Question: Issues that aren’t really major issues but are still issues

[lcn2]

Because some issues are not a real major issue, which is an issue.

• [x] <<=== click this box
• [x] <<=== or click this
• [x] <<=== not an issue

[lcn2]

We worked in a family member health issue for the last 48 hours.

We hope to address questions posed in issue #13 tomorrow, assuming you need us to answer them by tomorrow (else update them accordingly).

[xexyl]

Because some issues are not a real major issue, which is an issue.

• [ ] <<=== click this box
• [ ] <<=== or click this
• [ ] <<=== not an issue

Thanks for the laugh!

[xexyl]

We worked in a family member health issue for the last 48 hours.

We hope to address questions posed in issue #13 tomorrow, assuming you need us to answer them by tomorrow (else update them accordingly).

Best wishes!

I have a kind of busy day today but I am hoping to look at the issue more soon.

I have one thought that might help but even so some of the comments if nothing else need replies (for discussion).

Thanks and no worries on my behalf! Health comes first always.

[xexyl]

I have a great idea for the Makefiles: a new control variable for the test suites.

I did it already in jparse but haven't committed yet: I have to take care of other things first.

Anyway I will also do it here and the dbg and dyn_array repos: it's VERBOSITY and default is 0 but it allows one to do something like:

make VERBOSITY=1 test

so one can more easily run the tests (and bug report for that matter if I added such an option which might not be the case as we always want it very verbose) with the Makefile and so not having to figure out the right command line to do so.

I have changes in jparse that can't be committed yet but when back at the laptop I will commit the things that can and then sync over.

Usually one will not want to change the value of the variable but during testing it might be good. What's more is that many times verbosity would have been useful for the test workflow so we can now do that too.

I have to go through photos from the past couple days, today, and I am planning on making courgette (or if you prefer zucchini) bread but otherwise until sometime early afternoon I hope to work on the repos.

[xexyl]

FYI: it is quite likely that tomorrow I won't be able to spend as much time working on these things. I've not been able to get some other things done that need to be taken care of. They could wait but I don't want to get too behind.

It might be I still get some done but I'm not sure how much. We shall see. Anyway I'm done for the day here and at the other repos too.

Hope the medical situations are going okay or will be soon!

[xexyl]

My mum is in hospital right now .. just emergency at this point. Hypertension and vertigo. She was coherent. They've taken a blood draw (no results yet) and they have her on IV for hydration.

But this has taken extra time away. I did make a few fixes in jstrdecode (minor) and I was going to sync to mkiocccentry repo along with other repos that might not be synced but the above happened and so I'm unable to do that now. I have to go take care of other things. If I don't get to this today I'll do it tomorrow. Left some comments in the thread about decoding bugs but that's possibly all I will do today. Sorry for the delays!

[lcn2]

My mum is in hospital right now .. just emergency at this point. Hypertension and vertigo. She was coherent. They've taken a blood draw (no results yet) and they have her on IV for hydration.

But this has taken extra time away. I did make a few fixes in jstrdecode (minor) and I was going to sync to mkiocccentry repo along with other repos that might not be synced but the above happened and so I'm unable to do that now. I have to go take care of other things. If I don't get to this today I'll do it tomorrow. Left some comments in the thread about decoding bugs but that's possibly all I will do today. Sorry for the delays!

Sad "turn of events", as the expression goes.

Please take care of yourself and help her as needed.

Please present my "best compliments", as the 18th century expression went, to your mom.

[xexyl]

My mum is in hospital right now .. just emergency at this point. Hypertension and vertigo. She was coherent. They've taken a blood draw (no results yet) and they have her on IV for hydration.

But this has taken extra time away. I did make a few fixes in jstrdecode (minor) and I was going to sync to mkiocccentry repo along with other repos that might not be synced but the above happened and so I'm unable to do that now. I have to go take care of other things. If I don't get to this today I'll do it tomorrow. Left some comments in the thread about decoding bugs but that's possibly all I will do today. Sorry for the delays!

Sad "turn of events", as the expression goes.

Please take care of yourself and help her as needed.

Please present my "best compliments", as the 18th century expression went, to your mom.

She says thank you!

She's doing a lot better.

