Re: libc/2226: rpc/rpc_msg.h incorrect on Alpha

[Kenneth Schalk <schalk at cadtls dot hlo dot dec dot com>]

> We can nothing do without breaking all RPC applications on Alpha.
> This mistake was done at the very first Alpha port.
> Even fixing it in glibc with a new symbol version for backward
> compatibility breaks a lot of old programs.

Exactly what kind of code do you expect fixing this would break?

Anything which is sending these structures out on the wire unmodified is 
clearly broken as is.  Such a program would be unable to communicate with any 
RPC clients/servers with a correct implementation.

Programs which use these data structures in memory only and use XDR or the 
like to convert to/from packets should be unaffected by a fix.  The network 
data in those fields is only 32 bits, so reducing the in-memory representation 
of them from 64 to 32 bits shouldn't break anything.

If there is any code which is using the upper 32 bits of such fields to store 
extra out-of-band information in memory, they're clearly using an unwise 
64-bit specific hack and deserve to be broken.

I'm having a hard time imagining code that would be broken by such a fix and 
isn't doing something wrong already.

--Ken