(compile): Cast some pointers to (char *) to avoid

[kopensolaris-gnu/glibc.git] / PROJECTS

diff --git a/PROJECTS b/PROJECTS
index 4c755ff..3da9fa4 100644 (file)
--- a/PROJECTS
+++ b/PROJECTS
@@ -1,15 +1,17 @@
 Open jobs for finishing GNU libc:
 ---------------------------------
 Open jobs for finishing GNU libc:
 ---------------------------------

-Status: June 1996
+Status: December 1998

 
 If you have time and talent to take over any of the jobs below please
 
 If you have time and talent to take over any of the jobs below please

-contact <bug-glibc@prep.ai.mit.edu>
+contact <bug-glibc@gnu.org>.

 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 \f
 [ 1] Port to new platforms or test current version on formerly supported
      platforms.
 
 
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 \f
 [ 1] Port to new platforms or test current version on formerly supported
      platforms.
 

+**** See http://www.gnu.org/software/libc/porting.html for more details.
+

 
 [ 2] Test compliance with standards.  If you have access to recent
      standards (IEEE, ISO, ANSI, X/Open, ...) and/or test suites you
 
 [ 2] Test compliance with standards.  If you have access to recent
      standards (IEEE, ISO, ANSI, X/Open, ...) and/or test suites you


@@ -17,99 +19,182 @@ contact <bug-glibc@prep.ai.mit.edu>
      standards if they do not contradict each other.
 
 
      standards if they do not contradict each other.
 
 

-[ 3] Write translations for the GNU libc message for the so far
+[ 3] The IMHO opinion most important task is to write a more complete
+     test suite.  We cannot get too many people working on this.  It is
+     not difficult to write a test, find a definition of the function
+     which I normally can provide, if necessary, and start writing tests
+     to test for compliance.  Beside this, take a look at the sources
+     and write tests which in total test as many paths of execution as
+     possible.
+
+
+[ 4] Write translations for the GNU libc message for the so far

      unsupported languages.  GNU libc is fully internationalized and
      users can immediately benefit from this.
 
      Take a look at the matrix in
      unsupported languages.  GNU libc is fully internationalized and
      users can immediately benefit from this.
 
      Take a look at the matrix in

-       ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS
-     for the current status (of course better use a mirror of prep).
+       ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS
+     for the current status (of course better use a mirror of ftp.gnu.org).

 
 
 
 

-[ 4] Write wordexp() function; this is described in POSIX.2, The
-     header <wordexp.h> already exists.
+[ 6] Write `long double' versions of the math functions.  This should be
+     done in collaboration with the NetBSD and FreeBSD people.

 
 

-     Implementation idea: use some functions from bash.
+     The libm is in fact fdlibm (not the same as in Linux libc 5).

 
 

+**** Partly done.  But we need someone with numerical experiences for
+     the rest.

 
 

-[ 5] Write reentrent versions of crypt() et.al.

 
 

-     Implementation idea: Define in <crypt.h>
+[ 7] Several math functions have to be written:

 
 

-       struct crypt_data
-       {
-         <... all the needed data ...>
-       };
+     - exp2

 
 

-     and define additional functions
+     with long double arguments.

 
 

-       char *crypt_r (__const char *__key, __const char *__salt,
-                      struct crypt_data *__data);
+     Beside this most of the complex math functions which are new in
+     ISO C 9X should be improved.  Writing some of them in assembler is
+     useful to exploit the parallelism which often is available.

 
 

-       void setkey_r (__const char *__key, struct crypt_data *__data);

 
 

-       void encrypt_r (char *__block, int __edflag,
-                       struct crypt_data *__data);
+[ 8] If you enjoy assembler programming (as I do --drepper :-) you might
+     be interested in writing optimized versions for some functions.
+     Especially the string handling functions can be optimized a lot.

 
 

-     If possible the non-reentrent functions should use the reentrent
-     ones.
+     Take a look at

 
 

-     Because of the US export restrictions it might be a good idea if
-     some non-american person does this job.
+       Faster String Functions
+       Henry Spencer, University of Toronto
+       Usenix Winter '92, pp. 419--428

 
 

+     or just ask.  Currently mostly i?86 and Alpha optimized versions
+     exist.  Please ask before working on this to avoid duplicate
+     work.

 
 

-[ 6] Write `long double' versions of the math functions.  This should be
-     done in collaboration with the NetBSD and FreeBSD people.

 
 

-     The libm is in fact fdlibm (not the same as in Linux libc).
+[10] Extend regex and/or rx to work with wide characters and complete
+     implementation of character class and collation class handling.

 
 

-**** Partly done.
+     It is planned to do a complete rewrite.

 
 
 
 

-[ 7] If you enjoy assembler programming (as I do --drepper :-) you might
-     be interested in writing optimized versions for some functions.
-     Especially the string handling functions can be optimized a lot.
+[11] Write access function for netmasks, bootparams, and automount
+     databases for nss_files and nss_db module.
+     The functions should be embedded in the nss scheme.  This is not
+     hard and not all services must be supported at once.

 
 

-     Take a look at

 
 

-       Faster String Functions
-       Henry Spencer, University of Toronto
-       Usenix Winter '92, pp. 419--428
+[14] We need to write a library for on-the-fly transformation of streams
+     of text.  In fact, this would be a recode-library (you know, GNU recode).
+     This is needed in several places in the GNU libc and I already have
+     rather concrete plans but so far no possibility to start this.

