Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Stdlib.h

Stdlib.h

(Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This article has been replaced with a redirect for a while until some editor came saying that it must necessarily go through the AFD process. So here is the request. The rationale to delete this article is that almost all its content is duplicated across several other articles, namely C dynamic memory allocation (malloc, free, calloc, realloc), C miscellaneous operations (qsort, bsearch, ato*, strto*, rand, srand), C program control operations (system, getenv, abort, exit, atexit), C mathematical operations (abs, labs, div, ldiv), stddef.h (NULL, size_t). Itoa as a nonstandard function is currently not included anywhere. The splitting of the article was the result of recent initiative to reorganize the articles about C standard library (you may see the discussion which was the starting point). Due to the fact that the organization is almost complete and this page clearly does not fit into the new structure by duplicating the content, I suggest this article to be ~~replaced~~ speedy replaced with a redirect to C standard library. 1exec1 (talk) 21:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC) 1exec1 (talk) 21:52, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Speedy redirect to C standard library. This has been discussed at length at the appropriate talk pages, WikiProjects and several previous related AfDs. There's absolutely no need to go through AfD for all those articles, because a single editor apparently disagrees, where exactly the same people will turn up to reach the same conclusion. —Ruud 22:28, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Computing-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:47, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Software-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k (talk) 22:48, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

- Comment Thats not correct - its not a single editor - there has been a lot of disagreement. Take a look at the talk pages Talk:C_standard_library#Pages_for_each_function_and_WP:NOTMANUAL, and the talk page of the nominater, and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Limits.h - the latter is a very insignificant header file compared to this one. The reason I recreated this article, thats because it was a redirect to C program control operations which is misleding if you want to know what stdlib.h is. If the new suggestion to redirect it to C standard library, the only infomation you get is: "For performing a variety of operations, including conversion, pseudo-random numbers, memory allocation, process control, environment, signalling, searching, and sorting.". The whole problem is, the articles has not been merged and therefore I disagree with your speedy redirect. And I have AFDed C miscellaneous operations - I think the way the headers has been split up is WP:OR and selfmade titles. E.g. I have not found a citation which states thats C mathematical operations is the functions in that article, but I have found a lot about plus and minus etc. I thought it was a good idea to merge a lot of the function which was the title of the discussion Talk:C_standard_library#Pages_for_each_function_and_WP:NOTMANUAL" but too late I (and probably) serveral other people recognized that it was about a new structure for the article, and the article was not merged as suggested) but just redirects to oneliners e.g. "strncmp - compares specific number of bytes in two strings" (yes (strncmp) was a poor article before, but now the redirect is useless - unless you want to leave wikipedia (the "merger" has included a lot of external links instead of mergeing the articles). Btw. the article Itoa the nominator says he couldnt fine a place to redirect, whats the solution to that - making it a redirect to C miscellaneous operations (without mergeing or mention the name of the redirect on the target). Christian75 (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Before asserting that the article has not been merged, please show specific material at stdlib.h that can not be found in the abovementioned articles. As of itoa, the article about it went in length and even tried to find every appearance of that function anywhere (section other appearances), so I think it definitely fails WP:GNG. 1exec1 (talk) 23:50, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

keep per my comment Christian75 (talk) 23:13, 31 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Keep. Some things just plain have actual names. This is one of them. This is malloc all over again. The thing is called stdlib.h. Unless there's an argument (and I haven't heard it) that it's not notable, it certainly doesn't need someone's idea of a much better name. Msnicki (talk) 00:54, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
- Request Could you name any sources that would allow us to write an encyclopedic article on this subject, i.e. one that describes the history of stdlib.h and the impact it has had on computer programming or society as opposed to a transcription of the C language specification? I would believe those exists for the topics "C standard library" and "printf", but I'm doubtful they exists for stdlib.h. —Ruud 01:03, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can you point to where in the WP:GNG it requires that? stdlib.h did not appear in K&R 1st ed but does appears in the second edition on pg 142 (in a discussion of malloc) and in a section devoted to it, "B5. Utility function: <stdlib.h>", pp 251–253. That's a primary source, but I'll bet we can find lots of secondaries if you really need them. Msnicki (talk) 01:50, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

WP:NOT seems to be the relevant policy here. Could you name some concrete titles of secondary sources covering stdlib.h? My book on C++ only contains a one sentence description, followed buy a list of function prototypes with one-sentence descriptions. That can be covered in C standard library, but isn't enough warrant its own article. An encyclopedia is supposed to summarize knowledge from different sources, but here I don't see how we would just end up duplicating http://www.open-std.org/JTC1/SC22/wg14/www/docs/n1124.pdf . —Ruud 11:18, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Okay, here is another book that gives stdlib.h its own section. Satisfied? Msnicki (talk) 14:49, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I can only view a snippet from that book, so I'm still not convinced that there is enough material to write a stand-alone article on stdlib.h, instead of a section in C standard library or other overview article. —Ruud 16:10, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That book only contains only a very short mention of stdlib.h itself and then goes about the contained functions, so no, there is not enough material for a separate article. 1exec1 (talk) 17:09, 1 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Don’t delete; I don’t think anyone suggested completely deleting the contents and history from public view. There is potential for much of the content to overlap with things like C functions#stdlib.h, Standard C library#ISO C library headers, Null pointer, size_t, and the older div (C) and itoa pages, so perhaps merging, splitting, and redirecting should be discussed instead of deletion. Vadmium (talk, contribs) 06:57, 1 November 2011 (UTC).[reply]