| Title: | DECnet/OSI for {ULTRIX,OSF/1} | 
| Notice: | Indicate version and platform when writing...see #2 for kits | 
| Moderator: | BULEAN::CARR | 
| Created: | Wed Sep 25 1991 | 
| Last Modified: | Thu Jun 05 1997 | 
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 | 
| Number of topics: | 2187 | 
| Total number of notes: | 10469 | 
    At what version of DECnet UNIX did ncl_help.txt change format from
    a straight text file to an ar archive?
    
    I have a product that adds a help topic to NCL and I need to update
    the installation script to handle the new way. But to handle both
    the old and new way IU need to know when the change occurred.
    
    Also is use of the the script file /usr/share/dna/dict//dict/make_help.sh
    
    documented anywhere?
    
    Dave 
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines | 
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2175.1 | DRAGNS::WALLACE | Thu May 15 1997 13:06 | 17 | ||
|     The ncl help file became an ararchive in 3.2.  We did it in order
    to avoid having to ship both the raw files and the complete help
    file.  Adding new help files could then be done by just using
    an ar command.  As shipped the help topics are in alphabetical 
    order. Unfortunately, when you add a new file with ar, it just gets
    tacked on at the end, and thus is not in alphabetical order.
    
    Dave & I discussed this off-line, and it can probably be fixed
    by having make_help extract everything from the current file, 
    arrange things in the proper order, and then rebuild the archive.
    
    Also, just for peoples info, we also enhanced ncl so that it
    could handle a compressed help file, ie, if it finds a .Z file
    instead of the normal archive, it will decompress it on the fly.
    
    Vince
    
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