The Porting Assistant will make you more
productive as you port your application to Tru64 UNIX. The features in the Porting
Assistant that make you more productive vary depending on your software development
background and needs.
» New to Tru64 UNIX
Alpha...
» New to UNIX...
» Need to be more
efficient...
New to Tru64 UNIX Alpha...
Tru64
UNIX is one of the most compatible UNIX standards compliant systems on the market
today. Tru64 UNIX complies with BSD, System V, POSIX, and X/Open standards.
Consequently, many ports are straightforward.
The Porting Assistant is knowledgeable
about Tru64 UNIX, the Alpha architecture and other vendors' UNIX systems. It can help you
examine your application and identify parts of code that could be problematic. Think of
the Porting Assistant as your personal knowledge expert on porting code to 64-bit Tru64
UNIX.
The Porting Assistant locates problems in
your code, explains the problems using clear diagnostic messages, and can even suggest
necessary changes via links to the online Help. For example, the Porting Assistant can
diagnose that the -temp option in the Sun C compiler is not available on Tru64 UNIX
and that you can achieve the same effect by using the environment variable TMPDIR.
It will let you know that LIB$PUT_OUTPUT is not available in the Tru64 UNIX
run-time libraries. However, if you need a replacement for the OpenVMS function of that
name, it will suggest the alternative printf family of functions.
The information provided is not all at
the detail level. If endianism (byte ordering) is a concept you'd like to know
about, the Porting Assistant can explain it. If you want to know how Solaris threads and
DECthreads compare, that's in the HyperHelp system as well.
» Top
of page New to UNIX...
If you've been asked to port some
software to Tru64 UNIX, you probably already know:
- How to program in the language used to
implement your application
- How to work with Motif or Windows style
interfaces
What you most likely need some help with
is:
- UNIX runtime routines and system
- UNIX utilities for program development
- UNIX command line syntax
The Porting Assistant has a Motif
interface to many of the UNIX utilities. You point and click and the tools deal with UNIX.
For example, lint is the base tool that scans your code for any 32-bit dependencies
or functions that don't match the prototypes on the system. The interface to the tool is
not obvious:
lint [-abchlnpuxv] [-cpp] [-dpath]
[-Dname[=definition]] [-Idirectory][-lkey] [-olibrary] [-MA] [-Msuboptions] [-stdn]
[-Pppoptions][-Qsuboptions] [-Ndnumber] [-Nlnumber] [-Nnnumber] [-Ntnumber][-Uname]
[-wclass...] [-Xdollar] [-XEnum] file...
... followed by twenty screens of
description.
The Porting Assistant interface is
considerably simpler  .
Two interesting examples that take your
knowledge of your existing system and map it to DIGITAL UNIX equivalents
are
Need to be more efficient...
You may already understand UNIX and the
unique features of the Alpha architecture. There is still the need to do the port.
The Porting Assistant provides a proven methodology for doing your port. It steps you through the
process, finds many of the problems, and can automate much of the tedious work -- much
like a tax program helps you with your taxes.
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