cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) (08/06/90)
I need two volunteers to beta test a re-worked set of symbolic link patches. These patches are based loosely on Ken Stailey's work and are ready for testing *now*. Enclosed with this posting an extract from the README file. I need at least one person running Bruce Evans' 32 bit patches (and who also runs in 16 bit mode at least occasionally). Earl Note: I am using a CFV rather mailing to the Minix referees since there have been so many comments to the effect that mailing to the referees is like mailing to a black hole. Perhaps the referees are too busy? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Symbolic and Conditional Symbolic Links ======================================= Here is a reworked version of Ken Stailey's symbolic link patches. I have reordered the patches to make them less context dependent and for the most part have rewritten just about all of Ken's code. The differences between this set of patches and Ken's are: o symbolic link text can now exceed 30 characters (1024 max) o threshold on recursion during symbolic link expansion o readlink() conforms to BSD semantics o symbolic links to non-existent files are permitted o conditional links supported (see below) The problems with the patches are: o requires addition of symlink(), readlink() and lstat() calls to table.c; care must be taken not to alias other system calls (watch out when Minix 2.0 is released) o an additional error message (ELOOP) is added (watch out for aliasing) o eat_path() calls should be converted to calls to parse_path() but that would have caused too many patches in too many files Conditional Links ----------------- This is an idea taken from Pyramid OSx. Those of you running with Bruce Evans' 32 bit patches have split personality systems. You can run in either 16 or 32 bit mode. When switching from one mode to another, you have to move files and directories to avoid executing the wrong binary. If you forget or miss out one files, you'll get core dumps or the machine won't boot. Conditional links solve this problem by dynamically selecting the appropriate path expansion. For example, I have 16 and 32 bit bin directories named bin.0 and bin.3 respectively. I then: ln -s ' 16:bin.0 32:bin.3' bin When the 32 bit kernel is running, the universe variable is automatically set to 32, thus selecting the 32 bit bin directory. Similarly for the 16 bit directory. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- Earl Chew, Dept of Computer Science, Monash University, Australia 3168 ARPA: cechew%bruce.cs.monash.oz.au@uunet.uu.net ACS : cechew@bruce.oz ----------------------------------------------------------------------
cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) (08/07/90)
In <2822@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> cechew@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU (Earl Chew) writes: >I need two volunteers to beta test a re-worked set of symbolic link patches. I have enough volunteers. Earl -- Earl Chew, Dept of Computer Science, Monash University, Australia 3168 ARPA: cechew%bruce.cs.monash.oz.au@uunet.uu.net ACS : cechew@bruce.oz ----------------------------------------------------------------------