From: elf AT netcom DOT com (Marc Singer)
Message-Id: <199703270826.AAA12335@netcom3.netcom.com>
Subject: Re: ANNOUNCE: RCS version 5.7, patch 13
To: eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il (Eli Zaretskii)
Date: Thu, 27 Mar 1997 00:26:25 -0800 (PST)
Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com (DJGPP List Alias)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.970326125935.6618A-100000@is> from "Eli Zaretskii" at Mar 26, 97 01:01:41 pm
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> > On the networked drive (in this case a DEC-ultrix file system mounted by
> > DEC pathworks) rename fails if the target file already exists.
> 
> So it's a libc bug after all.

I'm not sure I can make such a statement with confidence.

> Can we please have such bugs reported here, rather than worked around
> in the application code?  There should be no reason for such
> work-arounds in the case of DJGPP, since the sources for everything
> are freely available.  The whole point of free software is that
> correcting library bugs and sharing the information about them is much
> easier than with proprietary libraries, where you depend on the good
> will of the vendor.  Instead of introducing work-arounds for what
> seems to be mysterious failures, let us fix them, so others won't need
> to stumble upon them in the future.  

Of course, yours is the best solution.  I know that when I did the
port originally, there were many such problems.  I'll check the
configuration and see if any remain 'worked-around'.

> Since I don't have access to the particular configuration where the
> bug happens, I need to ask you to investigate this further, in order
> to understand the reason for this failure.  Please try this test
> program and tell if it works in that case:
> 
> #include <stdio.h>
> main (int argc, char **argv){
>         printf("renaming %s to %s\n",argv[1],argv[2]);
>         printf("return code: %d\n",_rename(argv[1],argv[2]));
> }
> 
> (note that I used `_rename' rather than `rename').
> 
> In future, when you see such bugs, please don't silently work around
> them.  If you can get the sources, debug the problem and suggest a
> patch, fine; if you can't, at least report the problem and describe
> how it can be reproduced so others will know about the bug and fix it
> when they have time.

Yes sir.

-- Marc Singer