[Info-vax] Looking into C-include files on VMS

[VAXman- at SendSpamHere.ORG]

In article <7lre3lF394ch1U1 at mid.individual.net>, billg999 at cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) writes:
>In article <00A944D0.32BE9C1D at sendspamhere.org>,
>	VAXman-  @SendSpamHere.ORG writes:
>> In article <oNmdnU_-cdwT3WXXnZ2dnUVZ_t6dnZ2d at giganews.com>, "Richard B. Gilbert" <rgilbert88 at comcast.net> writes:
>>>Joerg Schilling wrote:
>>>> In article <7llbk1F3eetdpU1 at mid.individual.net>,
>>>> Bill Gunshannon <billg999 at cs.uofs.edu> wrote:
>>>> 
>>>>> Then, what exactly is the reason VMS can't do a Unix style fork()?
>>>> 
>>>> It would help a lot already if vfork() on VMS did work like vfork()
>>>> and did not share file descriptors between parent and child.
>>>> 
>>>> More then 90% of all calls to fork() do this with the intention to 
>>>> call exec*() soon, but many of these calls like to redirect I/O
>>>> for the new process. 
>>>> 
>>>> With a real vfork() you may use vfork() in all these cases as long as
>>>> you do not use stdio in the child and as long as you call _exit() 
>>>> instead of exit() in the child in case if a problem. On VMS, you would
>>>> need to dup2() descriptors 0/1/2 to other numbers before redirecting 
>>>> 0/1/2 for the new process _and_ you would need to restore 0/1/2 in the 
>>>> parent. The latter makes it hard to suport I/O redirection in typical 
>>>> software.
>>>> 
>>>
>>>Learn to live with it.  VMS doesn't have fork() or vfork() because it 
>>>works without either one.  VMS has been in use for about thirty years 
>>>now without fork().  I learned to program without fork() on IBM 
>>>System/360, moved to H-P 2100 series without fork() and then to VAX/VMS 
>>>still without fork().  I even managed to write a few programs for 
>>>Silicon Graphics IRIX without using fork.
>> 
>> Exactly!  That's why the effort is called "porting" and not "compiling and
>> linking".  If there is something that doesn't exist to support the feature,
>> the person "porting" the code needs to redesign/recode that portion of code.
>> The end results should be the same.  Get the fork out of there and rewrite
>> the code to work with some other scheme supported in the OS.
> 
>OK, let me know when you have done that with Open Office for VMS.  

I'm not porting Open Office.  What gave you that idea?  EDT is all the
word processing I need.


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VAXman- A Bored Certified VMS Kernel Mode Hacker    VAXman(at)TMESIS(dot)ORG

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