> returning a sentinel value of NULL and setting errno is pretty standard C, and shouldn't cause an error.

> OP's sshhole link specifically notes that it _should_ return NULL

I meant there's no mechanism besides returning NULL that would make it hard to ignore the issue (exceptions need to be caught, results need to be unwrapped and their failure handled, an integer return value makes it clearer that there's something there that you need to check). I also missed errno codes when glancing at the manpage earlier which should illustrate the problem.

And yes, whoever first had the brilliant idea to start returning garbage never should've done that, I'm not disputing that.