Sometimes she has a problem with dehydration. This has happened before but it didn't dawn on me until she was already there.

And that's what they determined too.

[xexyl]

QUESTION - is this correct behaviour of jstrencode ?

Is this correct?

$ jstrencode -Qe '\"foo"'
\\\"foo

[lcn2]

QUESTION - is this correct behaviour of jstrencode ?

Is this correct?

$ jstrencode -Qe '\"foo"'
\\\"foo

No, it is not correct. The trailing double quote should NOT have been removed!

[xexyl]

QUESTION - is this correct behaviour of jstrencode ?

Is this correct?

$ jstrencode -Qe '\"foo"'

\\\"foo

No, it is not correct. The trailing double quote should NOT have been removed!

So I thought.

I can look at it tomorrow unless you want to take care of it.

[lcn2]

QUESTION - is this correct behaviour of jstrencode ?

Is this correct?

$ jstrencode -Qe '"foo"'

\"foo

No, it is not correct. The trailing double quote should NOT have been removed!

So I thought.

I can look at it tomorrow unless you want to take care of it.

This issue has been fixed in PR #18

The form that PR has been applied to the mkiocccentry repo via commit 4d60badafca319f126e31b72165c473348b51055

[xexyl]

QUESTION - is this correct behaviour of jstrencode ?

Is this correct?

$ jstrencode -Qe '"foo"'

\"foo

No, it is not correct. The trailing double quote should NOT have been removed!

So I thought.

I can look at it tomorrow unless you want to take care of it.

This issue has been fixed in PR #18

The form that PR has been applied to the mkiocccentry repo via commit 4d60badafca319f126e31b72165c473348b51055

Thank you! Well done!

[xexyl]

[xexyl]

I knew you would be amused as I know you can also read upside down and sideways and diagonally and mirrored and all the combinations.

I was looking for a picture of a hoarding (or if you prefer billboard) that could be easily doctored for another meme I wanted to make (based on a joke that popped into my head last night or so) and then I saw this.

It does remind me of a computer shop that used to be here. The owner deliberately put the sign upside down to draw attention (it worked of course but then most people probably couldn't read it easily or at all). But it made me laugh.

I don't know if this one is deliberate or not but something tells me that it was a mistake.

[xexyl]

As for the decoding bug I really don't know what to do about it. I have been pondering trying to use the decoder you linked to before. It would have to be modified a bit and I agree with your idea about putting it into its own file. It is a real shame but if it works maybe it would be good to do at least for now.

But it might be good to do some research and study and experimenting with the problem to try and get it to work.

Perhaps the next step we should take is to make a test directory with minimal code with the UTF-8 to decode hard coded so we can more easily test it.

I think I will do that and hopefully tomorrow. But if you want to experiment with it please do so.

But with that being said I need sleep. Good night!

[xexyl]

Oh one more thing. I believe that you were friends with Paul Erdős which is why I am sharing this with you. I know one of the judges was and pretty sure it was you. Anyway:

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/jul/21/nothing-indicate-nothing-indicate-subject-had-any-/

And good night now.

[lcn2]

Oh one more thing. I believe that you were friends with Paul Erdős which is why I am sharing this with you. I know one of the judges was and pretty sure it was you. Anyway:

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/jul/21/nothing-indicate-nothing-indicate-subject-had-any-/

And good night now.

Erdös said that both "Joe" (his way referring to the Soviet Union Government - Joe as in "Joseph Stalin") and "Sam" (his was or referring to the US Government - Sam as in "Uncle Sam") were both interested in him. He was happy to talk about math and did so in the west .. but avoided the Soviet Union.

[xexyl]

Oh one more thing. I believe that you were friends with Paul Erdős which is why I am sharing this with you. I know one of the judges was and pretty sure it was you. Anyway:

https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2015/jul/21/nothing-indicate-nothing-indicate-subject-had-any-/

And good night now.

Erdös said that both "Joe" (his way referring to the Soviet Union Government - Joe as in "Joseph Stalin") and "Sam" (his was or referring to the US Government - Sam as in "Uncle Sam") were both interested in him. He was happy to talk about math and did so in the west .. but avoided the Soviet Union.

Okay so was it an umlaut or what I copy pasted?

As for Iosef (as I think his birth name spelling was) Stalin I won't even get started on.

