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HELP SYS_OS_TYPE Robert Duncan, Apr 1989 Revised John Gibson, Aug 1995 A list of words and numbers giving details of the operating system under which Poplog is running. See REF * sys_os_type for a listing of the currently defined values on different machines and operating systems. The information in this list actually relates to the system for which the current version of Poplog was built, and so may not be quite the same as the system under which it is running. The version number in particular may be smaller or less precise than you might expect. sys_os_type is best used to provide just a visual summary of the operating system type (to be output in messages, for example). If you are writing a program where the control depends on properties of the operating system -- perhaps because it only works under Unix, or SunOS, or whatever -- you are advised instead to use INCLUDE * SYSDEFS (or LIB * SYSDEFS) to determine the information you need. This library defines a set of flags and numeric constants which express all the information present in sys_os_type but in a more comprehensive and usable form. One particular problem to watch out for if you do use sys_os_type in a program, is that any comparison performed on the version number is not guaranteed to work as expected unless some care is taken: this is due to the rounding errors which can arise when using floating-point numbers. The macro DEFV (see HELP * DEFV) used in conjunction with the constants defined by LIB * SYSDEFS provides a secure way of doing this kind of test. See also: HELP * SYS_MACHINE_TYPE HELP * SYS_PROCESSOR_TYPE HELP * SYSDEFS HELP * POPHOST REF * SYSTEM --- C.all/help/sys_os_type --- Copyright University of Sussex 1995. All rights reserved.