Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!umd5!uvaarpa!mcnc!ece-csc!rss
From: rss@ece-csc.UUCP (Ralph Scherp)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: calling all gurus
Message-ID: <3484@ece-csc.UUCP>
Date: 7 Apr 88 20:26:06 GMT
References: <8804051628.AA27845@decwrl.dec.com| <3482@ece-csc.UUCP| <8190@oberon.USC.EDU>
Reply-To: rss@ece-csc.UUCP (Ralph Scherp)
Organization: North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC
Lines: 41

In article <8190@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
]In article <3482@ece-csc.UUCP| rss@ece-csc.UUCP (Ralph Scherp) writes:
]|In article <8804051628.AA27845@decwrl.dec.com| kruger@16bits.dec.comh writes:
]||I am just starting to get involved with machine specifics of the Amiga, and
]||also suffer from extreme lack of time. However, the system is screaming for
]||a program that will set preferences from a file. ie:
]||
]||setpref mypreferences
]||setpref yourpreferences
]|Sure, I've done this.  It's quite simple.  I wanted the same capability
][..deleted stuff]
]|The file "devs:system-configuration" is just an exact copy of the 
]|"Preferences" structure defined in intuition/intuition.h (I think)
[more deleted stuff]
]|       fd = open("Devs:System-configuration",O_RDONLY,0);
]        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
]|    read the data into a struct Preferences
]|       read(fd,&pref,sizeof(pref)); 
]        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
]|           (where "pref" is "struct Preference pref")
]Please don't do that!  What if C-A decides to change the filename or its
]location in a future release?  There is an Intuition call that allows you
]to do just that in a portable way. It is called GetPrefs:
]
]GetPrefs(&pref, sizeof(pref));
>
>Everything else is OK.
>
>-- Marco


NO!  Not if I read my intuition manual correctly.  GetPrefs is documented
as returning the CURRENT setting of preferences; which is not necessarily
the same thing as that stored in the disk file devs:system-configuration.

As I also stated, my program was a quick and dirty hack; a more sophisticated
version would probably accept a filename as opposed to assuming
DEVS:System-configuration; but regardless, fetching a permanent copy from
disk is not the same as fetching something out of a RAM structure somewhere.

Correct me if I'm wrong....
            Mark Lanzo