BIND 8.2.1 compile problems on SCO3.2v4.2

[Joseph S D Yao]

> I followed your instructions below to test whether ranlib was truncating the
> archive.  Turns out the answer is no because I got the following error:
> 
> ranlib: ../../lib/libbind.a: not an x.out archive
> 
> Which would indeed indicate an incompatibility between ar and ranlib on the
> machine.

Which would in turn suggest that you've installed different generations
of SCO, and at least one of them used 'ranlib', and the current one
doesn't.

Makes sense.  ISTM that 'ranlib' was used for some intermediate 'ar'
format between the original one and the current one, both of which
handle / handled symbols perfectly well without it.

> So I followed your instructions in changing Makefile.set to set
> RANLIB='false'.  I then started over.
> 
> This time, near the beginning of the make process I saw it give an error when
> apparently attempting to run 'false' as if it were the ranlib binary!  Out of
> curiosity, I changed RANLIB='true' again and carefully watched make output.
> This time, no error, but it *did* use 'true' as if it were the ranlib library.
> I then tried 'true' from the command line, and there is indeed some program
> called 'true', which is why I didn't catch this problem before - true was
> running successfully.

My fault!  I glanced at a working file, and DID see 'true' in there!
What I didn't think was that it said 'true' - not instead of 'false',
but instead of 'ranlib'!  I don't run it either, on that configuration.

The 'true' program always returns E_SUCCESS, and the 'false' program
always returns E_FAIL.  That's so that you can have shell programs that
say, e.g.:

if [ ... (complex test) ... ]; then
	VARIABLE=true
  else
	VARIABLE=false
fi

...

if $VARIABLE; then ... fi

> So I guess my next question is: what mechanism is failing to use the RANLIB
> argument in Makefile.set properly?

None: see above.  Setting it to 'true' is just what you need.  I told
you wrong: mea culpa [beating my breast].

> All of this makes me wonder whether this system is a reliable development
> environment.

Yes; you had mentioned before:

> >> I am attempting to compile bind on SCO3.2v4.2.  ...

and I had wondered the same thing:

> >What is the current version of SCO Unix?  I see builds for 4.2 and 5.0,
> >but not 3.2.  The SCO Web page is no help - UnixWare 7 vs SCO UnixWare
> >2.1 vs. SCO Open Server 5 vs. ... ?

--
Joe Yao				jsdy at cospo.osis.gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
COSPO/OSIS Computer Support					EMT-B
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