Xref: utzoo news.software.b:5788 comp.sources.bugs:2563 Path: utzoo!utstat!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!hydroesm!jtsv16!geac!lethe!drew From: drew@lethe.uucp (Drew Sullivan) Newsgroups: news.software.b,comp.sources.bugs Subject: Re: C News patch of 7-Sep-1990 Message-ID: <1990Sep20.135452.20674@lethe.uucp> Date: 20 Sep 90 13:54:52 GMT References: <1990Sep17.121127.25859@ni.umd.edu> <1990Sep17.210150.1586@vicom.com> <1990Sep18.222450.25228@zoo.toronto.edu> Organization: Systems Software Lines: 48 In article <1990Sep18.222450.25228@zoo.toronto.edu> henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer) writes: >- How do you know whether it is safe to apply a C News patch? Well, how do > you know if it is safe to apply a B News patch? Numbering/dating has > nothing to do with it. > >- How do you know whether you have the latest C News patch? Well, how do > you know whether you have the latest B News patch? Numbering/dating has > nothing to do with it. Actually, dating is probably ahead here, since > if you have last February's patch, you might suspect you are behind, > while having patch 12 tells you nothing of the kind. That is why you need both dates and numbers. >The date-based naming scheme has one advantage and two disadvantages, aside >from purely personal feelings about it. When updating a release, I look at both the patch and the patchlevel.h file. What would be best is to have both a number and a date beside the number in the patchlevel file. (PATCHDATES for cnews fans) a new version of PATCHDATES that would be better is -------------------------------------------------------------------- Release Date Notes for Cnews 0 23-Jun-1989 1 7-Jul-1989 2 23-Jul-1989 3 22-Aug-1989 4 24-Aug-1989 5 14-Sep-1989 6 13-Nov-1989 7 10-Jan-1990 8 16-Jan-1990 9 17-Jan-1990 10 18-Jan-1990 11 12-Mar-1990 12 14-Apr-1990 13 15-Apr-1990 14 16-Apr-1990 15 25-May-1990 16 1-Sep-1990 17 7-Sep-1990 (16+17 must be applied together) -------------------------------------------------------------------- In this way you can tell both how old the software, how current it is and if all of the patches have been applied and that no lines have been lost from the patchlevel file. -- -- Drew Sullivan,