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OpenVMS VAXACRT11_061 DEC C RTL for OpenVMS VAX V6.1 ECO Summary

NOTE: An OpenVMS saveset or PCSI installation file is stored on the Internet in a self-expanding compressed file. The name of the compressed file will be kit_name-dcx_vaxexe for OpenVMS VAX or kit_name-dcx_axpexe for OpenVMS Alpha. Once the file is copied to your system, it can be expanded by typing RUN compressed_file. The resultant file will be the OpenVMS saveset or PCSI installation file which can be used to install the ECO. Copyright (c) Digital Equipment Corporation 1997. All rights reserved. PRODUCT: OpenVMS VAX COMPONENT: DEC C RTL - DECC$SHR.EXE DECCCURSE.OLB DECCRTL.OLB DECCRTLG.OLB VAXC2DECC.EXE VAXCG2DECC.EXE SOURCE: Digital Equipment Corporation ECO INFORMATION: ECO Kit Name: VAXACRT11_061 ECO Kits Superseded by This ECO Kit: VAXACRT10_061 VAXACRT09_061 VAXACRT08_061 VAXACRT07_061 VAXACRT06_061 VAXACRT05_061 VAXACRT03_061 VAXACRT02_061 VAXACRT01_061 ECO Kit Approximate Size: 3006 Blocks Kit Applies To: OpenVMS VAX V5.5-2, V5.5-2H4, V5.5-2HF, V6.0, V6.1 System/Cluster Reboot Necessary: Yes Installation Rating: 3 - To be installed on all systems running the listed versions of OpenVMS which are experiencing the problems described. NOTE: In order to receive the full fixes listed in this kit, the following remedial kits also need to be installed: None ECO KIT SUMMARY: An ECO kit exists for DEC C RTL on OpenVMS VAX V5.5-2 through V6.1. This kit addresses the following problems: PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT11_061 KIT: o Unlike previous ACRTL remedial kits, the VAXACRT10_061 remedial kit did not support V5.5-2, V5.5-2H4, V5.5-2HF or V6.0. This kit restores the prior version support. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT10_061 KIT: o A user application which linked against VAXC2DECC on an OpenVMS V6.1 system failed when run on an OpenVMS V6.2 system. Investigation showed that the _CTYPE_ vector had accidentally moved by 12 bytes. It is now too late to correct this problem. When attempting to use the VAXC2DECC image from a V6.1 as a "private" shareable on the V6.2 system, registers were corrupted due to a mismatch in register usage by the V6.2 DECC$SHR image. The register save masks have now been corrected to tolerate changes in the underlying DECC$SHR image. o The mkdir function used to perform exact placement control on the relative volume set, even if the application called mkdir with no extra parameters. This problem has been corrected. If the application calls this function with extra parameters, exact placement will take place. Otherwise a NULL parameter will be used. o Certain devices can only write an even number of bytes. Failure to initialize the DEC C RTL internal I/O buffer caused an indeterminate value to be written as the "pad byte" when an odd number of bytes was written to a file on this type of device. o Beginning with DEC C V5.6, the compiler looks for the presence of a new symbol in the DECC$SHR image to determine the default value of __CRTL_VER. If this symbol is not found, the default is set to __VMS_VER, which defaults to the version of OpenVMS on which the compilation is taking place. With the addition of this symbol to DECC$SHR, the user will now be able to define a logical pointing to DECC$SHR and safely compile on any version of OpenVMS without defining __CRTL_VER or __VMS_VER. o Mailbox devices are considered record oriented devices by the DEC C Runtime Library except, those created by calling the pipe function. The impact of this is an extra linefeed character being added when the mailbox is read. A change has been made to treat mailboxes as stream oriented devices if an environment variable with the name DECC$MAILBOX_CTX_STM is present at the time the mailbox is opened. o The ANSI standard states that file positioning must be done between a read operation and a write operation for files which are opened for update. A change has been made which allows serial devices, such as terminals, to implement positioning functions such as rewind(). Prior to this change attempts to position such devices would result in an error. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT09_061 KIT: o An ISV reports that extra characters are seen on occasion when using a subprocess which sends data back to the parent process using a mailbox. o A case was found where the fseek function failed, correctly returned a -1 value, but failed to set errno properly. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT08_061 KIT: o Extra characters may be written to stdout under the conditions that the application is reading from stdin and it is not a terminal. The extra characters appear random in the output, but in fact are written each time a new record is read from stdin. o An application which closes either stdin, stdout, or stderr, and then reopens it using the dup function may not have the file actually closed if i/o is not done using the file descriptor. A workaround is to force i/o on the file by using a function call such as sync or flush. