[9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[Roberto E. Vargas Caballero]

I was doing some experiments with db(1), when I tried something like:

main:b *argv/X

and it gave me an error. I debugged it and I found that is a bug in the
code due to a mix between char* and Rune*. I have created a patch
in sources with the name unicode-db.

The funny thing is this error must be at least 20 years old,
because clearly its origin is the unicode translation of old unix tools.
I have checked  labs, 9front and plan9port and all of them have
the error (in some moment someone realized about a warning
of the compiler about different pointer types and simply put a
cast, that is not present in the code of plan9port).

I send this mail here, first because I think is the error is funy,
second because is my first patch send to plan9 and I'm not sure about
the process, and third because it affects to all the versions of plan9
and I'm not sure if all of them take this bug fixes from sources.

Regards,

Re: [9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[Giacomo Tesio]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1666 bytes --]

I could be wrong, but looks like nobody cares about such small fixes.

A few days ago, I've found some very old small errors (one in the 2c(1) man
page and one in col(1) that affects man pages' visualization in variable
width fonts) but had no feedback.
I guess that the most effective way to cope with such old and small bugs,
is to report them on 9fans (and other related mailing lists), possibly with
a patch.
This way, any other user that hit the bug (and find your email) can apply
the patch and fix them in his $home/bin (or somewhere else) and then bind
-b it to /bin.


Giacomo

2015-03-19 7:41 GMT+01:00 Roberto E. Vargas Caballero <k0ga@shike2.com>:

> I was doing some experiments with db(1), when I tried something like:
>
> main:b *argv/X
>
> and it gave me an error. I debugged it and I found that is a bug in the
> code due to a mix between char* and Rune*. I have created a patch
> in sources with the name unicode-db.
>
> The funny thing is this error must be at least 20 years old,
> because clearly its origin is the unicode translation of old unix tools.
> I have checked  labs, 9front and plan9port and all of them have
> the error (in some moment someone realized about a warning
> of the compiler about different pointer types and simply put a
> cast, that is not present in the code of plan9port).
>
> I send this mail here, first because I think is the error is funy,
> second because is my first patch send to plan9 and I'm not sure about
> the process, and third because it affects to all the versions of plan9
> and I'm not sure if all of them take this bug fixes from sources.
>
> Regards,
>
>
>

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2110 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[lucio]

> I guess that the most effective way to cope with such old and small bugs,
> is to report them on 9fans (and other related mailing lists), possibly with
> a patch.

Have checked the man pages for patch(1)?

That's the formal procedure; this is a small community so raising your
hopes is simply not worth it.  But the patches will be recorded and
may, when the time is ripe, become part of one or other distribution.
It's a fragmented small community and that is just sad.  It is not
likely that things will get better in the foreseeable future, so pick
your side :-)

Lucio.

Re: [9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[Giacomo Tesio]

[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1037 bytes --]

Oh, I completely missed patch(1). And actually it was just when one should
look up for at first... man pages. Sorry.

Thanks for the tip!

It's a fragmented small community and that is just sad.  It is not
> likely that things will get better in the foreseeable future, so pick
> your side :-)


To pick a side, one should knows the "contenders" enough. :-)
It's very hard to find clear statements about the differences between the
various plan9 flavours, or clear descriptions of the vision driving the
development of each fork (at least I wasn't able to find them).
This is particularly true for plan9 forks that bet on Plan9 evolution
outside bell labs (9atom and 9front), while it's easy to get the
differences between 9legacy, Inferno, Nix-os etc...

More than 15 years ago, when I started using linux, it was easy to see how
Debian was different from RedHat or Suse.
In the Plan9 ecosystem, while looks that some are quite upsets about such
differences, it's hard to grasp them from the outside.


Giacomo

[-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1472 bytes --]

Re: [9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[lucio]

> It's very hard to find clear statements about the differences between the
> various plan9 flavours, or clear descriptions of the vision driving the
> development of each fork (at least I wasn't able to find them).

I suspect a lot went on in IRC because I've been around this mailing
list for decades and I missed most of that aspect.  The best person to
consult with is David de Colombier, if his web site is not the
reference, it ought to be.  He'll pop up sooner or later.

Lucio/

Re: [9fans] Very old bug in db(1)

[cinap_lenrek]

good catch, thanks :)

--
cinap