Most if not all of bash.
zlib changed it just a few months ago (1.3 release from August): https://github.com/madler/zlib/issues/633
I've also seen it in some FreeBSD code, but that was quite a few years ago and I don't know to what degree that's been cleaned up – not so easy to grep for, but a quick check in git log shows e.g. https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e5d0d1c5fbbc and some other things, so it seems there's still some K&R around.
Probably others as well, this is what I happen to know from the top of my head.
In Xmas.c (1988)freebsd
freebsd-src
C2012–2026
freebsd / freebsd-src
freebsd-src
The FreeBSD src tree publish-only repository. Experimenting with 'simple' pull requests....
122Distinct people
189Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
9.5KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
The FreeBSD src tree publish-only repository. Experimenting with 'simple' pull requests....
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
My favorite piece of man trivia is from the source of the tunefs BSD man page, which contains: .\" Take this out and a Unix Daemon will dog your steps from now until .\" the…
beej71 used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- openbsd/src · linked in 7 of the same discussions
- coreutils/coreutils · linked in 3 of the same discussions
- torvalds/linux · linked in 3 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 8–Nov 15 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/15/2026, 12:45:45 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year189 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-05-14 23:44:07 UTC to 2026-10-26 20:08:28 UTC.
* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 2012-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2 | 0 | 2 |
| 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| 2015 | 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 8 | 0 | 8 |
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 16 | 1 | 15 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 17 | 0 | 17 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 14 | 1 | 13 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 28 | 2 | 26 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 20 | 1 | 19 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 24 | 0 | 24 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 23 | 0 | 23 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 2 | 8 |
| 2025 | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| 2026 (partial) | 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
FreeBSD Source:
This is the top level of the FreeBSD source directory.
FreeBSD is an operating system used to power modern servers, desktops, and embedded platforms.
A large community has continually developed it for more than thirty years.
Its advanced networking, security, and storage features have made FreeBSD the platform of choice for many of the busiest web sites and most pervasive embedded networking and storage devices.
For copyright information, please see the file COPYRIGHT in this directory.
Additional copyright information also exists for some sources in this tree - please see the specific source directories for more information.
The Makefile in this directory supports a number of targets for building components (or all) of the FreeBSD source tree.
See build(7), config(8), FreeBSD handbook on building userland, and Handbook for kernels for more information, including setting make(1) variables.
For information on the CPU architectures and platforms supported by FreeBSD, see the FreeBSD
website's Platforms page.
For official FreeBSD bootable images, see the release page.
Source Roadmap:
Directory
Description
bin
System/user commands.
cddl
Source code for third-party software under the Common Development and Distribution License.
contrib
Source code for third-party software.
crypto
Source code for cryptographic libraries and commands (see crypto/README).
etc
Template files for /etc.
include
System include files.
kerberos5
Build system for Kerberos 5 (Heimdal).
krb5
Build system for Kerberos 5 (MIT).
lib
System libraries.
libexec
System commands intended to be executed by other commands or daemons.
packages
Base system packages.
release
Makefiles and scripts used for building releases and VM images.
rescue
Build system for statically linked /rescue commands.
sbin
System commands.
secure
Build system for cryptographic libraries and commands (excluding Kerberos).
share
Shared resources.
stand
Boot loader sources.
sys
Kernel sources (see sys/README.md).
targets
Support for experimental DIRDEPS_BUILD
tests
Tests which can be run by Kyua. See tests/README for additional information.
tools
Ancillary utilities and tests (not included in the build).
usr.bin
User commands.
usr.sbin
System administration commands.
For information on synchronizing your source tree with one or more of the FreeBSD Project's development branches, please see FreeBSD Handbook.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
23 sourcesLots of great work by many people. But I bet this guy and his optimizations to the vfs and locking has made a significant impact.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commits?author=mjguzi...
In FreeBSD 14.0 Delivering Great Performance Upliftand then there were deep concerns about the stability of same, so vfs.zfs.bclone_enabled = 0 was left in-place
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/068913e4ba3dd9...
In ZFS 2.2.1: Block Cloning disabled due to data corruptionWell there are some examples:
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/tree/main/share/examp...
But yeah that pf.conf could be expanded allot, but there are many source to cobble a conf together. My conf is massive but 99.9% commented out so i have my "template" for nearly everything, from mail to web to blacklistd etc.
In FreeBSD 14.0-Release> - ZFS has been upgraded to OpenZFS release 2.2, providing significant performance improvements.
