Are negative socket descriptors valid?

We've been running the SNDM command without trouble for years. Now we're seeing a large number of sends failing because of an invalid socket descriptor (the integer returned by the socket() function and passed to all other functions, like connect(), select(), etc.). They're in the -250 to -350 range and another piece of SNDM is rejecting this as invalid as it's less than zero.

I checked the API for the socket() API and it describes 2 return codes: -1 if there was an error, or 'n' if there was not.

It doesn't say whether n is supposed to be positive, but other platforms I've coded on (and with the file descriptor for open() on the i) expect the socket to be positive.

Are negatives allowed? If they are not, why is the system suddenly returning negative sockets? We upgraded from V5R4 to 6.1 about a month ago.

What may or may not be related is we're seeing a bunch of this happening in CGI jobs.

Any advice will help. Thanks.
--
[Description: beflogo160]
John Maassel
Programmer/Analyst
3776 South High Street
Columbus, OH 43207
Phone: (614) 492-7413

________________________________
Notice from Bob Evans Farms, Inc: This e-mail message, including any attachments, may contain confidential information that is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is strictly prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message and any attachments.