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From: cedman@lynx.ps.uci.edu (Carl Edman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Does Everybody leave dos.library open?
Message-ID: <CEDMAN.90Oct13225759@lynx.ps.uci.edu>
Date: 14 Oct 90 05:57:55 GMT
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In-reply-to: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP's message of 14 Oct 90 04:51:50 GMT

In article <14721@netcom.UUCP> mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan) writes:
   I was just cruising through some software today, and noticed that many,many,
   programs leave the dos.library open after exiting.  In fact, it seems to be
   a majority in the (limited) sample of stuff I tested, mostly PD.Upon looking
   further,I find that my Manx 'C' 3.4 compiler seems to generate programs that
   open the dos.library, but never seems to close it upon exit.  If most folks
   where using the Manx compiler (or if Lattice did it also)I can see that this
   would indeed leave open copies of dos.library around upon exit.  One would
   assume that the compiler startup code would Close() anything that was
   Open()ed.
   Is this a bug, or am I missing something?  I am in the process of ripping
   apart the actual startup code that Manx links in, but my disassembler seems
   to find no place where the library is closed.  Why is this?

  I guess the other option is that Xoper is lying to me and there really aren't
   multiple opennings of dos.library around (not very likely).

First, all my knowledge is about DOS 1.3. I haven't programmed on the amiga
too much recently, so if anything drastic has changed in 2.0, disregard
this post.

Yes, I have noticed that many programms do this. It is not very nice and
very clean, but in the case of "dos.library" it doesn't really matter.
There is only one copy of "dos.library" around anyway and that copy
is not in RAM but in WOM (yes, for you people out there who use these
new-fangled (:-) 500s and 2000s that is ROM). Even if you could
expunge it , it wouldn't be very likely that you would ever with a
running system get in the situation where no task anylonger needs
the dos.library. So never mind about that. It is only a matter of
tidyness (or neuroticism if you prefer).

Ever noticed that no programm ever even opens much less closes
"exec.library" ? Now that is a serious problem which you should
investigate (Lots of :-) in this paragraph.)

	Carl Edman

PS: I always opened and closed not only "dos.library" but even "exec.library".
(Yes, I am a neurotic :-).


Theorectial Physicist,N.:A physicist whose   | Send mail
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