> * Return an integer error with any return values as out parameters.

You must first standarize all that (usually negative) integers, make docs, check for it, do not make mistakes in your if's or case's...

And errno is just that - integers with a meaning. errno is even thread local now and quite safe to use but people on internet scream loudly when someone try to use that not app global varible :) I guess their llms statistically have less new texts feeded in ;)

At some point it is just better to return pointer to struct with all info you can imagine.

And how you think other languages implemented their Error type returns ? Just a struct or union with tag. Because current CPU's operate on simple type registers there is no other sane way to do it.

the fault for sshhole isn't just "C bad", it's a series of poor choices in workarounds falling together to create a vulnerability.

being condescending about decisions made 50 years ago, before any of the better languages you're mad the developer didn't use even existed, is silly.

if you want to lay blame, lay it at the feet of more recent devs that started returning values instead of NULL because people were using crypt incorrectly. likely sha512 returned a fake value instead of a real one because prior hashes couldn't fail. the interface should have been updated then, but instead they worked around it.