From owner-freebsd-hackers  Thu Apr 24 11:54:27 1997
Return-Path: <owner-hackers>
Received: (from root@localhost)
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA23911
          for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:54:27 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from cynic.portal.ca (root@cynic.portal.ca [204.174.36.7])
          by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA23906
          for <hackers@freebsd.org>; Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:54:26 -0700 (PDT)
Received: from localhost ([[UNIX: localhost]])
	by cynic.portal.ca (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id LAA07261;
	Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:54:15 -0700 (PDT)
X-Authentication-Warning: cynic.portal.ca: cjs owned process doing -bs
Date: Thu, 24 Apr 1997 11:54:15 -0700 (PDT)
From: Curt Sampson <cjs@portal.ca>
To: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
cc: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com>, hackers@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: /etc/netstart bogons..
In-Reply-To: <199704240036.KAA23544@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au>
Message-ID: <Pine.NEB.3.96.970424114719.5109I-100000@cynic.portal.ca>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org
X-Loop: FreeBSD.org
Precedence: bulk

On Thu, 24 Apr 1997, Michael Smith wrote:

> > Any objection to reversing the polarity on these various ifs?  If
> > there's no variable or it's not explicitly set to YES, the operation
> > should fail.  Speak now or hold your peace, please..
> 
> Make a call now as to whether empty counts as set or unset.  NetBSD's
> convention is that set-but-empty means to use the default value,
> whatever that is.

Not really, no. Setting the variable to "DEFAULT" means use the
default value. Many of our variables are set to "NO" not to run
the program, "DEFAULT" to use reasonable defaults, or a list of
flags. Thus, having the variable set to "" or unset (they're the
same thing in /bin/sh) means `run the program with no command line
arguments.'

We have other variables that simply turn things on or off, and
these are set to just YES or NO as needed.

As for using shell functions and passing program names and whatnot
as parameters, there are enough special cases out there that this
may not be worthwhile. Things like:

    if [ "$nfs_server" = YES ] && [ -r /etc/exports ]; then
	    if [ "$mountd_flags" = DEFAULT ]; then
		    mountd_flags=""
	    fi
	    rm -f /var/db/mountdtab
	    echo -n > /var/db/mountdtab
	    echo -n ' mountd';              mountd $mountd_flags
	    if [ "$nfsd_flags" = DEFAULT ]; then
		    nfsd_flags="-tun 4"
	    fi
	    echo -n ' nfsd';                nfsd $nfsd_flags
	    nfs_locking=MAYBE
    fi

cjs

Curt Sampson    cjs@portal.ca	   Info at http://www.portal.ca/
Internet Portal Services, Inc.	   Through infinite myst, software reverberates
Vancouver, BC  (604) 257-9400	   In code possess'd of invisible folly.