The other one I won't get into either but for different reasons.

I am not in the least bit surprised he avoided the Soviet Union in discussion but it's interesting, all parts.

Thanks for the story!

I hope to start looking at the decoding issue soon but I have other things I have to do today too.

In the meantime I do have to go for now.

[lcn2]

Okay so was it an umlaut or what I copy pasted?

Erdös is an Hungarian name, and he spelled it with a ö.

We knew Erdös well, and we did some mathematics together. There is even a Erdös-Noll conjecture.

[xexyl]

Okay so was it an umlaut or what I copy pasted?

Erdös is an Hungarian name, and he spelled it with a ö.

I knew the former (though not well) but I have seen both with an umlaut and the other diacritic (which I am not sure what it even is). So it's the umlaut. Thanks.

We knew Erdös well, and we did some mathematics together. There is even a Erdös-Noll conjecture.

The last part sounds lovely! I guess you wrote about it together?

[xexyl]

Here's a great one for you .. I was about to go back to sleep. I was in the middle of a word when this happened. Fortunately I was fast enough to grab this screenshot. This is the best one I have seen yet and that's saying a lot.

[xexyl]

On bats:

--

The first known use of bats was on the Cal State University networks $TALK chat program. The author of the above poem is unknown. (And of course, the original poem did not contain web links.)

--

I read that quite a while back (maybe years ago but not sure). Anyway do you refer to talkd ? I guess that's what you mean. I used to really enjoy that one. A relic of the past as they say.

[lcn2]

On bats:

--

The first known use of bats was on the Cal State University networks $TALK chat program. The author of the above poem is unknown. (And of course, the original poem did not contain web links.)

--

I read that quite a while back (maybe years ago but not sure). Anyway do you refer to talkd ? I guess that's what you mean. I used to really enjoy that one. A relic of the past as they say.

Yes.

[xexyl]

On bats:

The first known use of bats was on the Cal State University networks $TALK chat program. The author of the above poem is unknown. (And of course, the original poem did not contain web links.)

I read that quite a while back (maybe years ago but not sure). Anyway do you refer to talkd ? I guess that's what you mean. I used to really enjoy that one. A relic of the past as they say.

Yes.

Thanks. Why do you do it like $TALK though? I have this vague memory but I'm not sure ..

BTW I found some typos, one of which you might want to fix and the other maybe too :-)

First: Is it a bat! Here are some examples: but i think you mean It is a bat! :-)

The second one is in the poem the word 'i' is not capitalised.

[xexyl]

BTW:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR BILBO BAGGINS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

and ..

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DEAR FRODO BAGGINS, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU!

and ...

HAPPY HOBBIT DAY TO YOU!

---

I'm not sure what I'll do today but I think I might take a break and just read something .. not sure if that's LR or The Hobbit itself but I might very well do that .. along with other things of course.

[xexyl]

[xexyl]

The reference to an apple being in every Apple computer is part of a hilarious episode of The IT Crowd. Well they all are but this is the first one I saw and so I went back and watched the earlier ones and all the ones after it too. They didn't say it was a hoax/scam but I added that because of Jobs' behaviour and treatment of others.

[xexyl]

FYI: with commit f29677fe074e7d506cc62709db56cf38bea32cb0 I added a fun file jparse.json which holds some information about this repo including the primary tools. Why?

I would say 'Because!' but the real reason is some other projects have something like this AND because this is a JSON parser so it seems fun. In the process I discovered some typos in comments in the README.md file and some of the tools.

I've not synced this to the other repo and I won't today ... going to try and work on some other things that I have not (well I did somewhat but I did not go as much as I could have). Maybe. I will also be getting food sometime soon too so I probably won't get much more done with that.

Something else came up which has unfortunately messed up part of this day but that's another matter entirely.

[xexyl]

Here's a hilarious read for you: How a 'NULL' License Plate Landed One Hacker in Ticket Hell.

[lcn2]

QUESTION

What is jparse.json.

We did, in the mkiocccentry repo, a make all.recreate_clone && make all.update_from_clone && make release and noticed this new file.

There are a number of other differences so we decided that now mighty not be the best time to sync mkiocccentry repo with this repo.

We will let you decide if/when to sync.

