Why /usr/include/machine/sys directory is lost on HP-UX11.00

[Annie_8]

Hi All,

Recently I found on hp-ux11.11, There is one directory /usr/include/machine/sys. There are some *.h file under this folder. But on HP-ux 11.00, I can't find this folder. Who can tell me why? Is there any patches I should install, because this cause some compiling errors on hp-ux 11.00.

Thanks in advance for your reply!

Br
Annie

[Olav Baadsvik]

Hi,

I do not know why this directory is found
on hp-ux 11.00
I will give you one advise though.
These include-files are not meant to be
used by regular users. If you make yourself
dependent on knowlegde about the contents
of such includefiles you will get more problems
in the future.
I say more as you already have your first
problem.
Good programming practice says that you should
only use include-files that the man-page
documents.

I do not know what info you get from these
files, but it may be that you can get the
same info in other, supported, ways

Regards
Olav

[Stefan Farrelly]

On all HP-UX versions, as far as im aware, there is always a /usr/include/sys directory full of header files (.h files). Now, if yours is missing on a server then you are in trouble because there is no one place to get them all.

Basically, when you install the OS it puts some header files into /usr/include/sys/ then when you load up all your other installed software each one has its own header files and they are all added to /usr/include/sys/
eg. MirrorUX, OnlineJFS, Glance, Compilers, OpenView, Oracle etc etc.

So if youre /usr/include/sys directory is missing youre only hope is to find it on a backup. To recreate it would mean reloading the OS, then loading one at a time all your installed applications - a massive job!
Another hope is if you hae another 11.0 server with the same installed applications - you could copy of /usr/include/sys/ from there.

[Olav Baadsvik]

Hi,

I am sure this is not a question of retrieving
things from backup.
The directory in question is /usr/include/machine/sys.
This directory exists on 11.11 and not on
11.00
All of the include-files in the directory
contains this note:

* NOTE:
* This header file contains information specific to the internals
* of the HP-UX implementation. The contents of this header file
* are subject to change without notice. Such changes may affect
* source code, object code, or binary compatibility between
* releases of HP-UX. Code which uses the symbols contained within
* this header file is inherently non-portable (even between HP-UX
* implementations).


What this means is simply - it is not very
smart to use these include-files.

Regards
Olav

[Stefan Farrelly]

Youre dead right Olav. My mistake - I misread the question. Please ignore my previous reply.