Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!cbmvax!eric
From: eric@cbmvax.UUCP (Eric Cotton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: calling all gurus
Message-ID: <3635@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 15 Apr 88 13:47:57 GMT
References: <8804051628.AA27845@decwrl.dec.com| <3482@ece-csc.UUCP| <8190@oberon.USC.EDU| <3484@ece-csc.UUCP| <8214@oberon.USC.EDU> <2161@antique.UUCP> <8725@agate.BERKELEY.EDU>
Reply-To: eric@cbmvax.UUCP (Eric Cotton)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 37

In article <8725@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> doug@eris.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
>In article <2161@antique.UUCP> cjp@vax135.UUCP (Charles Poirier) writes:
>>In article <8214@oberon.USC.EDU> papa@pollux.usc.edu (Marco Papa) writes:
>>|... You'll have to do a lot
>>|of checking to ensure that ALL values are within appropriate ranges, BEFORE
>>|you do the SetPrefs.  This will require a little more work than what you 
>>|described.
>>
>>An easy hack would be to just check that the length of the file looks right.
>>The chances of specifying a garbage file with the proper length are small
>>enough.
>
>No! Remember that we're about to be blessed with 1.3, which is known to
>have extensions to Preferences. They'll probably extend the length of the
>file to store this new stuff.  Everyone doing something with
>sizeof(Preferences) or whatever will be ok. Anyone *depending* on the
>old length remaining forever the same will be out of luck...broken
>software under 1.3. Sigh...history repeats itself.

This is not correct.
    V1.3 sizeof(struct Preferences) = V1.2 sizeof(struct Preferences)
Likewise the length of system-configuration is unchanged.  The new
printer stuff was put in the padding bytes at the end of the existing
Preferences structure.

	** This is subject to change for future releases! **

-- 
	Eric Cotton
	Commodore-Amiga

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