syscall: inconsistent error messages for syscall.ESTALE across architectures

[vipnydav]

Go version

go 1.23.4

Output of go env in your module/workspace:

go env
GO111MODULE=''
GOARCH='amd64'
GOBIN=''
GOCACHE='/home/vipinydv_google_com/.cache/go-build'
GOENV='/home/vipinydv_google_com/.config/go/env'
GOEXE=''
GOEXPERIMENT=''
GOFLAGS=''
GOHOSTARCH='amd64'
GOHOSTOS='linux'
GOINSECURE=''
GOMODCACHE='/home/vipinydv_google_com/go/pkg/mod'
GONOPROXY=''
GONOSUMDB=''
GOOS='linux'
GOPATH='/home/vipinydv_google_com/go'
GOPRIVATE=''
GOPROXY='https://proxy.golang.org,direct'
GOROOT='/home/vipinydv_google_com/go/pkg/mod/golang.org/[email protected]'
GOSUMDB='sum.golang.org'
GOTMPDIR=''
GOTOOLCHAIN='auto'
GOTOOLDIR='/home/vipinydv_google_com/go/pkg/mod/golang.org/[email protected]/pkg/tool/linux_amd64'
GOVCS=''
GOVERSION='go1.23.4'
GODEBUG=''
GOTELEMETRY='local'
GOTELEMETRYDIR='/home/vipinydv_google_com/.config/go/telemetry'
GCCGO='gccgo'
GOAMD64='v1'
AR='ar'
CC='gcc'
CXX='g++'
CGO_ENABLED='1'
GOMOD='/home/vipinydv_google_com/gcsfuse/go.mod'
GOWORK=''
CGO_CFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_CPPFLAGS=''
CGO_CXXFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_FFLAGS='-O2 -g'
CGO_LDFLAGS='-O2 -g'
PKG_CONFIG='pkg-config'
GOGCCFLAGS='-fPIC -m64 -pthread -Wl,--no-gc-sections -fmessage-length=0 -ffile-prefix-map=/tmp/go-build342134929=/tmp/go-build -gno-record-gcc-switches'

What did you do?

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Write a Go program that returns the syscall.ESTALE error.
2. Run the program on an arm64 and amd64 machines and observe the error message.
   FYI : This discrepancy is not limited to these two architectures and exists on other platforms as well.

What did you see happen?

When returning the syscall.ESTALE error in a Go program, the error message displayed to the user varies depending on the machine's architecture. On arm64 machines, users see "stale file handle", while on amd64 machines, they see "stale NFS file handle". This inconsistency violates the principle of consistent error reporting and contradicts the Linux Manual Page, which states that ESTALE applies to both NFS and other filesystems.

What did you expect to see?

The error message for syscall.ESTALE should be "stale file handle" on all architectures.
If needed I can raise a PR for the same.

[mknyszek]

CC @golang/runtime

[ianlancetaylor]

That is odd, because those strings are generated by calling the C strerror function. But looking at the glibc source code, I see that the default value is "Stale file handle" but that there is a translation in the "en_GB" locale that produces "Stale NFS file handle". I wonder if that somehow led to this confusion. The syscall/mkerror.sh script sets LC_ALL=C, but that was committed December 1, 2009, after "Stale NFS file handle" first appeared in 20a0266 July, 2008. But this doesn't really make sense because the changes claim that zerror_linux_amd64.go was regenerated later. So I don't know what happened.

Fortunately the golang.org/x/sys/unix package seems to get it right.

[gopherbot]

Change https://go.dev/cl/643335 mentions this issue: syscall: use consistent message for ESTALE on Linux

[gabyhelp]

Related Code Changes

• syscall: use consistent message for ESTALE on Linux

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