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Date:      Sun, 4 Oct 1998 12:39:06 -0400 (EDT)
From:      Chuck Robey <chuckr@mat.net>
To:        Brian Feldman <green@zone.syracuse.net>
Cc:        Martin Cracauer <cracauer@cons.org>, Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com>, nate@mt.sri.com, osa@etrust.ru, current@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: What about jdk-1.1.6 for FreeBSD-3.0-ELF ?
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSF.4.02A.9810041231320.362-100000@picnic.mat.net>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.04.9810041155020.15263-100000@zone.syracuse.net>

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On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Brian Feldman wrote:

> Cheers,
> Brian Feldman
> 
> On Sun, 4 Oct 1998, Martin Cracauer wrote:
> 
> > In <199810040411.VAA25038@usr06.primenet.com>, Terry Lambert wrote: 
> > > > I'm taking from this that not having a Motif lib in elf is dragging
> > > > things back.  I'm totally non-suprised (I've been nagging XiG to get by
> > > > personal favorite one done for a while now).  I would hope that, when
> > > > someone _does_ find a vendor of Motif in ELF, there will be a quick
> > > > announcement on the lists ... don't consider it advertising, we _need_
> > > > this.
> > > 
> > > Someone needs to flush $15 on the "free" Solaris and/or UnixWare CDROM,
> > > which has an ELF Motif library on it.
> > 
> > And this library won't use any system or libc calls that might be
> > incompatible in FreeBSD?
>
> I don't see why a system call should be incompatible since being a shared
> library, the system call is just a definition of a link to the true libc
> symbol.

That's because of two things, the semantics of the libc call, and the
way that OS calls are done.  In the semantics, I'm referring both to
what precisely the call does, which varies sufficiently to be a major
headache, and the number/order of arguments.  It's not standard, Brian.

The other thing, about the way that OS type calls (like, say, unlink)
which the libc does not in itself handle are done.  The libc can't
unlink a file, it has to pass the request to the kernel, and it does
that by using an integer numbered thing called a syscall, where the
kernel recognizes what's being asked of it by the number of the call,
and never sees "unlink".  If the libc wrapper for your call thinks the
number for the call is one thing, but the kernel thinks it's another,
boom.

It's not just "a definition of a link to the true libc" at all.

----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------
Chuck Robey                 | Interests include any kind of voice or data 
chuckr@glue.umd.edu         | communications topic, C programming, and Unix.
213 Lakeside Drive Apt T-1  |
Greenbelt, MD 20770         | I run Journey2 and picnic (FreeBSD-current)
(301) 220-2114              | and jaunt (NetBSD).
----------------------------+-----------------------------------------------





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