Click above to get retro games delivered to your door ever month!

_djstat_describe_lossage
========================

Syntax
------

     #include <stdio.h>
     
     void _djstat_describe_lossage(FILE *fp);

Description
-----------

Accesses the global variable _djstat_fail_bits: and prints to the   
stream given by FP a human-readable description of the undocumented DOS
features which the last call to `stat()' or `fstat()' failed to use.
(If FP is zero, the function prints to stderr.)  If the last call to
`f?stat()' didn't set any failure bits, an "all's well" message is
printed.  This function is designed to help in debugging these
functions in hostile environments (like DOS clones) and in adapting
them to the future DOS versions.  If you ever have any strange results
returned by `f?stat()', please call this function and post the
diagnostics it printed to the DJGPP mailing list.

The diagnostic messages this function prints are almost
self-explanatory.  Some explanations of terminology and abbreviations
used by the printed messages will further clarify them.

SDA (Swappable DOS Area) - this is an internal DOS structure.  `stat()'
uses it to get the full directory entry (including the starting cluster
number) of a file.  The pointer to SDA found by `stat()' is trusted
only if we find the pathname of our file at a specific offset in that
SDA.

SFT (System File Table) - another internal DOS structure, used in file
operations.  `fstat()' uses it to get full information on a file given
its handle.  An SFT entry which is found by `fstat()' is only trusted
if it contains files size and time stamp like those returned by DOS
functions 57h and 42h.  Novell NetWare 3.x traps DOS file operations in
such a way they never get to SFT, so some failure messages refer
specifically to Novell.

Hashing - the fall-back method of returning a unique inode number for
each file.  It is used whenever the starting cluster of a file couldn't
be reliably determined.

Return Value
------------

None.

Example
-------

       if (stat(path, &stat_buf))
         _djstat_describe_lossage((FILE *)0);