Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Standardization of Minix.
Message-ID: <1989Aug23.170105.1805@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <67@tor.nhh.no>
Date: Wed, 23 Aug 89 17:01:05 GMT

In article <67@tor.nhh.no> edb_tom@tor.nhh.no (Tom Ivar Helbekkmo) writes:
>- The FILE struct used in our stdio uses different levels of
>  indirection from the normal "standard".  Also, the members
>  of the struct have wrong names.  Shouldn't this be fixed,
>  to ease portability for programs that use these elements?

No.  Such programs are inherently unportable.  The only applicable standards
specify that portable programs should not rely on such information.  Better
to find out quickly -- just because the names match doesn't mean that the
behavior matches.  (We've run into this quite seriously in C News -- SunOS
4.0 has some of the members behaving quite oddly in some hard-to-pin-down
circumstances, and this fouls up our [optional] stdio-speedup package.)
-- 
V7 /bin/mail source: 554 lines.|     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
1989 X.400 specs: 2200+ pages. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu