Re: lynx-dev comments on "compile time settings"

[Bela Lubkin]

Philip Webb wrote:

> there's still a BUG : i'm not making it up!
> i sent in trace output for the refusal by 2-8-1pre.6 to save options
> side-by-side with the fact that 2-8pre.2 happily accepts them,
> both in Menu mode within a few minutes on the same UNIX system!

The trace output was short and identical for the success and failure
cases: not useful.

Before anything else, download pre.8 (or 9 if Tom gets ahead of you) and
make sure you do a clean build of it, not forgetting to `make distclean`
or whatever.  (I always burst the archive into a directory named after
the version, by making a symlink from lynx-2.8.1pre.8 -> lynx2-8-1 -- a
continuing annoyance.)

> something changed in LYNX during that interval
> which is clashing with something in the IRIX 5.3 system here.
> i'm not a UNIX systems expert, so i can't begin to suggest what it might be,
> but the fact that no-one else has encountered it -- yet --
> is no reason to ignore it.

I'm looking at diffs between pre.1 and pre.8 (the last two versions I've
grabbed) and I don't see anything apropos.  Perhaps you can narrow it
down a little?  Unfortunately, pre.5 is the oldest version still on
sol.slcc.edu; maybe someone on the list can provide you with pre.3 and
pre.4.  If you knew the exact version where it broke, it'd be easier to
fix.

Then, if it's still happening with a clean build of the latest version,
do some system call traces.  Unix system call tracers are generally
called trace, truss or strace.  Read the man page.  Most have an "attach
to a running process" flag.  The methodology you want to use is:

  running version pre.last-one-that-works, open an empty local file that
  you've created (`lynx /tmp/foo`)

  get to the options form, checkmark "save this", move to the "accept"
  button

  from another terminal (use GNU screen if you're not on your own
  console), start up a trace of your Lynx process, redirecting to a file

  back on the first terminal, hit the "accept" button.  the idea is to
  have prepared as much as possible, so few distracting system calls
  (like "read the key he hit") are logged

  after error messages have been displayed, go to the 2nd terminal and
  interrupt the tracer

  ... now do the same with the first lynx version that has the problem

  ... send the traces

I get about 50 lines of trace when I do this.

The local file is because after you save options, Lynx is going to
reload the file.  An empty local file will take few system calls to
access; it also provides a nice signpost in the trace -- when you see
Lynx referring to /tmp/foo you know it's finished with option saving.

>Bela<