If you were designing a standard library of a high level language (like Rust, C++, etc.) what would it do if while getting the current time of day (e.g. SystemTime::now()) it encountered a failed kernel system call (e.g. to clock_gettime) and why?
What do you think the existing implementations do?
- Return error or raise exception
- Return 0
- Return undefined values (like stack garbage)
- Panic/crash/segfault
For Rust, return Result<> , as is idomatic in Rust.
Another possible method is having an installable handler that handles the error at the place it is detected. Common Lisp does that and it is very powerful.