Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!mcnc!rti!xyzzy!meissner
From: meissner@xyzzy.UUCP (Michael Meissner)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: changing "stat" (was Re: Why Partition a Hard Disk)
Message-ID: <1068@xyzzy.UUCP>
Date: 5 Sep 88 14:32:31 GMT
References: <4360004@wdl1.UUCP> <1988Aug31.174144.1694@utzoo.uucp> <8424@smoke.ARPA> <2381@pixar.UUCP>
Reply-To: meissner@xyzzy.UUCP (Michael Meissner)
Organization: Data General (Languages @ Research Triangle Park, NC.)
Lines: 22

In article <2381@pixar.UUCP> rta@pixar.UUCP (Rick Ace) writes:
	/* stuff about changing stat and old programs continue to work */
| If you try this, be sure to BLOW AWAY AND RECOMPILE all old .o files,
| because they expect to get the old stat structure back, and if you link
| them up with the new stat() in libc.a, they will get something other
| than what they are expecting; if the new struct stat is larger than
| the old one, memory following the structure will be mysteriously
| trashed, most likely leading to lots of head-scratching.

Actually it doesn't.  Since calling stat requires you to include
sys/stat.h, you can make both old programs and old .o files work.
Basically, there would be a macro "stat" which gets mapped to say
"_stat2" in the new stat.h that references a new name.  The library
would have both entry points.  Old .o's would go to the old name
"stat", and new ones would go to "_stat2".  Ie:

	#define	stat	_stat2

-- 
Michael Meissner, Data General.

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