Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ncc!alberta!auvax!rwa
From: rwa@auvax.UUCP (Ross Alexander)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: sun-3 dbx, arguments, hacking, help...
Message-ID: <613@auvax.UUCP>
Date: 27 Apr 88 22:01:33 GMT
References: <1641@homxb.UUCP> <7765@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Organization: Athabasca U., Alberta, Canada
Lines: 19
Keywords: Kludge, Hack, Hack
Summary: nargs() is easy enough if the implementors want it to be...


Doug Gwyn mentions that nargs() was pulled out of un*x at about v6 or
so because people decided it would be hard to port.  I assume this
ha[ds] something to do with the decision to go to a split I-and-D
space addressing model at about that time (correct me as nescessary).

On machines with flat addressing spaces (i.e., able to to do "mov
@#codespace, r0" and get it to work right :-) the nargs() function is
trivial assuming the compilers adopt some kind of a convention re
linkage code.  Yes, it varies from machine to machine; but so does
bcopy().

I think the other thing that might foul things up is the idea of
variable sized objects (is eight bytes on the stack 4 shorts, 2 ints,
one double, or char x[ 8 ] ??).  This could be solved easily enough
via descriptor lists ( even Algol60 had `dope vectors' ).

Ross "nargs() is in the B library!" Alexander
Athabasca University, Alberta