Re: [HACKERS] Patch for glibc2 date problems

>
> "Thomas G. Lockhart" wrote:
> >> The patch for glibc2 dates is attached. With this applied, a Linux system
> >> with libc6 (glibc2) passes all the date and time related regression tests.
> >
> >It looks as though this patch is a bit Linux-specific (or specific to some v
> >ersion of glibc which has only been tested on
> >Linux).
>
> I don't have experience of using glibc2 on any other type of machine.
>
> However, isn't part of the point of it to remove inter-machine differences?
>
> >
> >Can we wait until glibc2 settles down, or provide this as an add-on patch ra
> >ther than merging it into the main tree? I hate
> >adding machine-specific code into otherwise general code...
>
> I guess that's up to you.
> >
> >Another possibility would be to add a new #define variable like HAVE_FUNNY_L
> >IBRARY in config.h or in linux.h so we can
>
> Why isn't
> #if __GLIBC__ < 2
> enough for this?
> >possibly use this with other ports if necessary in the future.
> >
>
> I don't have experience of using glibc2 on any other type of machine.
> However, isn't part of the point of it to remove inter-machine differences?
>
> >I'm planning on installing RH5.0 sometime soon (I have a clean disk so can f
> >all back to RH4.2). I'm sure I'll sound more
> >sympathetic by then :)
> >
> > - Tom
>
> My assumption was that any system using glibc2 would not have a broken
> rint() function; so the general change to TMODULO would be justified.
>
> The change of the test of `var != 0' to `var != rint(var)' should not break
> anything, even if var is non-zero. It is merely saying, don't use
> decimal points if there's no decimal part.
>
> The remaining part of the patch is to force the undefinition of
> HAVE_INT_TIMEZONE; again this is glibc2-specific, but I don't know
> any reason to suppose it wouldn't be needed on any machine with glibc2.
>
> It would really be helpful to have someone on a non-Linux machine test
> it; but is there anyone?

Our code is complicated enough without adding patches for OS bugs. A
good place for the patch is the Linux FAQ. If it really becomes a
problem, we can put the patch as a separate file in the distribution,
and mention it in the INSTALL instructions. If you really want to get
fancy, as I did with the flex bug, you can run a test at compile time to
see if the bug exists.

--
Bruce Momjian
maillist(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us