Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1993 09:45:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Edwin L Phillips Jr <flaregun AT strauss DOT udel DOT edu>
Subject: Re: Symbolic links and functionality [ was: O_BINARY ]
To: softbrek AT POOL DOT Informatik DOT RWTH-Aachen DOT DE
Cc: Stephen Turnbull <turnbull AT shako DOT sk DOT tsukuba DOT ac DOT jp>,
        djgpp <djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu>

On Tue, 7 Dec 1993 softbrek AT POOL DOT Informatik DOT RWTH-Aachen DOT DE wrote:

> > 
> > This is a problem with a number of GNU ports, eg, GZIP and Eric
> > Backus's ports.  You find that there are a number of files with
> > different names and identical content.
> > 
> > The solution in the X world is the `-name <any-name>' argument.
> > (Example: This allows xclock to look for resources under XClock, the
> > generic name, and also under a name like seattle.  So when I run
> > "xclock", the time offset is automatically set to +9 for Japan, but
> > when I run "xclock -name seattle", I can find out what time it is at
> > my friend's home with the offset set to -8.)  I would guess that
> > adding this functionality to GO32 would break something (probably
> > X-windows ports!), it always does (cf. the O_BINARY thread).
> > 
> 
> Two alternatives I have tried
> 1) Wait for 1.11! It will have a symbolic link-feature built in.
> 2) There is a little trick do-able with a batch-script: make up a batch-file
>    for any special name of the file, e.g. create a file 'gunzip.bat' like:
> 

  Why not write a small C program:

/* DODAT.C */

#include <stdlib.h>
void main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
	execv("DOIT.EXE", argv[]);  /* or another flavor of exec() */
}

  DOIT.EXE will see that argv[0] = "DODAT.EXE", won't it?  This seems to 
be a pretty simple way to solve the problem.  Not as small as a symbolic 
link though.  The PBMplus utilities really just want argv[0] to be set so 
the main program can tell what to do.  Also, in the case of PBMplus, you 
can compile this once, and copy it 100-some-odd times to make all the 
programs.

  Hope this helps :)

  Ed

/***************************************************************************/
/* Ed Phillips  flaregun AT brahms DOT udel DOT edu       University of Delaware      */
/* Jr Systems Programmer  (302) 831-6082       NSS/Software Systems        */
/*************************************************************************> 	@c:\wherever\it\is\gzip.exe -d %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9