🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DEVEN.89Mar15163112@daniel.pawl.rpi.edu> shadow@pawl.rpi.edu (Deven Thomas Corzine) writes:
>In article <6278@cbmvax.UUCP> jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) writes:
> >>What about setting the CLI proc number to 0?  Will some cli things choke on
> >>this?  Lattice's forkv() uses proc number 0. (What do workbench programs do?)
>
> >        Not normally a good idea.  It removes the ability to Break the
> >program, or to have Status return anything reasonable.  Isn't really too
> >dangerous, though.
>
>Wouldn't Status simply ignore any process that has a CLI process
>number of 0?  (Strangely, sometimes Status will show a process number

The standard Status command will ignore any process with a process
number of 0.  Of course, you realize that the CLI process number is
an index to the task table.  Other programs that play with the
task table may not have the error check that status does.
So it is a risk of memory corruption, depending on what other
programs the end user has.

>as being in the billions or so (many digits anyhow) after something
>crashes...  very incongrous.)

That's what happens when memory is corrupted.  You took a hit in your
process structure.

> >        Talk to Bill Hawes.  He wrote a PATH: that does similar sorts
> >of things.  Warning: packet-forwarding can get tricky.

>I still gotta track down that PATH: device sometime.  Yeah, I could
>see packet-forwarding getting tricky...  Any particular caveats you
>have in mind?

Though it may seem like a clean solution at first, you'll find that
a packet forwarder won't ever be able to just put the sender
in touch with the real receiver, but must stay in the loop, forwarding
each packet.

You might want to take a look at the path handler (with source)
that came by comp.amiga.sources as well.

>Be that as it may, it remains a fact that protection bits are easily
>lost in distribution and simple copying.  What are these 16
>user-defined bits?  I assume the upper 16 bits, but I've never seen
>mention of them...

There are only 8 user-defined protection bits; as you surmised, the
upper 8 bits are the user bits.  The 1.3 Copy command preserves
protection bits by default.  The next version of ZOO will preserve
all protection bits as well.  

Granted, magic numbers are never in danger of being lost, and may be
a better solution thab protection bits.  Hmmm, I wonder if romtags
could be adapted...nah :-)

		andy
-- 
andy finkel		{uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy
Commodore-Amiga, Inc.

"The salesperson said this computer is the next best thing to sliced
 bread, but didn't say what to do about the crumbs in the disk drive."

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