There’s plenty of bad code that fails to check for errors so the OS may well have flagged something here and the program just didn’t know/care.
It seems even more likely that the result of unlink() would be ignored (right up there with ignoring printf()), not because it’s the right thing to do but because lazy programmers will assume that failures are incredibly unlikely or unimportant. For example, if the code is a cleanup phase that just wants to remove a list of files, what are the odds that the program dutifully checks that the files actually went away?
For example, if the code is a cleanup phase that just wants to remove a list of files, what are the odds that the program dutifully checks that the files actually went away?
Or, as the reason for the omission of such checks is more likely to be, what to do if something that shouldn't fail, fails? And if whatever you decide to do to handle the error itself also fails? Repeat ad infinitum. To even try to go down that rabbithole is simply a waste of effort and does nothing but introduce unnecessary complexity, to put it bluntly.
It seems even more likely that the result of unlink() would be ignored (right up there with ignoring printf()), not because it’s the right thing to do but because lazy programmers will assume that failures are incredibly unlikely or unimportant. For example, if the code is a cleanup phase that just wants to remove a list of files, what are the odds that the program dutifully checks that the files actually went away?