Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!rice!sun-spots-request
From: bill@elk.stat.washington.edu (Bill Dunlap)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: system(3) in SunOS 4.0 vs. 3.2
Keywords: SunOS
Message-ID: <8905012011.AA14742@elk.stat.washington.edu>
Date: 6 May 89 20:55:01 GMT
Sender: usenet@rice.edu
Organization: Sun-Spots
Lines: 23
Approved: Sun-Spots@rice.edu
Original-Date: Mon, 1 May 89 13:11:05 PDT
X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 273, message 23 of 23

We have a 3/280 file server running SunOS 4.0 and some 3/50 clients are
running SunOS 3.2.  The following program, when compiled (with -Bstatic)
on the 4.0 machine bombs when run on the 3.2 machine complaining about a
bad argument to wait(2).  It works when compiled and run on the same
machine and when compiled on 3.2 and run on 4.0.

main()
{
        system("ls -ls") ;
}

I checked the man pages and note that wait(2) took an int (the pid) in 3.2
but takes a (union wait *) in 4.0 and that system(3) calls wait(2).

Is there a fix for this problem?  Should I not be expecting to be able to
run 4.0 binaries on a 3.2 system?  The owner of the 3/50 (SunOS 3.2) is in
no hurry to downgrade his machine to 4.0.

	Bill Dunlap
	bill@elk.stat.washington.edu

[[ In general, I would not recommend trying to run 4.0 binaries under 3.2.
--wnl ]]