Joseph Kowalski wrote: > Roland Mainz wrote: [snip] > Maybe I'm just confused, but this seems to be a good explanation why > /usr/bin/getconf > can't be a tiny wrapper linking with the library which implements the > builtins for ksh93 > (I forgot name of said library - probably blocking it in the Freudian > sense.) > > Why couldn't the same *source* be compiled not in xpg mode to produce > /usr/bin/getconf. > I believe the concern was about sharing source, not about sharing the > binary implementation.
Ouch... the getconf builtin needs libast (see Glenn's earlier email about |astconf()|&co.) which means we would need two versions of libast (compiled for both 32bit and 64bit (= four binaries)). Quick look at the codebase: $ du -ks src/lib/libast/common 9505 src/lib/libast/common ...which means it's not really "small". Another problem is that we would have to generate the libast headers four times: One time 32bit XPG6/C99, one time 64bit XPG6/C99, one time 32bit "normal" and one time 64bit "normal". And we would have to test the resulting ... uhm... "thing". Once this is done we still hit the problem that the current process defines the |_xpg4| and |_xpg6| variables and not the current library we're currently executing. This means we need to |fork()|+|exec()| a new process which uses these "special" XPG6-less libraries. At this point I try t stop to imagine the horror of such a design... we would need to ARC the new extra versions of the various AST libraries, need extra testing etc. etc. And this doesn't even handle the siblings of /usr/bin/getconf, e.g. /usr/xpg4/bin/getconf and /usr/xpg6/bin/getconf (which are build from the same sources as /usr/bin/getconf (only using different build flags)) - how should we deal with these binaries ? Create another set of AST libraries compiled for specific for XPG4 ? What happens if we get a XPG8 or XPG10 some day ? ---- Bye, Roland -- __ . . __ (o.\ \/ /.o) roland.mainz at nrubsig.org \__\/\/__/ MPEG specialist, C&&JAVA&&Sun&&Unix programmer /O /==\ O\ TEL +49 641 7950090 (;O/ \/ \O;)
