1 files changed, 25 insertions, 3 deletions
diff --git a/man3/strtol.3 b/man3/strtol.3
index 1f1f98216..8ea93cb59 100644
--- a/man3/strtol.3
+++ b/man3/strtol.3
@@ -184,8 +184,8 @@ on both success and failure, the calling program should set
 .I errno
 to 0 before the call,
 and then determine if an error occurred by checking whether
-.I errno
-has a nonzero value after the call.
+.I errno == ERANGE
+after the call.
 .P
 According to POSIX.1,
 in locales other than "C" and "POSIX",
@@ -206,6 +206,21 @@ may be equivalent to
 .BR strtoll ()
 or to
 .BR strtol ().
+.SH CAVEATS
+If the
+.I base
+needs to be tested,
+it should be tested in a call where the string is known to succeed.
+Otherwise, it's impossible to portably differentiate the errors.
+.P
+.in +4n
+.EX
+errno = 0;
+strtol("0", NULL, base);
+if (errno == EINVAL)
+    goto unsupported_base;
+.EE
+.in
 .SH EXAMPLES
 The program shown below demonstrates the use of
 .BR strtol ().
@@ -262,11 +277,18 @@ main(int argc, char *argv[])
     base = (argc > 2) ? atoi(argv[2]) : 0;
 \&
     errno = 0;    /* To distinguish success/failure after call */
+    strtol("0", NULL, base);
+    if (errno == EINVAL) {
+        perror("strtol");
+        exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
+    }
+\&
+    errno = 0;    /* To distinguish success/failure after call */
     val = strtol(str, &endptr, base);
 \&
     /* Check for various possible errors. */
 \&
-    if (errno != 0) {
+    if (errno == ERANGE) {
         perror("strtol");
         exit(EXIT_FAILURE);
     }