Subject: * Re: 1.1.8: Too large entry in termcap file
From: Alois Steindl <[email-masked]>
To: cygwin <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2001 12:12:01 +0200

On Sat, 16 Jun 2001 23:29:36 -0400,
Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com> wrote:

> Looking at the entry that is in termcap for linux, I don't see any way
> around this.  I did compare it against the entry from Red Hat and I see
> that they just squeak in under 1024.
> 

I get 1042 for linux and 1034 for cygwin

> I compared the two and obviously the Cygwin version does have more "stuff"
> but I don't think that any of it is obviously wrong.  So, the trivial
> fix for this is to increase the size of your buffer.  I suspect that this
> is what most applications who use termcap had already done years ago.
> 
the problem is, that the length 1024 is cited in the man page. Violating this

constrained _is_ a bug and not "my alleged cygwin problem", as you 
stated in your email. As I wrote in my first message, the problem 
disappears if I increase this buffer or avoid termcap at all.
Increasing the limit silently (quite likely accidently) can break a lot 
of existing programs - like e.g. fweb - , even if it were documented in 
the man page. Buffer overflow is a major source of programming problems. 
Let's hope that this kind of errors is not growing in the Red Hat 
programs, since I use Linux Red Hat much more frequently than cygwin.

> 
> Sorry, no.  The whole point of mailing lists like cygwin, gdb, gcc,
> linux-kernel, etc.  is for people to communicate with each other about
> problems.  I work at Red Hat.  We're an open source company.  I work
> with *a lot* of free software developers.  I am not aware of any of them
> who desires personal email regarding their project when there is an
> existing project mailing list.  In fact, it is company policy that
> discussions should be carried out in public.
> 

There is a simple solution to avoid unwanted email: Set up a different 
mail account which just responds without insults (even multiple tries) 
and redirects or returns (maybe dismisses) the email and cite that 
account in the ChangeLog file.
I use mainly Fortran and especially the very helpful people from Digital 
Fortran (nowadays Compaq) respond to every answer very quickly, 
providing solutions and frankly admit their bugs. I have _never_ got any 
response like yours. Maybe the impression, that there might be something 
wrong with termcap will start to sink in some time. By correcting it you 
wont help me much (I solved the problem locally before "waisting your 
patience") but maybe a lot of other people who use
cygwin to compile and run programs which they find on the net.

Alois

-- 

___________________________________________________________________________

Alois Steindl,                  Tel.: +43 (1) 58801 / 32558
Inst. for Mechanics II,         Fax.: +43 (1) 58801 32598
Vienna University of Technology,
A-1040 Wiedner Hauptstr. 8-10   Email: [email-masked]
___________________________________________________________________________

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