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT07_061 KIT: o The qsort function no longer access violates when sorting a large number of records. This was demonstrated by sorting 1966079 records whose values were 1 through 1966079. The qsort function can now sort the maximum number of records. o The DEC C Runtime Library had previously added the ability for users to define the logical name DECC$DEFAULT_LRL to change the default longest record length value on stream files. A problem existed such that defining this logical name to zero resulted in files which had fixed length records instead of stream_lf records. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT06_061 KIT: o The lseek function may position incorrectly when given the SEEK_END option. Typically this occurs when the internal buffer is full and the last operation done to the file is flush or sync. o Since changing the default LRL value for stream files from 0 to 32767, we've been informed that this change has a dramatic affect on sort times and workfile size. We now look for a logical DECC$DEFAULT_LRL for this value, using 32767 if not defined. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT05_061 KIT o The DEC C RTL routine chdir fails when passed a logical search list. o In the DSNlink and DIA C database, there is an article on how to implement non-blocking pipes under OpenVMS. The article title is: Example-C Implementing Non-Blocking Pipes Using VAX C RTL This example fails under OpenVMS V6.2 and was introduced in an earlier ECO kit for OpenVMS V6.1. o The function ungetc stopped working in OpenVMS V6.1 for both variable and fixed length records. o Using VAXC, the curses code fragment: wmove(win, 1, 2); wprintw(win, "First line" ); wmove(win, 2, 2); wprintw(win, "Second line"); produces the output: C First line Second Line Using the compatible VMS Curses package provided by DECC on bot h VAX and Alpha, the results are: First lineSecond Line o Issuing a call to getenv("TERM") would fail when used from a VT500 class terminal. o If you were to run a program containing the following fragment on OpenVMS V6.1, you would notice one file was created (test.file). A second run would append to the file. If you run it on OpenVMS V6.2, it created a new file every time. It did not append. fp = fopen("TEST", "a", "dna=SYS$DISK:[].file"); o On slow systems, the return value from sleep (which is defined to be how much of the time we did not sleep) could be a negative number if we slept too long. o Two locks may be obtained during I/O operations. In the fclose function, lock A was obtained before lock B. In all other CRTL functions lock B was obtained before lock A. Under adverse conditions, deadlock results. o When using fflush/fsynch with DEC C the "stdout" buffer is NOT flushed at the time you call these RTLs. Eventually the buffers do get flushed, but with VAX C the buffer is flushed using the same RTLs. o Positioning to the end of file using the fseek function with the SEEK_SET option would no longer succeed if the user did not open the file with write. o Bizarre I/O behavior when the I/O operation involved positioning to the last block in the file. o A regression was introduced in OpenVMS V6.1 whereby the scanw and wscanw routines always access violate. o When reading zero length records from a Fortran carriage control record file. The result is that the carriage control from the previous read is used and may result in an access violation dereferencing the data in the buffer. o The read function fails to load characters that have been used in calls to the ungetc function. PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT02_061 KIT: o The functions fprintf & printf truncate the output when more than one element is specified in the I/O list and the number of characters written for a particular element exceeds 2048 characters. For example: char buffer[2048]; printf("++++%s", buffer); In this particular case the output will be "++++" plus the first 2044 characters from "buffer". Remove the "++++" and all 2048 characters from "buffer" are output. If the "buffer" is larger than 2048 characters, then the same is true except that characters 1-2044 will be output, characters 2045-2048 will be truncated and then characters 2049 -> end-of-buffer will be output. o When the following code section is used in a signal handler, two control-c characters abort the program. void signal_handler (int sig) { signal (SIGINT, SIG_IGN); /* Ignore control-c characters */ << do actual work >> } PROBLEMS ADDRESSED IN VAXACRT01_061 KIT: o The functions which write data to a file corrupt the data in the file if an "exceeded disk quota" error occurs during the write operation. o The behavior of passing negated scansets to the scanf function was changed such that a "-" between two characters where the first is less than the second is treated as a range character set. o The