glibc/PROJECTS

Open jobs for finishing GNU libc:
---------------------------------
Status: June 1996

If you have time and talent to take over any of the jobs below please
contact <bug-glibc@prep.ai.mit.edu>

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[ 1] Port to new platforms or test current version on formerly supported
     platforms.


[ 2] Test compliance with standards.  If you have access to recent
     standards (IEEE, ISO, ANSI, X/Open, ...) and/or test suites you
     could do some checks as the goal is to be compliant with all
     standards if they do not contradict each other.


[ 3] Write translations for the GNU libc message for the so far
     unsupported languages.  GNU libc is fully internationalized and
     users can immediately benefit from this.

     Take a look at the matrix in
	ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/ABOUT-NLS
     for the current status (of course better use a mirror of prep).


[ 4] Write wordexp() function; this is described in POSIX.2, The
     header <wordexp.h> already exists.

     Implementation idea: use some functions from bash.


[ 5] Write reentrent versions of crypt() et.al.

     Implementation idea: Define in <crypt.h>

	struct crypt_data
	{
	  <... all the needed data ...>
	};

     and define additional functions

	char *crypt_r (__const char *__key, __const char *__salt,
		       struct crypt_data *__data);

	void setkey_r (__const char *__key, struct crypt_data *__data);

	void encrypt_r (char *__block, int __edflag,
			struct crypt_data *__data);

     If possible the non-reentrent functions should use the reentrent
     ones.

     Because of the US export restrictions it might be a good idea if
     some non-american person does this job.


[ 6] Write `long double' versions of the math functions.  This should be
     done in collaboration with the NetBSD and FreeBSD people.

     The libm is in fact fdlibm (not the same as in Linux libc).

**** Partly done.


[ 7] If you enjoy assembler programming (as I do --drepper :-) you might
     be interested in writing optimized versions for some functions.
     Especially the string handling functions can be optimized a lot.

     Take a look at

	Faster String Functions
	Henry Spencer, University of Toronto
	Usenix Winter '92, pp. 419--428

     or just ask.  Currently mostly i?86 optimized versions exist.


[ 8] Write nftw() function.  Perhaps it might be good to reimplement the
     ftw() function as well to share most of the code.

**** Almost done!


[ 9] Write AVL-tree based tsearch() et.al. functions.  Currently only
     a very simple algorithm is used.


[10] Extend regex and/or rx to work with wide characters.


[11] Add mmap() support to malloc().
     Doug Lea's malloc implementation might give some ideas.  Perhaps
     switching completly to his implementation is an option if it
     a) can work without mmap() support (not all system GNU libc
	is running on have mmap)
     b) is without mmap support at least as fast as the current
	implementation
     c) will be extended with the current hooks and additional functions


[12] Implement shadow password handling.  There exist some but I don't
     know of any falling under LGPL and where the author is willing to
     contribute it to the FSF.


[13] Write access function for group, ether, shadow, rpc, netmasks,
     bootparams, netgroup, publickey, automount, aliases databases.
     The functions should be embedded in the nss scheme.  This is not
     hard and not all services must be supported at once.