Conference smurf::buildhelp

2306.0. "Retiring use of COMET for Digital UNIX pools on 6/14" by AOSG::FILTER (Automatic Posting Software - mail to flume::puck) Tue May 28 1996 19:25

Date Of Receipt: 	28-MAY-1996 14:44:15.58
From: 	FLUME::jmf "Joshua M. Friedman OSF/UNIX SDE  28-May-1996 1437"
To: 	osf_developers@DEC:.zko.flume, useg@mudrat.zk3.dec.com
	Digital UNIX developers and support engineers who use COMET
CC: 	odehelp@DEC:.zko.flume, jproj@DEC:.zko.flume
Subj: 	Retiring use of COMET for Digital UNIX pools on 6/14

We are planning to remove the Digital UNIX pools' comet databases as
well as the local comet tools in two weeks, on Friday June 14, in favor
of the bcscope tool and cscope databases, which are supported for all
development & support streams.

If you have any issues with this, please reply to "reng@zk3.dec.com". 


Overview:
---------
In the Digital UNIX (and older DEC OSF/1) pools, we have been providing
two similar database search mechanisms for use in locating symbols
within source code: "comet" and "bcscope".

We now would like to completely discontinue support for comet in this
environment in favor of bcscope.  Please note that this has no bearing
on what other sites, in particular the CSC Atlanta site, continue to
provide for comet support.

If you are unfamiliar with bcscope, but use comet, please see if your
needs can be met using bcscope.  From the man page: "cscope is an
interactive screen-oriented tool that allows the user to browse through
C source files for specified elements of code."


Background:
-----------
We have been increasingly adding support for bcscope and decreasing
support for comet (which we never really "fully" supported here anyway).

Over the past year or so, "cscope", with our front-end "bcscope", was
introduced in our environment, and has become part of our nightly build
process for all development and support pools.  cscope is part of the
System V environment layered product.  bcscope is a front end which
allows simple use of cscope within (and outside of) a Digital UNIX ODE
sandbox.  The databases for each build backingtree are stored within
the backingtree itself, for every .nightly, .pre.bl, and .bl tree.

"odeman" pages are available for bcscope & cscope.  See "odeman" or our
web area for links to these man pages: 
	    http://nsa.zk3.dec.com/rengweb

Comet is an inverted indexing system created and maintained by a group
at the Atlanta CSC.  Many of the databases they maintain are now
available on the web (and referenced from the zk3 home page) at:
	    http://www-comet.alf.dec.com:8033/

The UNIX source pool comet databases in zk3 are built and maintained
independent of the builds, and, as such, required special build (MIPS
only) and storage resources, and special setup for each new stream. 
No new streams have been added for quite awhile (and no one's asked
for them).  Not all the pools are available via comet, and comet user
and build tools, when we last checked, still were not fully supported
on alpha (this may have changed).

We realize there may be a few things that comet can provide which
cscope does not, but the reverse is also true.  We feel that for
C-development, the cscope tools provide powerful search capabilities
which should be sufficient.  We really do not have the resources at
this point to fully support both tools, for all the ongoing streams.

Thank you very much.      

		--Josh Friedman, Digital UNIX Release Engineering