[Freeciv-Dev] Re: Linux saved game crashes client on Solaris (PR#1522)

[Jules Bean <jules@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, May 31, 2002 at 03:42:50AM -0700, Per I Mathisen wrote:
> On Fri, 31 May 2002, Raimar Falke wrote:
> > > > Attributes aren't endian safe. CMA uses attributes.
> > >
> > > Shouldn't they be?  savegames are supposed to be portable?
> 
> > There is no easy way to make this automatic. It would only affect
> > clients which switch during a game the architecture. IMHO the
> > cost-benefit ratio isn't nice. I would vote to list it as a limitation.
> 
> If we cannot fix endianness of attributes, then we have to detect wrong
> endianness, stop freeciv from loading the data, and regenerate it somehow.
> 
> I don't have problem with dropping worklists and recalculating CMA data,
> but savegames _must_ be portable, otherwise we cannot have scenarios and
> bug reports become more difficult.
> 
> This issue will make attributes less useful if left unsolved, as we always
> have to have a backup solution and we cannot save critical data in it.

All data which goes over the network or into a file should be network
byte order.  This is what most multi-platform games do.  It's not too
tricky, I wouldn't have though.

Jules