[Comerrers] com_err init functions...

[Theodore Ts'o]

[ I'm changing the subject line so it's easier to follow this thread.]

On Tue, Apr 30, 2002 at 11:07:49PM -0400, Derrick J Brashear wrote:
> Finally, and this is out of scope but it's worth asking about, AFS has
> add_to_error_table, and kth-krb/Heimdal has com_right/initialize_error_table_r; 
> Do any of the other implementations have functionality not replicated in
> the others? 

Yeah, the MIT Krb5 library has its own set of routines.  Looking at
version 1.2.5, we have add_error_table and remove_error_table, which
take as an argument a const struct error_table (which is exported as
an extern in *.et.c, instead of being declared statically).  These
were added for the benefit of Win32 platforms, since DLL's can get
loaded and unloaded.

There used to be win16 code which called the interfaces et_init,
et_shutdown, and et_add_error_table, but those interfaces are pretty
much completely dead at this point.  They were only there due to some
spectacular brain damage in Windows 3.1.

I'll note that how error tables get initialized is the one place where
everyone has added one thing or another, so this might be one place
where it's worth it to make some backwards incompatible changes, and
get things done right.

But before we can do that, we need to know why various folks have felt
the need to why people added these interfaces.  What was the rational
behind AFS's "add_to_error_table" and Himdal's "com_right" interfaces?

							- Ted