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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!vic.news.telstra.net!act.news.telstra.net!imci3!imci2!news.internetMCI.com!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uuneo.neosoft.com!web.nmti.com!peter From: peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc Subject: Re: How to delete files within C programs Date: 13 May 1996 16:09:50 GMT Organization: Network/development platform support, NMTI Lines: 90 Message-ID: <4n7mse$o34@web.nmti.com> References: <Oum-El-Kheir.Benkahla-3004961724540001@mac-ugm-3.imag.fr> <4mv2r7$ld3@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> <4mvsjp$nhn@web.nmti.com> <4n5cer$33m@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: sonic.nmti.com Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:22698 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1035 In article <4n5cer$33m@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de>, Henry G. Juengst <juengst@saph1.physik.uni-bonn.de> wrote: > OpenVMS/AXP 6.x uses 64-bit address pointers. 6.2 is more than one > year old. 7.0 is the current version (SDK). VAXes are old hardware > architecture (with some nice features) and it makes no sense to talk > about limits of old hardware if there is modern hardware available. *sigh* It does if the dependence on the old hardware built into the OS has crippled one of my favorite hardware companies for many many years. I'm happy that they finally got it working, so long after they ported a whole new version of UNIX to the same hardware (and it's a damn good UNIX, mind you... DEC's obviously got some fine software people), but it's still a simple fact that they got the 64-bit UNIX port done, first, despite the far greater VMS development resources they must have. > Right. But you have so much problems with VMS that I think it must be > your code. If you have problems with your "vertical market application" > you should rewrite it. We were trying to avoid doing a port by using the POSIX subsystem, rather than porting to VMS. The POSIX subsystem was seriously lacking. As I recall it had no networking hooks... and you couldn't call the VMS networking code from a POSIX application. > >the "UNIX envelope", Henry. There's damn few variances in the UNIX family > >that don't fall under one or the other of those alternatives. > "damn few variances" ? Nice joke. Is that a reading difficulty you have, or are you simply deliberately cutting off the bit where I described a massively varied set of software and hardware platforms. Yes, there were a lot of differences between System V and BSD, and there's a lot of different hardware types. But the range that I was able to run on without a porting effort covered that whole range. Thus, there were "damn few variances" THAT i DIDN'T HAVE TO DEAL WITH. That words-of-one-syllable enough for you? > >Neither do I, but in my experience that's one of the biggest porting obstacles > >in real-world all-the-world's-a-VAX code. > You have real problems if you see all-the-world's-a-VAX code. Most of the software on the net is that sort of code. Look at all the code that calls: execl(arg, arg, arg, arg, 0); The amount of code that uses NULL or casts the 0 to (char *) is definitely in the minority. Yet that's one of the most basic rank beginner mistakes... but it worked fine on 32-bit systems so who cared? I'm thankful I had to port this stuff to Xenix-286. Taught me discipline. > >Or let's look at VMS. How to you remove a print job again? I can't > >keep track of whether it's DELETE QUEUE/JOB or DELETE /QUEUE or DELETE > >JOB. It wouldn't surprise me to find it's now SET JOB/NOPRINT. Half the > >commands in VMS are hidden under SET somewhere, including their remote > >terminal program (SET HOST). > Especially for you (quoted VMS help, callable via 'HELP'): > DELETE [...] That is, if you already know that the command to cancel a print job is "delete", which is at *least* as counterintuitive as "unlink" to delete a file (hint to DEC, try "cancel"). If you don't already know what you're looking for VMS HELP is a joke. > Peter, if you have fundamental problems with VMS concepts I recommend > not to start a discussion about it (perhaps in comp.os.vms). Henry, if you have a fundamental problem with UNIX, I recommend you don't start flaming it in comp.unix. And if you do, then expect your own ox to be gored. It's your discussion. You started it. Take responsibility for the consequences of your own actions. UNIX doesn't have a monopoly on obscure commands, and it at least provides decent cross-references from one part of a subsystem to another so if you know the command to print a file you can find the command to cancel the print job in the same section of the online documentation. -- Peter da Silva (NIC: PJD2) `-_-' 1601 Industrial Boulevard Bailey Network Management 'U` Sugar Land, TX 77487-5013 +1 713 274 5180 "Har du kramat din varg idag?" USA Bailey pays for my technical expertise. My opinions probably scare them