[comp.sys.hp] I can't find bcopy in the man pages.

robert@spam.istc.sri.com (10/27/88)

    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)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

ostroff@aramis.rutgers.edu (Jack H. Ostroff) (10/30/88)

Yes, I am also often very unhappy with the organization of the HP-UX
manual set.  Have you tried find / -name bcopy\* -print ?  Also -have
you looked in the various networking manuals, rather than the main
set?

robert@milk10.uucp (Robert Allen) (11/01/88)

In article <Oct.29.16.11.36.1988.20054@aramis.rutgers.edu> ostroff@aramis.rutgers.edu (Jack H. Ostroff) writes:
+
+Yes, I am also often very unhappy with the organization of the HP-UX
+manual set.  Have you tried find / -name bcopy\* -print ?  Also -have
+you looked in the various networking manuals, rather than the main
+set?

    Yes, I've even looked in the "Networking Reference".  I've come
    to the conclusion that bcopy is an undocumented feature of HP-UX.

    Thanks to everyone who suggested using the HP equivalent to bcopy.
    I won't be using (as a sign of protest Man, can you dig it!) them,
    but thanks for the help anyways. :-)

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

irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) (11/01/88)

In article <14508@joyce.istc.sri.com> robert@spam.istc.sri.com () writes:
>
>    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,

Bcopy is new in the HP-UX 6.0 release. You find the following info
in the file /etc/newconfig/Update_info/to.6.0:

"Berkeley Compatibility Library
------------------------------

        Dup2(2) has been removed from  libBSD.a and libV7.a and moved to
        libc.a (leaving  libV7.a  empty).  A number of new routines have
        been  added to  libBSD.a  to  simplify  the  effort  of  porting
        applications   developed  in  the   Berkeley   environment.  The
        following routines have been added:

                bcmk
                bcopy
                bzero
                index
                rindex
                getwd
                killpg
                signal
                sigvec

        It should be noted that there is a conflict  between  the use in
        libBSD.a of signal (which follows BSD  semantics) and the signal
        system call provided in libc.a which adheres exactly to System V
        semantics.  Applications  using signal(2) and linked using -lBSD
        ..."
  

>    oh why, are the HP manuals so completely hopeless (seriously!), and

I like HP's manuals. I hate Suns "Reformatting page. Wait ..." :->

-Bo

-- 
>>> Bo Thide', Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 90 Uppsala, Sweden <<<  Phone (+46) 18-300020.  Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S).  UUCP: ..enea!kuling!irfu!bt

zap@kth.se (Svante Lindahl) (11/01/88)

In article <884@kuling.UUCP>, irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) writes:
> I like HP's manuals. I hate Suns "Reformatting page. Wait ..." :->

Easily avoided (using csh syntax, and assuming write access in
/usr/man):
% cd /usr/man
% mkdir cat{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
% /usr/etc/catman

This takes a while (a couple of hours I think), and a few megabytes
(more than 5) of diskspace.

Svante
PS: I don't read this newsgroup, so of you need to flame me post a
followup, otherwise use mail...

irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide) (11/01/88)

In article <234@kth.se> zap@kth.se (Svante Lindahl) writes:
>Easily avoided (using csh syntax, and assuming write access in
>/usr/man):
>% cd /usr/man
>% mkdir cat{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
>% /usr/etc/catman

OK.  Apparently I was wrong (and so was the local Sun Guru who told me
that Sun didn't use ../man/cat at all but used an improved nroff
to run nroff -man instead).  Catman can obviously be used also
in the SunOS.  Sorry!
 
-Bo


-- 
>>> Bo Thide', Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 90 Uppsala, Sweden <<<  Phone (+46) 18-300020.  Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S).  UUCP: ..enea!kuling!irfu!bt

baur@spp2.UUCP (Steven L. Baur) (11/02/88)

in article <14595@joyce.istc.sri.com>, robert@milk10.uucp (Robert Allen) says:
>     ... Yes, I've even looked in the "Networking Reference".  I've come
>     to the conclusion that bcopy is an undocumented feature of HP-UX.


Possibly, but HP/UX is based on System V, and System V uses memcpy (which is
in the HP manuals and works).

steve

wunder@hp-sde.SDE.HP.COM (Walter Underwood) (11/04/88)

    Thanks to everyone who suggested using the HP equivalent to bcopy.
    I won't be using (as a sign of protest Man, can you dig it!) them,
    but thanks for the help anyways. :-)

Good idea.  memcpy() is not a safe substitute for bcopy(), anyway.
bcopy() is guaranteed to work with overlapping strings, memcpy() is
not.  The other members of memory(3x) and bstring(3x) are safe
substitutes.

wunder