function getenv was enhanced to perform a case insensitive lookup if the case sensitive lookup fails. o The functions which read data from files would fail to read lines from an RMS "variable with fixed control" file with print format carriage control attributes. This typically occurred if the lines were double spaced. o Calls to the fwrite function without a trailing n resulted in implied newlines being written if the following conditions applied: the file was an RMS sequential variable with fixed control file with print format carriage control attributes. o The functions close and fclose did not properly set the value of vaxc$errno when the close operation failed. o The function ftell has been corrected to take into account that an unget character may exist. If such a character exists, the file position is returned as the position of this character in the file; as if the character has not yet been read. o When working with remotely accessed files via DECnet, the function fseek would fail to position correctly in files containing fixed length records. Also, the function ftell would report an incorrect position. o A process would terminate after the second CTRL-C (CONTROL C) regardless of the application re-establishing SIGINT processing. The SIGINT handling now works as documented. o The file writing functions would lose characters when writing to a file whose attributes include carriage return carriage control and whose record size is the size of the I/O buffer being used by the RTL. Typically this buffer size is a power of 2 greater than 8192. o In V6.1 and earlier releases, if the buffer argument to setvbuf was NULL, then setvbuf would reset the buffer to the one allocated by the DEC C RTL when the file was opened. New behavior is that if a NULL buffer argument is passed, and the size argument is larger than the buffer allocated by the RTL when the file was opened, then setvbuf will allocate a buffer equal to the specified size, and use that as the file buffer. o The functions stat and fstat would fail to return any information about a remote file that was already opened for exclusive access. o The fclose function has been corrected to properly deallocate channels used when the user has opened the NULL device. o The printf function was enhanced to print "(null)" when passed a null pointer. Prior to this, the DEC C RTL would issue an access violation error. o The RTL now properly parses RMS options of the form "DNA=". This change was made for the benefit of applications migrating from VAX C to DEC C. o The function puts now correctly can write a string whose length exceeds 32,767 bytes. Prior to this correction, the function would report that it succeeded, while it actually had failed. The function puts has been corrected such that when strings are written whose length exceeds 8131 bytes, typing the file no longer results in the error message "SYSTEM-F-EXQUOTA, process quota exceeded". o The function read no longer adds an extra NULL character to the end of a record when the record attribute is Fortran Carriage Control and the carriage control character is NULL. The new behavior is now compatible with VAX C, which simply removes the carriage control character. o A problem was fixed when reading fixed length record files using a combination of 'lseek' and 'read' which behaved correctly using the VAX C product. o The function fseek no longer fails when passed a direction of SEEK_END and a non-zero offset argument. This correction applies to files with fixed length records. o The function read has been corrected to allow reading the 'n' character from a DECnet task to task network device. o The function system may now be used from a signal handler which has been triggered by the SIGALRM function. Prior to this correction, this combination of calls resulted in the process issuing the system call hanging. o The function getname no longer access violates if called prior to a CLI being established for the process. o The function pipe no longer fails if the flags O_RDWR, O_RDONLY or O_WRONLY are specified. These flags are now ignored by the function. o For child processes in which the parent has used the dup function to redefine file descriptor zero to be a pipe, SYS$ERROR is no longer defined to be the NLA0 device. o A correction has been made to the RTL such that the I/O system properly inherits a record attribute of none when a previous version of the file had an undefined record format. Prior to this correction, the newly created file would be created with carriage return record attributes. The functions fopen, open, and creat have been corrected to allow the RMS option "rat=none" to override the record attributes of the previous version of the file. The function ftell now correctly reports the file position for files which have an undefined record format. This includes when the file is positioned at the end of the file. o Depending upon previous usages of virtual memory, the first call to the alarm function in an