[comp.sources.bugs] perl -v gives different answer, what gives

jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) (11/14/89)

gnb@bby.oz (Gregory N. Bond) writes:

[stuff about a particular bug]

} leo% ./perl -v
} $Header: perly.c,v 3.0.1.1 89/11/11 04:50:04 lwall Locked $
} Patch level: 4

} Copyright (c) 1989, Larry Wall

} Perl may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
} a copy of which can be found with the Perl 3.0 distribution kit.

[more stuff about the bug]

} --
} Gregory Bond, Burdett Buckeridge & Young Ltd, Melbourne, Australia

I read this and decided to perl -v just to check and was surprised to get a
different output. At first glance I thought the end was truncated somehow.
Then I notices a line (Patch level:) was missing out of the middle!

So I started this note in emacs, and did M-! perl -v to capture the
output for my post, and it was the same as above! So I experimented
a little and here's a script using perl -v and perl -v | cat
to illustrate what I found. I know the problem itself is trivial, but
it must demonstrate some sort of IO problem.
Perhaps with:
	Sun386i SunOS4.0.1

Script started on Mon Nov 13 23:20:42 1989
{/files/home/staff/jim@eda:51} perl -v
$Header: perly.c,v 3.0.1.1 89/11/11 04:50:04 lwall Locked $

Copyright (c) 1989, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
{/files/home/staff/jim@eda:52} perl -v | cat
$Header: perly.c,v 3.0.1.1 89/11/11 04:50:04 lwall Locked $
Patch level: 4

Copyright (c) 1989, Larry Wall

Perl may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,
a copy of which can be found with the Perl 3.0 distribution kit.
{/files/home/staff/jim@eda:53} ^D

script done on Mon Nov 13 23:21:09 1989
-- 
Jim Budler	jim@eda.com    ...!{decwrl,uunet}!eda!jim
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lwall@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV (Larry Wall) (11/15/89)

In article <1989Nov14.073709.20209@eda.com> jim@eda.com (Jim Budler) writes:
: {/files/home/staff/jim@eda:51} perl -v
: $Header: perly.c,v 3.0.1.1 89/11/11 04:50:04 lwall Locked $
: 
: Copyright (c) 1989, Larry Wall
: 
: Perl may be copied only under the terms of the GNU General Public License,

The lines are missing because of a bug that Sun has subsequently fixed.
For that reason, I'm not going to post an official patch for it, but until
you upgrade your SunOS, you can workaround it by saying

#define fputs(what,where) fprintf(where,"%s",what)

Larry Wall
lwall@jpl-devvax.jpl.nasa.gov