Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Andrew Johnson <[email protected]> · Thu, 2 Oct 2008 14:03:07 -0500

Hi Lewis,

On Thursday 02 October 2008 10:56:11 J. Lewis Muir wrote:
> On 9/29/08 6:38 PM, Andrew Johnson wrote:
>
> A few comments.
>
> Platform: darwin-x86 (Mac OS X 10.5.5); gcc 4.0.1
>
> 1. I noticed the distribution contains .cvsignore files.  These can
> trivially be removed before packaging on a modern UNIX environment with
> something like:
>
>   $ find . -name '.cvsignore' -print0 | xargs -0 rm

We leave the .cvsignore files in the distribution because many sites (APS 
included) actually re-import the base tarfile into a local CVS repository to 
manage local changes, hence the .cvsignore files are still useful.

> 2. I get various compiler warnings when building.  This is not new, but
> if you want to see them, search for "warning" in my build log at
>
>   http://www.imca.aps.anl.gov/~jlmuir/epics-3.14.10-build.txt

I've been working on reducing the number of warnings and on some platforms I 
actually get none at all now, but with more recent versions of gcc there are 
huge numbers from src/gdd which we're not touching because GDD is going to be 
going away someday.  Other warnings are from code generated by flex and/or 
antelope, which we didn't write and are not programs I want to look inside if 
I don't have to.

> 3. The host platforms list in the README at
>
>   http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/base/R3-14/10-docs/README.html
>
> does not match the list in configure/CONFIG_SITE.  For example,
> darwin-x86 and others are not listed in the README.

Noted, 

> 4. I was hoping for an easy way to run all tests for my platform (such
> as "make test" from the EPICS base root directory), but I couldn't find
> it.

> Is there a better way?

As you already discovered, "make runtests".

> The macEnvExpandTest test prints error messages, but
> maybe that's normal?

Yes, that's expected; if you run the test manually it tells you how many error 
messages you should have got, but for some reason that number doesn't agree 
with my output right now...

> 5. It would be nice if the EPICS Application Developer's Guide used
> links (hyper-references?) in the table of contents.

I agree...

> It looks like you're using Adobe FrameMaker 6.0 to create the
> Application Developer's Guide.  Does FrameMaker support making the table
> of contents with links like this?

Correct, the AppDevGuide is in FrameMaker 6.  It certainly manages to create 
hyperlinks in the index, let's see...  <rummage, RTFM, RTOFM; Ooh, what does 
this check-box do?  Hmm, doesn't work, why not?  Now it does, what's going 
on?  Ahh, there's an invisible delay, just be patient and use ls -l...>.

Ok, I just installed a new version of the R3.14.10 AppDevGuide where the TOC 
has hyperlinks in it; thanks for the suggestion!

- Andrew
-- 
Talk is cheap. Show me the code. -- Linus Torvalds

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System