Date:	Thu, 8 Apr 1999 11:46:20 +0200 (IST)
From:	Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
X-Sender:	eliz AT is
To:	Andris Pavenis <pavenis AT lanet DOT lv>
cc:	Laurynas Biveinis <lauras AT softhome DOT net>, djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
Subject:	Re: Announce: LBInstDJ the DJGPP installer v0.2
In-Reply-To:	<B0000082336@stargate.astr.lu.lv>
Message-ID:	<Pine.SUN.3.91.990408114534.29868a-100000@is>
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Reply-To:	djgpp-workers AT delorie DOT com
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On Wed, 7 Apr 1999, Andris Pavenis wrote:

> We must seriously think whether to enable NameNumericTails=1 under Win9X 
> permanently as this have some rather nasty side effects that can
> even cause data loss in some situations. I have once suceeded to
> overwrite file I didn't want to do when NameNumericTails=1 were
> enabled

I'm aware of such cases, they happen in Windows 95 as well.  However,
IMHO it's a GOOD THING that they happen, because such files should
*never* be in DJGPP distributions, or else those who do have numeric
tails disabled will experience problems which the developer/porter of
the package didn't see and didn't solve.

There's no magic here: files like Makefile.in.in get Makefile.in as
their short 8+3 alias, and so could potentially overwrite an existing
Makefile.in file in the same directory.  It's a bug in Windows.

The right way to deal with these cases is to use tools which, like
djtar, alert you to files that are going to be overwritten.  A fair
amount of vigilance is also required.  But such efforts don't come
anywhere close to the mess you have on your hands if you do NOT
disable numeric tails and need to use short file names.

> Another example is libg++ tests for egcs-1.1.2 (also gcc-2.8.1 should have 
> the same problem but I have not tested it)  in directory
> libg++/etc/PlotFile3D (File $DJDIR/lang/cxx/PlotFile.h conflicts
> with libg++/etc/Plot3D/PlotFile3D.h in egcs112s.zip when
> NameNumericTails=1).

There's more than one way of solving these problems, once they are
discovered.  But if the problem is not discovered, it will never be
solved.  I understand that this particular problem will also happen on
non-LFN systems, so it must be solved anyway.

> Due to these problems I removed NameNumericTails=0 from registry.

It is IMHO unfortunate that instead of solving the problems in the
original distribution and thus make it usable for more people on more
platforms, you have chosen this easy way out.  This way we will never
have distributions that are clean on both LFN and non-LFN platforms.
Moreover, they won't be clean even on LFN platforms that disable
numeric tails.  Therefore, I urge you to reconsider.

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