[xexyl]

QUESTION

What is jparse.json.

It's nothing important. See the above comment on that part. It's just a way to both identify the repo (in one way) and was only added because (0) other projects have it and (1) it's a JSON parser. I was unsure of it even. We'll see.

[xexyl]

QUESTION

What is jparse.json.

We did, in the mkiocccentry repo, a make all.recreate_clone && make all.update_from_clone && make release and noticed this new file.

There are a number of other differences so we decided that now mighty not be the best time to sync mkiocccentry repo with this repo.

We will let you decide if/when to sync.

I don't think it's necessary to sync unless something important comes in, no.

[xexyl]

One of my newest memes that can be shared here and one I think you'll quite like. You certainly would know more about the actual photo than me though of course I know it is a solar flare!

[xexyl]

Look! Google's so-called AI actually got something right!

[xexyl]

And unrelated: I will read and reply to your comments tomorrow morning.

Thanks for the best wishes. Hopefully tonight will be better.

Good night and sleep tight!

[xexyl]

Look! Google's so-called AI actually got something right!

Btw this was actually a bug but a perfect one. See:

I think the first screenshot is more correct. Obviously.

[xexyl]

An old classic set:

[xexyl]

Also:

[xexyl]

They used to have something for My Precious but sadly they ended that 🥲

I do have screenshots somewhere but I think only from laptop so it's not as big.

Anyway really going to bed now.

Sleep tight!

[xexyl]

Okay another one:

[xexyl]

[xexyl]

.. Basically we're doomed.

[xexyl]

I've run into a dilemma that also affects the mkiocccentry repo. I want your opinion on this. It might be better brought up over there but since it also affects this repo...

It has to do with is_available.sh in the Makefiles. Here is a diff with an explanation below:

 #
 seqcexit: ${ALL_CSRC}
        ${S} echo
        ${S} echo "${OUR_NAME}: make $@ starting"
        ${S} echo
-   ${Q} if ! type -P ${SEQCEXIT} >/dev/null 2>&1; then \
-       echo 'The ${SEQCEXIT} tool could not be found.' 1>&2; \
-       echo 'The ${SEQCEXIT} tool is required for the $@ rule.'; 1>&2; \
+ ${Q} if ! ./${IS_AVAILABLE} seqcexit >/dev/null 2>&1; then \
+     echo '${OUR_NAME}: The seqcexit tool could not be found, or is not reliable in your system.' 1>&2; \
+     echo '${OUR_NAME}: The seqcexit tool is required for the $@ rule.'; 1>&2; \
            echo ''; 1>&2; \
-       echo 'See the following GitHub repo for ${SEQCEXIT}:'; 1>&2; \
+     echo 'See the following GitHub repo for seqcexit:'; 1>&2; \
            echo ''; 1>&2; \
            echo '    https://github.com/lcn2/seqcexit'; 1>&2; \
            echo ''; 1>&2; \
            exit 1; \
        else \
@@ -499,15 +500,15 @@ seqcexit: ${ALL_CSRC}

Now why did I change it to use seqcexit literally? Well imagine if someone does:

make SEQCEXIT=foo seqcexit

It would tell the user that the rule requires foo and it cannot be found. But when executing the tool we do allow overriding. This is problematic because on the one hand it means that if they have to override the path that type -P finds they cannot (without testing it); but on the other hand if they screw with the variables it will mess up the tests too. For instance, with the above, let's say they have a tool called foo. What then? The test will not be performed because the arg is not seqcexit or any of the others!

So the question is which is preferable:

0. Have the problem where the user might mess up the tool name and thus not test correctly OR it reports a confusing message.
1. Check for the right tool existing and thus the correct tests run BUT cause the problem that they might have more than one version installed and they can no longer specify the right path.

In both cases the command executed COULD be different from what is tested! That would also lead to problems and would ALSO prevent proper testing of the tool! It does seem to me that option 0 is the more preferable one as if they're screwing with the command line that's on them. Unfortunately too because I have to update the Makefiles. It won't take much effort I guess but it's annoying.

If you disagree it could always be fixed, probably pretty easily, with sgit. In fact that's how I plan on doing it.

But it seems that in any case obviously this is not perfect.

