the client

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Fri, 21 Aug 1998, Richard Sharpe wrote:

> At 12:22 PM 8/20/98 +1000, tridge wrote:
> >We need to work out what we are going to do about smbclient.
> >
> >Right now we have several code sets:
> >
> >1) the head branch. The code is very messy and badly designed but does
> >   generally work. It uses clientutil.c as its "library", although it
> >   does most SMB stuff inline by writing into a packet buffer.
> >
> >2) the ntdom branch in sambaold. This one was done primarily by
> >   Luke. It is nicely structured. It splits the client code into
> >   sections and uses Lukes varient of clientgen.c. It has the nt rpc
> >   client stuff, which allows you to do all sorts of nice stuff with
> >   pipes. It has not been autoconf converted and many bugs we have
> >   fixed in the main branch are not fixed here.
> >
> >3) clientgen.c in the head branch. This was my attempt at a set of
> >   basic SMB client functions in a library-like format. All the head
> >   branch client calls are made via this code _except_ for those from
> >   smbclient! My plan at the time was to convert smbclient to use this
> >   code. I never got around to it.
> >
> >4) the 1.9.18 branch in sambaold. This has some bug fixes from
> >   Richard.
> >
> >As I see it we have a number of choices:
> >
> >1) dump the head branch client code and replace it with Lukes
> >   code. This is harder than it sounds because it means reconciling
> >   the differences in clientgen.c between the two versions. It also
> >   means re-fixing all the bugs that have been fixed since the ntdom
> >   split. some cvs history might help with that.
> >
> >2) convert the head branch to use clientgen.c and do some
> >   restructuring so it becomes maintainable. This means losing the nt
> >   client stuff luke has done.
> >
> >3) write a new smbclient from scratch.
> >
> >I think the best option is (1). Anyone else have a suggestion? 
> 
> Can I suggest that we hold off for a short while on this, because I have
> several outstanding patches agains smbclient to go in yet.

no, please: don't put any more patches in until this is resolved: extra
patches will only make things more complicated.
 
> Also, I want to rewrite clitar.c to include additional functionality, and
> someone has asked for append capabilities as well.

again, please could you wait until this is resolved.  the more
differences, the harder it will be to make a decision / re-join the code.