Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!att!att!westmark!mole-end!mat
From: mat@mole-end.UUCP (Mark A Terribile)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Do you trust the "indent" program?
Summary: cmp -l
Message-ID: <461@mole-end.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jan 91 03:15:03 GMT
References: <12184@sybase.sybase.com> <11742@alice.att.com> <310@audfax.audiofax.com>
Organization: mole-end--private system.  admin: mole-end!newtnews
Lines: 22

> In article <11742@alice.att.com> ark@alice.UUCP () writes:
> >I don't need to -- I can compile my programs before and after
> >and compare the object files.  If they're not identical,
> >something's broken.
 
> Andrew is fortunate enough to be running on a Unix system that doesn't
> use COFF for it's object files --- COFF files have a timestamp in them.
> If you know where it is (I don't), you can arrange to strip off the
> COFF header and then compare the objects, but it is not as simple an
> operation as it used to be.

If you are on a System V family UNIX (or even a System III or System IV,
when they introduced the frotzenglarken timestamp into the COFF) you should
have the  -l  on your cmp; this will report differences in the two or three
bytes of timestamp and go running merrily onward.  It does make it harder
to do shell scripts that must stop if a problem arises, but if you are
using a shell with enough magic (like ksh) it's surely possible.

-- 

 (This man's opinions are his own.)
 From mole-end				Mark Terribile