Sun-3 vs. Sun-4 run-time library differences?

[Russ Poffenberger]

In article <3328 at brazos.Rice.edu> malczews at aludra.usc.edu writes:
>X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 8, Issue 208, message 15 of 19
>
>I was wondering whether there might be differences between the run-time
>librares distributed with the Sun-3 and Sun-4 workstations (e.g.,
>different parameter requirements, different numbers of parameters, etc).
>
>Similarly, might there be any other differences of which one need be aware?
>
>(I'm pretty new to the unix realm, so any help/pointers would be appreciated.)

Besides the obvious distinction that the two libraries are different
binary code, the two differences I am aware of are alloca() and varargs.

If you use alloca(), then on a Sun-4, you MUST #include <alloca.h>. This
is because alloca() does not exist in the library on a Sun-4, it is kind
of a wierd built-in thing. Of course, for good protability, you should
include alloca.h regardless of architecture (there is a #ifdef sparc in
the module so it is a do-nothing on Sun-3).

The other thing to watch out for is the use of varargs. YOU MUST use
varargs.h and do everything as exactly described in varargs.h. Again this
is a built-in type of thing on a Sun-4 and it is critical that you do
thing correctly or it WILL crash.

Russ Poffenberger               DOMAIN: poffen at sj.ate.slb.com
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