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SGI Challenge XL upgrade from IRIX 6.2 to 6.5.2

Conversion Notes

Originally Published: Mon December 21, 1998

        Last Revision: Thu January  7, 1999

From December 19th to 21th, 1998, the SGI operating system called IRIX was upgraded from release level 6.2 to release level 6.5.2. This document lists important information, enhancements and changes affecting users regarding this upgrade. For more detailed information about the software changes, you can access the release notes by issuing the "relnotes" command from an ASCII environment, or "grelnotes" from an X device. Documentation is also available on the WEB for both IRIX 6.5.2 and other SGI products at http://techpubs.sgi.com/library/.

You may also wish to refer to the "Electronic Books (Insight)" menu, which is a sub menu of the "Help and Documentation" item in the Toolchest. (The Toolchest is the menu normally displayed in the top left corner of the screen). This utility requires an X-terminal with at least 4MB of memory or a colour PC running X windows (e.g. Micro-X).

As changes are made to this document the modified or additional lines will be in bold italics. For example:

This is a new or modified line.

As always if you have any questions, problems or concerns about this upgrade, please contact our HelpDesk by email at HelpDesk@UWindsor.Ca or by phone at 253-3000 extension 4440.

1. UPGRADED SOFTWARE LEVELS

• C from 6.2 to 7.2.1.2m
• C++_eoe from 6.2(beta) to 7.2.1
• Documentor's Work Bench (nroff) remains 4.1.3

• Emacs from 19.30.2 to 19.34.1
• Fortran from to 7.2.1.2m
• Insight from 2.3.3 to 3.2
• Java from 3.0 (SUN JRE 1.1.3) to 3.1.1 (SUN JRE 1.1.6)
• Motif from 1.2.4-6.2 to 1.2.4-6.5
• NEdit to V4.0.3i
• NFS from 6.2 to 6.5
• X11 from 3.5 to 3.8

2. Command Changes

• more(1)

  This command has been made XPG4 compatible; as a result, the output generated by this command has changed.
  -e option causes more(1) to exit immediately at the end of input. By default more now waits at the end of the last screen. As a result the -w option is no longer valid. If you wish the old style functionality (exit when done) use more -e
  -l option has been dropped for XPG4 compatibility,
  If you are using more on a group of files, the names of the files are no longer shown in a banner when the files are displayed. However, at the end of each file the name of the next file continues to be highlighted and listed.
  For more details please run man more .

• test in shell scripts

  The test command in shell scripts is now strict. This is good, however, if you were not careful in your shell scripts, it may now generate an error. For example

  • The -eq test between an integer and string variable will generate an error like "filename[3]: S: bad number".
  • The test "test "`wc -l filename`" -gt 5" will also generate a bad number error since test will not ignore the filename generated by the wc -l command

• imsl

In order to compile IMSL jobs you must specify " -O32" (without quotes) on the command line.

3. CC(1) [C++ compiler]

• Upgraded from version 6.2 to 7.2.1
• Now performs stricter format checking on output. If you ignore warning messages like argument is incompatible with corresponding format string conversion, your output may change. Access to the older (less strict) behaviour is available by specifying the options -32 -use_cfront. For example: CC -32 -use_cfront Note that the use of this option is being deprecated and the cfront compiler will no longer be supported in future releases.
• Names in the standard library are now in namespace std. Standard header files can now be included without the trailing .h (although the old convention also works). For Example:

  Old Way (still works)	New Way (ANSI)
  #include <vector.h>	#include <vector> using std::vector;
  vector<int> my_vector;	vector<int> my_vector;

• now supports variable length arrays.

4. elm

• If you are unable to view mail with mime attachments getting a message like Command failed: cat /tmp/mm.a00vXF | more for example. You may have the "MORE" environment variable set. It does not matter what it is set to. Even if it is null it will cause the problem. To correct the problem, should you get this error, remove the "setenv MORE..." line from your login profiles. This will correct the problem in any new shell you open or you can just log off an log on and the fix will work. For csh shell users (the default) look in your ~/.cshrc and ~/.login for the setenv MORE line

5. Java

• Upgraded from v3.0 (Sun's 1.1.3) to v3.1.1 (Sun's v1.1.6)
• The -prof option to java does not work properly in the presence of MIPS code execution. If you use the -prof option, specify the -nojit option also.
• more details about this new Java using a WEB browser (e.g. netscape) at file:/usr/java/webdocs/release.html.
• We are currently working on a java compile warning of "Can't find class sun.tools.javac.Main" If you need access to the old java because of this warning enter the command "<command>.old". For example to run the old javac enter "javac.old" (without the quotes) and send email to Helpdesk@UWindsor.Ca include the word java in the subject line.
• As of Jan 12, 1999 the "Can't find class sun.tools.javac.Main" problem has been resolved.

6. Perl

• Perl 5 is not a strict superset of Perl 4. Porting scripts from Perl4 to Perl5 is normally very straight-forward. Instructions are in the "perltrap" man pages.

7. ViewKit_dev

• If you have built an application with Beta versions of the ViewKit prior to this release, you should beware of changes (reordering, additional functions, etc) made to various classes. Be sure to recompile all sources based on earlier Beta versions of the ViewKit and to be sure the ViewKit shared library matches the headers and libraries you have built against.
• The online index for the manual contains significant formatting errors that will inhibit your use of it. As an alternative, you can use the index in the back of the printed manual. Send email tp HelpDesk(HelpDesk@uwindsor.ca) to request a copy.
• There are a few references in the online man pages and therefore should be considered for SGI internal use only. It is not supported for external use.