pac - core dumps and oddities (with fixes)

[Rob McMahon]

In article <3839 at auspex.auspex.com> guy at auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris) writes:
>>I've just been looking at pac, the calculator.  It seems a fairly nice piece
>>of work (shame it doesn't work on Sun3s...anyone know a fix for this ?).
>
>The introductory section of the posting correctly notes that the problem
>has nothing whatsoever to do with Sun-3s; the problem is that it doesn't
>work under SunOS 3.x.

Ugh, "if in doubt, read the instructions ...".  I'm confused then, because it
certainly breaks on our Sun3/SunOS 4.0.3 systems, whereas it works on our
Sun4/SunOS 4.0.3 and Sun4/SunOS 4.1 systems (with both gcc and cc).  The
symptoms are that if you type an expression (like `42 \r'), then turn on the
clock with ^K, the cursor is left in the wrong place, and a ^R completely
scrambles the screen (it looks like the program's idea of the screen origin
gets out of sync with reality).  Anyone got any ideas ?

>>It tries to write to constant strings in a few places---instant core dump
>>with ANSI compilers.
>
>Nope.  Instant core dump with those compilers - ANSI or non-ANSI - that
>put constant strings into read-only portions of the address space.

Yes, okay, I admit it, I was exaggerating and knew it.  I just think it's a
bad idea to write into string constants when it's invariably as easy to use
initialised arrays, and it does blow up with some compilers with some options.

Cheers,

Rob
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Rob McMahon, Computing Services, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL, England