--- INTRODUCTION

Just a quick note on porting and sending me patches:

First off, you probably should subscribe to

net-snmp-coders@lists.sourceforge.net by sending a message to

net-snmp-coders-request@lists.sourceforge.net with a subject line of

subscribe.  This is a mailing list to discuss all oft the coding

aspects of the project.

Additionally, you should probably be developing against the latest

snapshot of the source code, which can be obtained through the

net-snmp cvs server.  Details can be found at

http://www.net-snmp.org/cvs/.

If you send patches to us, it would greatly help us if you sent them

to us based on the current checked out copy from CVS.  To do this,

send us the output of "cvs diff -u" run in the top level net-snmp

source tree after you have modified the files that will fix the

problem or add the feature you're submitting the patch for.

Quite a while back I started using the GNU autoconf testing suite to

greatly enhance portability.  Because of this porting to new

architectures is much easier than before.  However, new people porting

the package to new architectures rarely take advantage of this setup

and send me patches with lots of '#ifdef ARCH' type C code in it.  Let

me say up front, I *hate* this type of coding now (even though I used

to use it a lot).  What is better is to check for the necessary

functionality using the configure script and then use the results of

those tests.

To do this, you need to install the GNU 'autoconf' package which also

requires the GNU 'm4' (gm4) package as well.  This double installation

is extremely easy and shouldn't take you more than 15 minutes max.

After that, modify the configure.in and acconfig.h files as needed

instead of modifying the config.h or configure files directly.  The

Makefile will re-produce these files from the first two.

Worst case: Don't put in #ifdef architecture style statements.

Rather, create a new define in the s/ and m/ system specific header

files and use those defines to test against in the C code.  This

should only be done for things that can't be checked using configure

though.

Some autoconf examples:

--- HEADER FILES

In configure.in:

  AC_CHECK_HEADERS(headdir/header.h)

Then in your source code:

  #ifdef HAVE_HEADDIR_HEADER_H

    #include <headdir/header.h>

  #ENDIF

--- LIBRARY ROUTIENS

In configure.in:

  AC_CHECK_LIB(libexample, example_function)

Thats it.  The Makefiles will automatically link against -llibexample

if example_function is found in the library.

--- FUNCTION CHECKS

In configure.in:

  AC_CHECK_FUNCS(example_function)

In source code:

  #ifdef HAVE_EXAMPLE_FUNCTION

    /* use it */

  #endif

--- STRUCTURE MEMBER CHECKS

In configure.in:

  AC_CHECK_MEMBERS([struct STRUCTURE.MEMBER],,,[[

#include lines

]])

                           ^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^  (change)

In source code:

  #ifdef HAVE_STRUCT_STRUCTURE_MEMBER

    /* use it */

  #endif

--- READ THE MANUAL

The GNU autoconf info files are extremely well written and easy to

follow.  Please check them out.

I'd be happy to help you through anything you don't understand or

through more complex examples (eg, checking for structure parts or

existance).  I'd be far less happy to get patches ignoring the above

request.  If you simple can't abide by this, please send the patches

anyway, but it'll just take me longer to get them applied.

Submit the patch to http://www.net-snmp.org/patches/.

Please include what version of the net-snmp package it was applied to

and state the arcitectures you have tested it on.

Thanks a lot for the consideration,

Wes