NAME

chatr − change program’s internal attributes

SYNOPSIS

chatr [−n] [−q] [−s] file ...

DESCRIPTION

chatr, by default, prints each file’s magic number and file attributes to the standard output. With one or more optional arguments, chatr performs the following operations:

−n Change file from demand-loaded to shared. 

−q Change file from shared to demand-loaded. 

−s Perform its operation silently. 

Upon completion, chatr prints the file’s old and new values to standard output unless −s is specified. 

RETURN VALUE

chatr returns zero on success.  If the call to chatr is syntactically incorrect, or one or more of the specified files cannot be acted upon, chatr returns the number of files whose attributes could not be modified.  If no files are specified, chatr returns decimal 255. 

DIAGNOSTICS

The error messages produced by chatr are self-explanatory. 

DEPENDENCIES

Series 300/400

The following additional option is supported:

−C cachespec Specify caching mode for the data and/or stack segment.  This option has a mandatory argument, cachespec, that specifies whether a particular segment uses either write-through caching or copyback caching. cachespec consists of one or more of the following arguments, concatenated together:

d Use write-through caching for the data segment. 

D Use copyback caching for the data segment. 

s Use write-through caching for the stack segment. 

S Use copyback caching for the stack segment. 

If no option is specified for a particular segment, the caching mode for that segment remains the same as before. 

In general, copyback caching should be used because it provides better performance.  However, applications that write object code into either the data or stack segment, and then execute the code, do not work with copyback caching, unless the application is modified to flush the cache.  Use of chatr to change the caching mode to write-through should only be used if it would be difficult or impossible to change the source code to use cachectl(3C). This is because just changing the caching mode does not solve the problem of stale entries in the instruction cache (see cachectl(3C)).

Systems that are based on a MC68020 or MC68030 microprocessor do not have a copyback cache, so the caching mode will always be write-through on those systems (i.e.  cachespec is ignored). 

AUTHOR

chatr was developed by HP. 

SEE ALSO

ld(1), cachectl(3C), a.out(4), magic(4). 

Hewlett-Packard Company  —  HP-UX Release 8.05: June 1991