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Re: The ftw function and apt-ftparchive on non-glibc ports



On Mon, Feb 24, 2003 at 01:17:41AM -0700, Jason Gunthorpe wrote:
> 
> > As discussed w/ doogie on IRC, apt-ftparchive uses the ftw() function,
> > which is provided by libftw as a workaround on some non-glibc platforms. 
> > The following patch adjusts the build system and debian files to cope
> > with
> 
> 'ftw' is a POSIX API. It is defined in SUSv3 (aka IEEE 10003.1-2001,
> otherwise known as POSIX-2001)
> 
> I'm not super keen on a Debian system having a non POSIX libc and then
> wildly patching packages that rely on POSIX to support the non-conforming
> platform. That seems highly counter productive, IMHO.

SuS v(anything) compliance has been a longstanding issue with some packages
or commands under Debian, and as far as I have observed, is not considered
a suitable requirement on it's own.

Note also that there is an open PR against the upstream source requesting
this functionality be added, and that this code was specifically written
from scratch, using the X/Open documentation as the primary reference,
under a revised BSD license, so that it could be used by NetBSD without
license issues.

I suspect, given that ftw and nftw are actually far from the optimal
functions for this sort of thing, that NetBSD simply didn't implement
them because nobody asked for them (the fts function suite barely missed
becoming part of the POSIX standard last time, probably will on the next
round, and is far cleaner to deal with; it *is* implemented in NetBSD,
and the ftw/nftw implementations in jFTW are simply wrappers around it -
meaning, for instance, that they shouldn't exhaust file descriptors).

Would you have the same complaints if it were libposix that were patched,
and -lposix was used instead? I can certainly add this to the NetBSD libc
sources (which provide libposix) as a patch, instead, but I'd been trying
to avoid making any non-crucial patches there - particularly since upstream
has not yet decided whether the code, if it's accepted, belongs in libc,
libposix, or somewhere else.
-- 
Joel Baker <fenton@debian.org>

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