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From: robbinj@molihp.UUCP (Robbin W Johnson)
Newsgroups: news.software.b
Subject: Re: Expire corrupts active file (2.11 news)
Message-ID: <253@molihp.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 1-Dec-86 21:40:15 EST
Article-I.D.: molihp.253
Posted: Mon Dec  1 21:40:15 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 6-Dec-86 21:38:07 EST
References: <250@molihp.UUCP>
Organization: Moli Energy Ltd., Burnaby, BC, CANADA
Lines: 44
Summary: Problem discovered and corrected


Having found some time to look into this, I found the problem and a solution.

As distributed, 2.11 news assumes that if it is being brought up upon a USG
flavour of UN*X there is no directory(3) library (/usr/lib/libndir.a) and
that the structure of a directory in the file system is vanilla SYS V.
Believing this to be true it then provides its own limited version of the
directory package, making several assumptions about the format of a directory
as it lives in the file system.  When dealing with Hewlett-Packards's HP-UX,
this is a fatal mistake.

HP-UX on a series 500 machine sits on top of other layers of software,
including the "SDF file system".  Because of this, the format of a directory
is slightly different and totally incompatible with the SYS V model.

Fortunately Hewlett-Packard has provided the directory(3) library with HP-UX
and so solving the problem is very straight forward.  I solved it in the
Makefile by removing all dependencies upon "ndir.o" and adding a search of
libndir.a for those programs which might require it.  This can be done from
within localize.sh with one exception.  The "ndir.h" file to be included
must be changed to "/usr/include/ndir.h".  I took the easy way out by
mv'ing the origional "ndir.h" to "ndir.h.rel" to get it out of the way and
then ln'ing "/usr/include/ndir.h" to "ndir.h".  This could cause problems if
"ndir.h" is ever changed in a minor revision.  There may be far more elegant
ways, if anyone has suggestions I would appreciate hearing them.  As far as
the "ndir.o" dependencies were concerned, I corrected that by adding the
following two lines to the "ed" script in localize.sh (if you reference my
origional posting, place them anywhere before the "g/termlib/s//curses" line):

g/^LIBS/s/=/= -lndir/
g/ ndir.o/s///
  ^watch that space...its important

You might also have to add:

g/#NOTVMS/s///

to prevent the compiler from breaking on the "cc" line for inews.

When rn is configured, it knows enough to check for libndir.a no matter
what version of UN*X it is being brought up on.  This would have been a
nice idea for 2.11 news.

Robbin.