bstraub@megad.UUCP (Bob Straub) (09/30/85)
Our site runs Unisoft's Uniplus+ (tm) System III. I'm having trouble with
their "vchk" version control utility, and hope there is someone on the net who
can help me.
I want the checksum and length of every file to be placed in the vchk tree, but
instead, only the length is placed there for binaries, and that is replaced by
Unisoft's "Version.." info where that exists. I've tried a variety of
combinations of likely-sounding options to no avail. What's frustrating is
that I've seen vchk trees generated by Unisoft (I believe) which appear to
contain just what I want. ASCII files always seem to have the checksum and
length generated for them in the tree. The problem is with binaries, especially
those containing "Version.." info.
I've read Volume I of the User's Manual under "vchk" several times slowly. The
original release of Volume II, "Program Development Tools" contained an entry,
"3.3 VCHK", but that section was absent. A subsequent revision of the
documentation deleted the entry. Did the document ever exist?
The "vchk" utility has the potential to be very useful, since it will detect
differences between the current file system contents and those when the vchk
tree was created, and will even take steps (at the user's option) to repair the
differences if the original contents are on another system accessible by phone.
Since someone can always forget to update revision numbers or embedded
identification strings, the checksum and length features, although expensive of
machine time, provide a very good means of detecting program changes.
This article is a rehash of one posted by me several months ago. At that time,
I received no replies by mail, and I was unaware of the short "expire" times
then in effect on our news machine. I apologize to anyone who posted a
follow-up at that time, since I never saw or read any.
Please respond by mail. I will post a summary of any information I receive in
the near future. Thank you all in advance.
Bob Straub
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Name: Robert J. Straub
The "Senior" Programmer at Megadata
USmail: Megadata Corp. 35 Orville Dr., Bohemia, NY 11716
Phone: 516-589-6800 (M-F 9-5 EST)
UUCP: {decvax, ihnp4}!philabs!sbcs!megad!bstraub