| Filename | Latest commit message | Latest commit date |
|---|---|---|
fdbd9bcf95
Checking the rest of ZSH_CACHE after the killesrch fix, on the principle that
one wrong answer in a hand-written block is rarely the only one. Two more, both
`yes`, both measurable on the running system in a line each.
**zsh_cv_sys_path_dev_fd=/dev/fd.** Neither /dev/fd nor /proc/self/fd exists --
/proc/self does not exist at all. So `<(cmd)` failed at the point of use with
cat: /dev/fd/11: No such file or directory
which reads as a broken command rather than as a feature the system does not
have.
**zsh_cv_sys_fifo=yes.** mkfifo() does not fail here. It *succeeds*, and
produces a character device: mknod() turns S_IFIFO into a T_DEV and keeps the
major/minor, so `ls -l` shows `crw-rw-rw- 438, 0` where a `p` belongs, and
nothing written to it comes back out. Succeeding wrongly is what made `yes`
look defensible.
Both `no` now. `<(cmd)` says "doesn't look like your system supports FIFOs",
which names the missing thing instead of blaming cat, and `$( )` is unaffected.
The two gaps are recorded in docs/architecture/filesystem.md rather than left
implied by a build flag -- named pipes and a path to one's own descriptors are
both real features, and neither exists.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
|
||
| .. | ||
| kernel.md | ||
| moving-to-linux.md | ||
| README.md | ||
| schfs.md | ||
History
Why SchOS is the way it is. Bugs whose cause was nowhere near their symptom, and the few write-ups that have nowhere better to live.
| kernel.md | The expensive ones. Boot, SMP, signals, ABI assumptions, /proc, input. |
| schfs.md | How the filesystem was built, and what each phase cost. |
| moving-to-linux.md | The Windows-to-Fedora move. |
What belongs in here
A bug whose cause is not visible from the code that fixed it.
That is the whole test. If reading the fix explains the problem, the fix is the documentation and nothing needs writing down. If the fix looks arbitrary — a constant moved by eight, a field reordered, a check inverted — then the strangeness is load-bearing and the next person to touch it deserves to know why before they change it back.
Every entry here is a thing that looked like a different problem than it was.
What does not belong
- A changelog.
git logis the changelog. - A bug that was found and fixed in an hour. Cost is the filter.
- How something works. That is ../architecture/, written in the present tense for somebody who does not care what it used to be.
- Anything still open. An unfinished investigation goes in ../plan/ or in the code as a comment. This directory is past tense.
How to write one
Symptom first, then diagnosis, then the fix, then the transferable part.
The transferable part is the reason the entry exists. __thread being wrong for
per-CPU data is worth more than the specific null dereference it caused;
"a layout constant that several artifacts must agree on wants a check that stops
the build, not a comment asking people to remember" is worth more than the
bootloader offset that taught it.
Say how it was found, when the technique was the hard part. A hardware
watchpoint through QEMU's gdb stub named an instruction on the first run after
three rounds of cprintf had narrowed it to nothing — that is reusable, and the
bug is not.
Do not clean up the embarrassing part. The near-miss where a change passed
every assertion green without having been applied at all is one of the most
useful entries in this directory, and it only works because it admits that a
grep returning three hits was read as confirmation without counting what they
were.