[comp.unix.xenix] Need info on Xenix C compiler limitations

edc@altnet.UUCP (Eric Christensen) (10/31/87)

Though I work for a company which does a LOT of Xenix implementations, I'm
afraid that I am a Motorola / System 5 hack. What I amanged to get myself
into is porting some very large, very ugly code from V.3 on my 68020 system 
down to Xenix for a friend of mine with a AT running SCO. As soon as the word
got out I was instantly deluged with requests from other friends who also have
80286 (and a few 8086 - Yick!) based systems running Xenix.

My question is this. Instead of taking each of these seperately, I want to do
one "generic" port which will compile and run under Altos Xenix 3, Altos Xenix
V, SCO Xenix 3, SCO Xenix 5 and Microport. I obviously know as more than I 
would like to about Altos' x.out compiler, but I'm completely in the dark about
SCO and Microport implementations.

Could everyone who knows any tidbits which might be useful to me PLEASE flood
my mailbox with them? In particuar I need information about oddball library
routine which don't work the way a Unix purest would expect. Also limitations
which exist in these compilers. (i.e. I heard a nasty rumor that some Xenix
implementations limit identifiers to 6 characters! Is this true????!!!!).

Unfortunately (Fortunately), it seems that our compiler is a lot more like
a "real" Unix compiler than some others. I've sent code which compiles fine
on my 2086 to people who claim that their Xenix compiler barfs on it. Since
they aren't programmers, they can't even begin to tell me what their compiler
doesn't like. 

So I place this general query to the net, with high expectations that I'll
get lots of useful info. And probably a few flames from people who think I'm
picking on Xenix (which I'm not). I will galdly accept flames from people 
who think I'm picking on Intel's silly little 8086 and 80286 chips with
their segmented architecture though. :-) 

---
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| Eric D. Christensen     | Email: edc@altnet.altos.com  (uunet!altnet!edc)   |
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