People, I neither have the time nor the interest for taking part in a lengthy discussion on little-endians. Here's the HPFS point man's (e.g. mine) point of view:
- Andy posted a bug that there should be only a single little-endian package throughout POI. I accepted that bug (see <http://nagoya.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=8354>) as being a very valid point. - I also said that I'd look at it when time permits and that this bug is not an urgent one. So far no one disagreed. The conclusion is that there is no immediate need for action. That is, org.apache.poi.hpsf.littleendian will exist for quite a while and then disappear. - However, a piece of software who's days are counted still needs to be maintained if an error appears. This is what Drew pointed out and this is something I agree with. - We can now pick one of three options: - Integrate both little-endian packages, pulling together an at least partly new API and make the rest of POI use it. I don't oversee what amount of work this would be but I don't think is can be done in an hour or two. Like Drew I also have my own little schedule and cannot do this before middle of June. If anyone else has the time to do it: go for it. - Maintain org.apache.poi.hpsf.littleendian for the rest of its lifetime. Maintaining means fixing bug but not adding functionality (here: let DWord.intValue interpret the bytes as an unsigned int and return that). Comments are not part of functionality but could be misleading. Anyway, it does not hurt to correct them. - Leave it as it is for the time being. Given the usually small amounts of data in property set stream I guess the probability for the signed vs. unsigned bug is relatively unlikely to appear. These are the facts as I see them. You might see them differently. However, a different point of view does not justify any harsh wordings in e-mails. Showing the Big Hammer, threatening to delete a package or saying other harsh words is only frustrating and demotivating. Best regards Rainer Klute Rainer Klute IT-Consulting GmbH i. Gr. Dipl.-Inform. Rainer Klute E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] K�rner Grund 24 Telefon: +49 172 2324824 D-44143 Dortmund Telefax: +49 231 5349423
