/usr/local/devel/postgres-v4r2/src/tools/bmake/RCS/WARNING,v 1.1 1993/09/30 05:05:32 aoki Exp

WARNING!

The archive support code in this version of "make" assumes that the
you are using the old-style "portable ar(5)" archive format that is
found in (e.g.) 4.x BSD UNIX (or SunOS 4 and HP-UX).  This format does
not have built-in support for random-access and uses a special
__.SYMDEF entry to mark its table of contents (i.e., after ranlib(1)
has been run over it).

ULTRIX and Alpha OSF/1 use the MIPS ranlib format.  This format uses
the string __________E to mark its table of contents.  This is not
supported.  However, the same basic portable ar(5) file format is
used.

AIX uses the AIX Indexed Archive (AIA) format, which is nice in that
it allows for variable-length ar_hdr's.  (No more 16-character
filename limits!)  Unfortunately, this completely breaks all code that
walks the archive assuming that the portable ar(5) format is used.

The bottom line is that bmake should work ok on any system, except for
the archive-walking code.  This code will work fine on BSD-like
systems, work tolerably on systems that use the portable ar(5) format,
and completely break on systems like AIX that have their own ar(5)
formats.  Since we don't use the archive-walking feature, we have no
great interest in fixing this code to support random systems that we
do not own (e.g., RS/6000s) but will be happy to receive any fixes.