If I do make a commit with the above I will at least sync it to mkiocccentry but I have to also do similar with prep.sh here (more work than the mkiocccentry repo as I already did it there). I'll check your comment on that in the mkiocccentry repo, as I did ask for input on another thing.

Regardless I doubt I'll do more than this today, if I even get this in, because of the time and the other things I need to do.

Still hopefully the commit earlier is useful in solving #13.

[xexyl]

[lcn2]

ANSWER

To the implied question in GH-ssuecomment-2381429109

0. Have the problem where the user might mess up the tool name and thus not test correctly OR it reports a confusing message.

One could always indicate the name of the tool in the error message so if someone does:

make SEQCEXIT=false seqcexit

we might notice that the tool name is false. :-)

[xexyl]

ANSWER

To the implied question in GH-ssuecomment-2381429109

0. Have the problem where the user might mess up the tool name and thus not test correctly OR it reports a confusing message.

One could always indicate the name of the tool in the error message so if someone does:

make SEQCEXIT=false seqcexit

we might notice that the tool name is false. :-)

We would yes, since it already does that (I think). And if someone wants to play games they can expect the Makefile to play games too! Didn't you know that's why they require a tab instead of spaces? :-) (actually I know you told me the history behind that but I don't recall .. too much going on).

Well I'll have to redo the changes in the Makefiles next time. Not today but tomorrow hopefully.

Thanks for confirming what I thought!

[xexyl]

QUESTION for sum_and_count()

Since you wrote this function with your knowledge and experience with number conversions (I guess a large part as your great work with calc(1)) I wonder if this is a good diff to apply:

diff --git i/util.c w/util.c
index 7c5cc4ca33d12903515a2103200d7eae8e1d574c..19eb8eca4ac373b08059262380aff750cfc98f44 100644
--- i/util.c
+++ w/util.c
@@ -4194,10 +4194,14 @@ sum_and_count(intmax_t value, intmax_t *sump, intmax_t *countp, intmax_t *sum_ch
     }
     if (count <= prev_count) {
        warn(__func__, "incremented count is lower than previous count: count %jd <= prev_count %jd", count, prev_count);
        return false;
     }
+    if (count <= *countp) {
+ warn(__func__, "incremented count <= *countp: count %jd <= *countp %jd", count, *countp);
+ return false;
+    }

     /*
      * attempt the sum
      */
     dbg(DBG_HIGH, "adding value %jd to sum %jd", value, sum);

The rationale behind it was because of the comment:

    /*
     * paranoid count increment
     */
    ++count; /* now count > *countp */

It seemed good and running make release in mkiocccentry (copied without committing to jparse) runs fine. But just because that runs fine does not mean it's a good idea.

I am going to make a comment in mkiocccentry and then I have other things I have to do.

[xexyl]

I'm making a useful change to is_available.sh. Actually it's already made. Just have to verify everything works fine and update the Makefile (actually that's updated too). If all is okay I'll update CHANGES.md, the repo version and then also copy the files over to the other repo (in fact I plan on doing it in dbg and dyn_array too but I have to do other things so I might not get that in today .. will do mkiocccentry though, though unsure how much I will get it in: the script will be updated anyway if nothing else).

The change is it verifies that checknr returns non-zero on an erroneous man page. Why this way? Because the original version (until I made the fix) returned zero even if there was an error so there was no way to verify if the man pages were correct, at least without running it directly.

[xexyl]

I'm making a useful change to is_available.sh. Actually it's already made. Just have to verify everything works fine and update the Makefile (actually that's updated too). If all is okay I'll update CHANGES.md, the repo version and then also copy the files over to the other repo (in fact I plan on doing it in dbg and dyn_array too but I have to do other things so I might not get that in today .. will do mkiocccentry though, though unsure how much I will get it in: the script will be updated anyway if nothing else).

The change is it verifies that checknr returns non-zero on an erroneous man page. Why this way? Because the original version (until I made the fix) returned zero even if there was an error so there was no way to verify if the man pages were correct, at least without running it directly.

The change to is_available.sh has been done. I also did it in mkiocccentry. I made a pull request in dyn_array and dbg. Please, when you've merged them, sync to mkiocccentry too. I have other things to take care of and I don't think I'll be doing any more today in any repo (though that could change potentially).