application sometimes would return a non-zero value. Also, the first call to the strtok function, when passed NULL as the first argument, would sometimes return a non-zero value. o The RTL no longer ignores the Maximum Record Size (mrs) value when provided by the caller. Prior to this correction, stream files would always be created with a maximum record size of 32767. For example, with the statement: fp = fopen("test.dat","w","mrs=512"); the mrs value is now correctly set to 512 instead of the incorrect behavior of setting it to 32767. o The function chdir has been corrected to behave as documented. A problem was fixed where changing the directory was permanent even if the parameter was passed specifying this change to be temporary. o If a program calls fclose(fp) to close the disk file associated with the "FILE *" fp, and the disk is full, the fclose call fails. At this point the file cannot be deleted from the disk because the program still has it open; but the program cannot close it. As a result the file cannot be deleted for as long as the program is running. o The lseek function no longer fails to write to the correct block if the file does not exist and the write is 1024 bytes. o The function strtok no longer stops on 0Xff characters found in the users buffer unless that character is explicitly passed as a token separator. o The function access no longer fails when the filename passed contains a search list logical name whose translation spans multiple physical devices. o The DEC C RTL no longer fails to close stdin, stdout, and stderr if called from a language other than C. Prior to this correction, the results were either an incomplete or nonexistent file. This problem had been corrected in OpenVMS AXP V6.1 and is now corrected on both platforms. o The printf function, using the %g format specifier, no longer displays a colon instead of a number. For example, the function using a format specifier "%#13.6g" with a value of "314109.968750" would result in the incorrect display of "31410:". It now correctly displays the value "314110". o The function decc$set_reentrancy now allows the first call to lower the reentrancy level. o While the documentation had indicated that signals were reset to SIG_DFL after they are caught, this was not true for SIGINT. Prior to this correction, raising the signal a second time would result in the process exiting with a status message instead of exiting quietly. o A successful call to a socket function would inadvertently reset the value of errno to zero, which is not permitted by the ANSI standard. o The curses function clrtobot no longer incorrectly clears the entire screen. It now correctly clears only from the cursor position to the end of the screen. o The value of the environment name "TERM", obtained by calling the getenv function, has been corrected to return values of the form "vt300-80", as opposed to the incorrect value of the form "USER=ME". o The functions stat and fstat would not work with disks which have allocation classes. o The RTL no longer sets errno as a side effect of successfully creating a file. o The functions fwrite, fputs, and puts now properly clear the unget character buffer. o The DEC C RTL has been corrected to properly deal with EOF when reading and writing to pipes. The correct behavior is found in the POSIX IEEE standard 1003.1-1988 section 6.4.1.2 which states that an EOF is written to a pipe only when no writers are left. Before implementing the POSIX behavior, the DEC C RTL was writing an EOF to a pipe every time a writer closed a pipe. The DEC C RTL no longer incorrectly writes an EOF to a pipe when the user issues a write of zero bytes. The corrected behavior now conforms to the POSIX IEEE standard 1003.1-1988 section 6.4.1.2 which states that writing zero bytes to a file has no effect. o The close function has been corrected to free the file descriptor associated with a socket, even if an error occurs during the operation. o The signal function has been corrected to continue ignoring the SIGINT signal value, even after one has been received. INSTALLATION NOTES: In order for the corrections in this kit to take effect, the system must be rebooted. If the system is a member of a VMScluster, the entire cluster should be rebooted. NOTE: During installation you may see the following message: %INSTALL-E-NODELSHRADR, unable to delete image with shareable address data -INSTALL-I-PLSREBOOT, please reboot to install a new version of this image This is not a cause for concern. It simply means that DECC$SHR.EXE was installed as a resident image, which is the standard configuration for OpenVMS VAX V5.5-2, V6.0, and V6.1 systems. The new image will not take effect until the system is rebooted.



This patch can be found at any of these sites:

Colorado Site
Georgia Site



Files on this server are as follows:

vaxacrt11_061.README
vaxacrt11_061.CHKSUM
vaxacrt11_061.CVRLET_TXT
vaxacrt11_061.a-dcx_vaxexe

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