I'm trying to build backtalk in my SDF account to try playing with the
interpreter, but make fails with the following messages. Any ideas on what
I can try to get the build to work?

===========
gcc -I./../incl -g -O2  -o mksysdict ./mksysdict.c  hash.o free.o -lcrypt
-ldmalloc
./mksysdict sysdict.c ./../incl/sysdict.h
*** Signal 11

Stop.
make[1]: stopped in /sdf/arpa/ns/p/papa/src/backtalk-1.3.30/src
*** Error code 1

Stop.
make: stopped in /sdf/arpa/ns/p/papa/src/backtalk-1.3.30

13 responses total.

Well, that's a segfault in `mksysdict`. I'm not sure why, but probably
a bad pointer; possibly you ran out of memory? What's your ulimit set
to? Try running that under gdb or something and getting a backtrace?

The log I was talking is in /var/log/bt-crash.log  (back talk crash log).
 
I took a quick at the last crash and it said:

   ------- Mon Dec 18 22:46:09 2017 -------
   DIED:  conf system variable is not set
   executing "open_conf" on line 23 of fronttalk/read.bt

   Version:  Backtalk version 1.3.30

That might be part of the problem but there might be other bugs.  Thanks
for looking into it.

This response has been erased.

Today I made another attempt to build BT 1.4.12 on SDF's MetaARPA host
(Linux). Reading UnixPapa's documention more closely, I got make to run
successfully!

Now I am stuck on installation step Part IVA: Installation with Backtalk
Accounts <http://unixpapa.com/backtalk/devel/doc/install4a.html>. 
Setting up BT with a non-root ID still requires that some of the 
installation scripts be run under the web server user ID, which I don't 
have access to.

It looks like the only way to set up BT is to have my own server or VPS.

Any ideas on getting around this? I'd even take a partial installation 
with shell-only access for playing around.

Or maybe monkeying around with the install scripts will unciver a way to
install BT without httpd user perms. After all, I don't think BT is doing much
more functionally than some of the CGI- or PHP-based bulletin board systems
that can be installed on a web site with only user perms.

resp:4 I all you want is shell access, install it into whatever directory
you want, download fronttalk, and run that (it's a perl script).  Note
that there are some problems on the version on unixpapa.com, and those
will not be fixed. We've patched the version here on Grex to avoid them.
In any event, fronttalk executes the backtalk executable directly, without
a web server.

However, for testing, running on a dedicated (thin) web server on some
non-privileged port should work.

Making a fresh attempt to build bt 1.3.30 on SDF MetaArray.

Why would gcc give a conflicting types error on a function prototype in a .h
file when it is the first appearance of the function in the compilation unit?

The error happens on the prototype for strndup() in str.h included in
builtins.c.

What's the exact error message?

In file included from builtin.c:13:
./../incl/str.h:16: error: conflicting types for strndup

Maybe because strndup is a gcc built-in function.

Trying to build with option -fno-builtin-strndup on gcc.

... and/or because strndup() is also defined in standard string.h.

Will try renaming the bt version of strndup().

Renaming strndup() to btstrndup() got bt to build. (Also dropped the
-fno-builtin option.)

Now trying to install bt on my web site.

I got the install scripts to run, though I had to doctor some of the Makefiles
by hand, so that will need some work.

bt seems to work partially, but the CGI script produces code 500 error pages
for some queries. More later ...

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- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss