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Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2001 22:26:59 +0200
From: Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton <lkcl@samba-tng.org>
To: dev@apr.apache.org
Subject: exploration of APR goes on
Message-ID: <20010709222659.D18140@angua.rince.de>
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hiya,

well, i'm exploring APR more and more for xvl development (we're up!
http://xmlvl.net).

i just wanted to let you know a few things:

1) as i find out more, i get more impressed.  each time i want
to add a bit more code or convert some over, i find in almost
95% of cases that the functionality in APR just points the way.

i converted over the file code to apr (2 hours).  the
directory-listing to apr (2 hours).  i got a bit
confused about which thing to use in an apr_finfo_t:
fname or name, that _is_ really odd, guys :)

apr_proc_create()? simple!  easy!  love it!

2) the similarities to the data structures needed by samba,
and those created for APR usage, are freaky :)  this bodes
well for cliffs (auto-generated SMB client and server - an
alternative to samba)

3) the 5% missing bits i've found so far are:

- getuid() i assume that this has been discussed?  i have
to get latest httpd-2 to find out how this has been tackled.
instead i have to do a getenv('USER') [yes, yuck].

- signal handling / blocking.  i am very concerned by the
recent report by todd sabin on razor.bindview.com about
80% of unix programs being vulnerable to signal attacks
(esp. SIG_PIPE).  so i am going to leave in the signal
blocking - even though it will make it impossible to compile
on Win32.  i can't find any equivalent functionality in
APR to stop certain kinds of signals or to trap SIG_TERM
and call a fault_cleanup().  am i missing something?

- getenv() i'm going to assume that every system has getenv()
because i can't find one in APR, but i see that the apache
1.3.x code uses getenv...

anyway, should get back to work now.

i love code that makes life easy.

luke