger's book "The Standard C Library" contains source code for every library required by C89. He reported that implementing libm took him twice as long as everything else combined. But those who haven't written a libm will be prone to take a wrong lesson from that <wink>. it's-not-that-i/o-is-easy-despite-that-his-libm-code-isn't-production- quality-ly y'rs - tim