[syslinux] extlinux 6.03 serial console not responding to input

[Andrew J. Schorr]

On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 07:58:37AM -0700, Patrick Masotta wrote:
> >>>
>  I don't think it's quite so complicated.  I haven't reviewed the entire
>  function, but consider this simple patch to the section that handles
>  the "serial" command:
> <<<
>  
> It is not individually complicated (I agree) but there are "many" different variables in the 
> configuration file; your patch only considers the serial command receiving a decimal integer;
> But how about checking i.e. something like:
> 
> menu color title   1;37;44     #FFFFFFFF *
> menu color border  37;44       #80FFFFFF #00000000 none
> menu color sel     *           #FFFFFFFF #76A1D0FF *
> menu color hotsel  1;7;37;40   #FFFFFFFF #76A1D0FF *
> 
> can you imagine parsings something like that using your approach? 
> a coder's nightmare...

I'm not sure what to say about that.  My point is that each individual command
should check for errors in its arguments.  The code is obviously already
present to parse these directives.  The nightmare is that there's no error
checking anywhere!  Perhaps it can't be fixed all at once, but the first step
is to provide a facility for reporting errors.  Then the error checks could be
added incrementally over time.  I agree that it's more difficult to write
software that checks for errors, but nobody said it should be easy.

Regards,
Andy