 
 

-     or just ask.  Currently mostly i?86 optimized versions exist.
+***  The library is available, now it remains to be used in the streams.

 
 
 
 

-[ 8] Write nftw() function.  Perhaps it might be good to reimplement the
-     ftw() function as well to share most of the code.
+[15] Cleaning up the header files.  Ideally, each header style should
+     follow the "good examples".  Each variable and function should have
+     a short description of the function and its parameters.  The prototypes
+     should always contain variable names which can help to identify their
+     meaning; better than

 
 

-**** Almost done!
+               int foo __P ((int, int, int, int));

 
 

+     Blargh!

 
 

-[ 9] Write AVL-tree based tsearch() et.al. functions.  Currently only
-     a very simple algorithm is used.
-     There is a public domain version but using this would cause problems
-     with the assignment.

 
 

-[10] Extend regex and/or rx to work with wide characters.
+[16] The libio stream file functions should be extended in a way to use
+     mmap to map the file and use it as the buffer to user sees.  For
+     read-only streams this should be rather easy and it avoids all read()
+     calls.

 
 

+     A more sophisticated solution would use mmap also for writing.  The
+     standards do not demand that the file on the disk is always in the
+     correct form so it would be possible to enlarge it always according
+     to the page size and install the correct length only for fclose() and
+     fflush() calls.

 
 

-[11] Add mmap() support to malloc().
-     Doug Lea's malloc implementation might give some ideas.  Perhaps
-     switching completly to his implementation is an option if it
-     a) can work without mmap() support (not all system GNU libc
-       is running on have mmap)
-     b) is without mmap support at least as fast as the current
-       implementation
-     c) will be extended with the current hooks and additional functions

 
 

+[18] Based on the sprof program we need tools to analyze the output.  The
+     result should be a link map which specifies in which order the .o
+     files are placed in the shared object.  This should help to improve
+     code locality and result in a smaller foorprint (in code and data
+     memory) since less pages are only used in small parts.

 
 

-[12] Implement shadow password handling.  There exist some but I don't
-     know of any falling under LGPL and where the author is willing to
-     contribute it to the FSF.

 
 

+[19] A user-level STREAMS implementation should be available if the
+     kernel does not provide the support.

 
 

-[13] Write access function for ether, shadow, netmasks, bootparams,
-     netgroup, publickey, automount, aliases databases for nss_files
-     and nss_db module.
-     The functions should be embedded in the nss scheme.  This is not
-     hard and not all services must be supported at once.
+
+[20] More conversion modules for iconv(3).  Existing modules should be
+     extended to do things like transliteration if this is wanted.
+     For often used conversion a direct conversion function should be
+     available.
+
+
+[21] The nscd program and the stubs in the libc should be changed so
+     that each program uses only one socket connect.  Take a look at
+       http://www.cygnus.com/~drepper/nscd.html
+
+     An alternative approach is to use an mmap()ed file.  The idea is
+     the following:
+     - the nscd creates the hash tables and the information it stores
+       in it in a mmap()ed region.  This means no pointers must be
+       used, only offsets.
+     - each program using NSS functionality tries to open the file
+       with the data.
+     - by checking some timestamp (which the nscd renew frequently)
+       the programs can test whether the file is still valid
+     - if the file is valid look through the nscd and locate the
+       appropriate hash table for the database and lookup the data.
+       If it is included we are set.
+     - if the data is not yet in the database we contact the nscd using
+       the currently implemented methods.
+
+
+[22] It should be possible to have the information gconv-modules in
+     a simple database which is faster to access.  Using libdb is probably
+     overkill and loading it would probably be slower than reading the
+     plain text file.  But a file format with a simple hash table and
+     some data it points to should be fine.  Probably it should be
+     two tables, one for the aliases, one for the mappings.  The code
+     should start similar to this:
+
+       if (stat ("gconv-modules", &stp) == 0
+           && stat ("gconv-modules.db", &std) == 0
+           && stp.st_mtime < std.st_mtime)
+         {
+           ... use the database ...
+         {
+       else
+         {
+           ... use the plain file if it exists, otherwise the db ...
+         }
+
+
+[23] The `strptime' function needs to be completed.  This includes among
+     other things that it must get teached about timezones.  The solution
+     envisioned is to extract the timezones from the ADO timezone
+     specifications.  Special care must be given names which are used
+     multiple times.  Here the precedence should (probably) be according
+     to the geograhical distance.  E.g., the timezone EST should be
+     treated as the `Eastern Australia Time' instead of the US `Eastern
+     Standard Time' if the current TZ variable is set to, say,
+     Australia/Canberra or if the current locale is en_AU.
+
+
+[25] Sun's nscd version implements a feature where the nscd keeps N entries
+     for each database current.  I.e., if an entries lifespan is over and
+     it is one of the N entries to be kept the nscd updates the information
+     instead of removing the entry.
+
+     How to decide about which N entries to keep has to be examined.
+     Factors should be number of uses (of course), influenced by aging.
+     Just imagine a computer used by several people.  The IDs of the current
+     user should be preferred even if the last user spent more time.
+
+
+[26] Improve the AIO implementation so that threads do not immediately
+     terminate if no more requests are available.  Let them sleep for a
+     while and wake them up on demand.  If after a while no request arrived
+     they really can die.