NOTES ON PORTING IBIS_CHK TO UNIX PLATFORMS

	jon powell jonp@qdt.com

[ED. Note:  The source is only provided to licensees who pay a fee.  The
            executables are freeware to any interested party]

Note: IBIS_CHK.EXE is the DOS executable version.

When porting programs to a multitude of unix platforms it
is often desirable to be able to track the program version
number, target platform, and target OS of a given program.
This can be difficult to do if you don't happen to have the
particular platform on which the code was compiled (or if
you are running a non-compatible OS release). The fact that
all programs on a unix platform have the same name (eg.
ibis_chk) can also lead to confusion. To remedy this problem
a non-executing character array has been placed in each unix
executable that contains information about that code. The array
can be read using the unix "strings" command and has the following
format:

char    IBIS_VERSION_STUFF[9][40] =
        {
            "IBIS_VERSION_3:",
             PRODUCT,
             VERSION,
             IBIS_COMPILE_DATE,
	    "$Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $", /* RCS DATE auto-changed by rcs check-out*/
             PLATFORM,
	     IBIS_OS_NAME,
	     IBIS_OS_RELEASE,
             IBIS_OS_VERSION
        };


The program "ibis_test" has also been provided for each platform.
"ibis_test" on any unix platform can discern machine information for
the executables for all other unix platforms. for instance, running
the ibis_test on the sun4 on all other executables gives:

f14% sun4/ibis_test */ibis_chk
program = alpha/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 16:27:52
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     alpha
  OS:           OSF1
  OS Release:   1.2
  OS Version:   10

program = apm/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:16:40
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     apm
  OS:           DomainOS
  OS Release:   10.3.5
  OS Version:   bsd4.3

program = aviion/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 25 1993 00:18:41
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     aviion
  OS:           dgux
  OS Release:   5.4
  OS Version:   generic

program = dec3100/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:11:56
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     dec3100
  OS:           ULTRIX
  OS Release:   4.3
  OS Version:   0

program = hp700/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:22:08
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     hp700
  OS:           HP-UX
  OS Release:   A.08.07
  OS Version:   E

program = hp9000/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:17:56
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     hp9000
  OS:           HP-UX
  OS Release:   7.0
  OS Version:   B

program = mips/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 25 1993 17:07:38
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     mips
  OS:           mips
  OS Release:   4_52
  OS Version:   UMIPS

program = rs6000/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24  17:16:18
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     rs6000
  OS:           AIX
  OS Release:   2
  OS Version:   3

program = sgi/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:26:25
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     sgi
  OS:           IRIX
  OS Release:   4.0.1
  OS Version:   11150233

program = solaris/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 25 1993 00:13:03
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     solaris
  OS:           SunOS
  OS Release:   5.1
  OS Version:   Generic

program = sun4/ibis_chk
  PROGRAM:      IBIS_CHK V1.1
  COMPILE date: Aug 24 1993 17:20:22
  RCS date:     $Date: 93/08/24 16:00:57 $
  Platform:     sun4
  OS:           SunOS
  OS Release:   4.1.1
  OS Version:   2



All of there programs have been run on the test ibis files supplied with
version 1.1 of ibis_chk.

The only changes made to port were to add the above mentioned array and to
undefine ANSI (the ANSI declarations giving errors on many unix machines).
All chages were ifdef using the "DISABLE_JON_POWELL" flag.

Please direct problems and requests concerning porting issues to jonp@qdt.com

Please submit all core dump problems with the offending input and the output of
the ibis_test program on the offending ibis_chk (so I can determine rev and OS).