Post-2.2 OpenZFS has RAID-Z expansion committed:
* https://github.com/openzfs/zfs/discussions/15232
Also committed to FreeBSD -HEAD/development:
* https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/e716630d4cf89e...
In FreeBSD 14.0-ReleaseThe BSD version is sort of very recent, for what it's worth -- FreeBSD imported a not fully functional version in 2017 and has seen more work on it in 2022: https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commits/main/usr.bin/... , but the default version shipped is still GNU diff3 from ~2007 (before the GPL3): https://man.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=diff3&apropos=0&se... .
In How Git cherry-pick and revert use 3-way mergeSchedule for the release:
* https://www.freebsd.org/releases/14.0R/schedule/
Currently live release notes:
* https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/tree/RELNOTES
* https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/main/RELNOTES
Particular commits that stated they should be noted in the notes ("Relnotes: yes"):
* https://cgit.freebsd.org/src/log/?qt=grep&q=relnotes%3A&h=ma...
In FreeBSD 14 Beta Released with WiFi 6 Support, Updated LLVM Toolchain, Fwgetalso quite interesting to compare with other implementations from the present and the past:
https://github.com/openbsd/src/blob/master/usr.bin/yes/yes.c
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/release/4.0.0/us...
In Decoded: GNU Coreutils (2018)For reference the original code was a bit more complicated than just sorting integers which may also have been a reason for the choice.
/*
* Perform a bubble sort of the system initialization objects by
* their subsystem (primary key) and order (secondary key).
*
* Since some things care about execution order, this is the
* operation which ensures continued function.
*/
for( sipp = (struct sysinit **)sysinit_set.ls_items; *sipp; sipp++) {
for( xipp = sipp + 1; *xipp; xipp++) {
if( (*sipp)->subsystem < (*xipp)->subsystem ||
( (*sipp)->subsystem == (*xipp)->subsystem &&
(*sipp)->order < (*xipp)->order))
continue; /* skip*/
Read the rest
save = *sipp;
*sipp = *xipp;
*xipp = save;
}
}
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/2b14f991e64ebe31...
And Netgate contributes a ton to pf (and other subsystems) on FreeBSD.
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commits/main/sys/netp...
Does OPNsense?
In Big Update to OpenBSD's pfsyncI think FreeBSD code in C is very well organized:
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src
In Ask HN: What are some of the most elegant codebases in your favorite language?There are three things I expect to find in mailing list discussions before going off and reading them:
* Someone suggests that the kernel return EINVAL for null or zero-length argument vector. Someone else then comes up with a mad but very real mainstream program that relies upon the system call succeeding.
* Someone points out that the SUS requires that argv[0] be non-null. Someone else tries to weasel a difference between "shall" and "should", overlooking the SUS rationale that the leeway given is in the string contents, not that it is permitted to be outright null.
* Someone suggests in all seriousness that this behaviour be retained for historical compatibility.
For reference:
* FreeBSD just returns EINVAL for a zero-length argument vector, https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/773fa8cd136a57... . This came from OpenBSD.
*
Read the rest
A null argument vector has been EFAULT in FreeBSD since 2004, when someone noticed that the manual disallowed this, https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/7700eb86e7740c... .
* DragonFly BSD has been fixing up a zero-length argument vector by adding in a dummy non-null argv[0] since 2005, https://github.com/DragonFlyBSD/DragonFlyBSD/commit/66be6566... . It introduced EFAULT for a null argument vector at the same time.
* Illumos has returned EFAULT for a null argument vector since at least the point when it went open-source in 2005.
(btw If you click on the line numbers in Github, you get a three-dots popup, click that and you can "Copy Permalink" to get a link directly to the line which has #L255 on the end, e.g. https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/40b287054521f0a9... )
In FreeBSD spends 7% of its boot time running a bubblesort on its SYSINITsStarting around line 255 in init_main.c (or search for bubble). see https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/blob/40b287054521f0a9...
In FreeBSD spends 7% of its boot time running a bubblesort on its SYSINITsLooks like the code to bubble-sort the SYSINIT objects was committed a few months BEFORE this kernel qsort code was committed (late Aug 1995 vs early Nov 1995).
So that's why the sort-SYSINIT objects code didn't use qsort.
I'd also guess that there were fewer SYSINIT objects to sort back in 1995 than today.
see ~line 150 of sys/kern/init_main.c in https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/2b14f991e64ebe...
In FreeBSD spends 7% of its boot time running a bubblesort on its SYSINITsShowing the 15 most recent of 23 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.