supporting deterministic 'ar'

Nick Clifton nickc@redhat.com
Wed Feb 11 15:12:00 GMT 2009


Hi Chris,

> new flag 'D' to ar, which invokes deterministic mode.  In this mode,
> timestamp of all incorporated archives is set to 0, as are uid/gid.

A great idea!

> * Am I totally crazy to want to do this?

Nope.

> * is there a better way to get LONG_MAX in archive.c?

#include <limits.h>

> * is this appropriate for a BFD flag, or a bit in the bitfield?  (it
> seem closer to being a flag...)

Well the bit-field/flag thing you already have seems fine to me.

> * any preference about flag name?

Well I did think that "deterministic" was slightly off, because it 
implies that non-deterministic archives are random somehow, but I could 
not come up with a better suggestion.  So lets keep it as deterministic.

Cheers
   Nick



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