Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!joyce!robert
From: robert@spam.istc.sri.com
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: I can't find bcopy in the man pages.
Message-ID: <14508@joyce.istc.sri.com>
Date: 27 Oct 88 00:01:37 GMT
Sender: nobody@joyce.istc.sri.com
Reply-To: robert@spam.istc.sri.com ()
Organization: SRI International
Lines: 35


    On an HP9000/300
    ----------------

    I'm trying to run a program which uses the BSD-supported function
    "bcopy", and I cannot for the life of me find bcopy in the HP manuals.
    I know that you must include the libBSD.a library to compile, but I
    just want to look at the stupid man page.  A "man -k bcopy" claims
    there is no such reference, and I cannot find a reference in the
    (poorly formatted and arranged) HP hardcopy manuals.  Of course,
    a "man bstring" which is what bcopy, et. al., are under on the Sun
    won't help me on the HP.

    I have three questions: (1) where is the damned bcopy entry, (2) why,
    oh why, are the HP manuals so completely hopeless (seriously!), and
    (3) is there any way, using the man pages, to determine which libraries
    are needed for which system calls?  As I recall we just found that
    bzero was in libBSD.a by sheer luck (I know we didn't find it in
    the manuals).

    Disclaimer: I'm sorry if this letter is overly vehement, but I just
    can't believe the sad state of affairs in the man page section, and
    I go through this goatrope every time I try and look up a BSD related
    function in the HP manuals.  Why didn't HP follow the standard format
    of the UPM?  Or are they following some format of Sys V documentation
    that I'm unknowledgeable of?  One last thing: does anyone else ever
    get perturbed that one has to read to the last page of the manual
    sections (online) only to find that the feature you are looking for
    isn't supported on 300s?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Robert Allen,
		robert@spam.istc.sri.com,
					    415-859-2143 (work phone, days)
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