Re: LYNX-DEV Update code and patches "RFC" :)

[Klaus Weide]

On Fri, 18 Oct 1996, Hiram Lester, Jr. wrote:

> Ok, this is a "Request for comments" on patches 8 and 9 as listed on the
> Lynx Enhanced Pages.  Have people tried them, have they caused any
> problems?  Should they be included as part of the update or just in a
> development code set?

Independent of the outcome ofh the RFC process: [:-)]

Two changes from #8 should definitely be included: the ones that
change the lines

              StartS = ((EndS == '\0') ? EndS : (EndS + 1));

and

         StartP = ((EndP == '\0') ? EndP : (EndP + 1));

by adding a '*' character in each case, making them:

              StartS = ((*EndS == '\0') ? EndS : (EndS + 1));

and

         StartP = ((*EndP == '\0') ? EndP : (EndP + 1));

I think it is obvious that this is how the code was supposed to work.
(gcc with -Wall didn't complain about the original lines, I thought it
should, but it seems that 0, '\0', and NULL are all treated as
the same thing.)

Without that change, Lynx was reading from invalid memory.
In my case that lead to DNS queries with garbled names which I was
able to see with tcpdump.

We don't want Lynx to become known as the program that made a large
part of the Internet fail because it triggered a bug in some version
of BIND servers with unexpected forms of queries...
(well ok I am exaggerating, but it is not totally impossible.)

  Klaus 

;
; To UNSUBSCRIBE:  Send a mail message to address@hidden
;                  with "unsubscribe lynx-dev" (without the
;                  quotation marks) on a line by itself.
;