GNU diff for XENIX [was Re: LaTeX for Xenix ...]

[Robert Barrell]

In article <952 at chinacat.Lonestar.ORG>, chip at chinacat.Lonestar.ORG (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
> 
> The XENIX diff does not do context diffs.  The GNU diff does, but it
> requires a couple of small hacks to get it running under XENIX.
> 
> Below are two patches.  One fixes GNU diff to run under XENIX.  The second
> patch adds a "merged" diff option.

     Okay.  Having applied the patches, I still cannot get GNU diff to run on a
286 under SCO xenix.  First of all, the compiler complains about a structure it
can't find, which is in regex.h (supplied with GNU diff v1.7).  Not all of the
modules for diff bother to include regex.h, so I added #include lines where
they were needed.  Also, in cases where diff.h is included, it was necessary
for me to include regex.h BEFORE including diff.h (maybe this is due to my
relatively old version of the development system, but the programs wouldn't
compile when the includes were the other way around).

> If you want to run GNU diff under XENIX, you will obviously need to first
> grab a copy of the diff v1.7 sources.  (osu-cis is a good place to snarf
> GNU stuff via anon uucp.)  Besides my patch, you will also need a version
> of "alloca()" which runs on XENIX.  These have been floating around; I
> remember one or two posted to comp.unix.xenix.  My patch assumes that
> your alloca() is found in a library called SlibPW.a.
> .....
> If you need the XENIX 386 alloca.s, I suppose I can make it available.
> (I *do not* have a 286 version.)  Also, I've archived a couple of other
> diff fixes/enhancements which have appeared in gnu.utils.bugs.  Drop
> me a line if you need any of this stuff.

     I guess I will need to find alloca() somewhere (has anyone seen it around
recently?  I couldn't find it on osu-cis).  Odd, though, diff compiled and
linked without the -lPW, so I checked my libs and found alloca() in ?libc.a.
So, there already is an alloca() available.  Even so, it must not work too
well, since I can only compare files of 4K or less.

-- 
Robert Barrell      | Bang: ...!uunet!lgnp1!rdb1!root   | Cody Computer Services
Milo's Meadow BBS   |   or: root at rdb1                   | 55 East High Street
login: nuucp or bbs |-----------------------------------| Pottstown, PA   19464
(215) 323-0497      | Business and Police Dept Software | (215) 326-7476