How do you patch with sdb?

[Mark Fox]

The subject line says it all...

My rather ancient copy of the SYSV manual states that "an initial argument of
-w permits overwriting locations in [the executable program file]."

However, I can't find the equivalent of adb's w and W commands. I do know about
the variable!value command but I can't get sdb to swallow it (sdb says: cannot
execute (not an active procedure) & if looking for an address, use ':').

Can anyone help? Can anything be done without compiling with the -g switch?
We would like to be able to patch production copies of software, i.e., compiled
with -O and not -g (exclusive options, I believe) and possibly stripped.

BTW why is it that many vendors ship sdb but no adb in their binary releases?
I have found sdb to be severely lacking in comparison with adb when trying
to debug programs not compiled with the -g switch.

Anyone for dbx vs. sdb flame wars? :o)
-- 
  Mark
  UUCP: ...harvard!m2c!applix!mark
  mark at applix.m2c.org