Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ficc!karl
From: karl@ficc.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: problem compiling rn
Message-ID: <6256@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 22 Sep 89 21:01:15 GMT
References: <331@grc.UUCP>
Reply-To: karl@ficc.uu.net (Karl Lehenbauer)
Distribution: na
Organization: Ferranti International Controls
Lines: 35

In article <331@grc.UUCP> don@grc.UUCP (Donald D. Woelz) writes:
>I am trying to compile rn...

>Anyway, I am having trouble building rn after applying all the patches.

>	cc -c -O ngdata.c
>"ngdata.c", line 187: dirp undefined
>"ngdata.c", line 187: illegal indirection
>*** Error code 1

Yes, yes.  I just fought through this last night on System V/3.0 on a 386.
("rn" is wonderful, by the way, I'll never go back -- plus I'm kicking myself
for not having it the last three years, but anyway...)

There are three ways "rn" is supposed to be able to work with directories.
This is determined in the "Configure" script.  If you are on Berkeley, I guess,
it's in the system.  If your system has "readdir()" it uses that, otherwise
it (rn) uses its own included directory-reading stuff.  The problem is that
the readdir() stuff doesn't seem to work.  Even if you make it include the
right file from /usr/include or /usr/include/sys that defines the DIR
typedef, there is an illegal pointer/pointer combination because System V
is talking "struct dirent" and rn is talking "struct direct."

The answer is to comment out the stuff in the Configure script that ends
up saying something like "OK, you have readdir() so we'll use that" so
that it uses the builtin stuff instead.  Just comment out the if and
the three or so lines that find readdir, then comment out the else and
endif so Configure says something like "don't have either...using my own 
directory reader."

I haven't communicated this back to Larry Wall because god knows what rev
we're at.  I'll be addressing that, too.
-- 
-- uunet!ficc!karl	"The last thing one knows in constructing a work 
			 is what to put first."  -- Pascal