HISTORY(5,F) AIX Technical Reference HISTORY(5,F) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- history PURPOSE Contains the history of an installed licensed program product. DESCRIPTION Each licensed program or component of a licensed program that is shipped by IBM contains a history file. The purpose of a history file is to identify the installed release and version of a licensed program or component and to provide a record of any updates (level changes). A history file is replaced when a component is reinstalled. History files for programs installed on the operating system are named /usr/lpp/pgm-name/lpp.hist, where pgm-name is the name of the licensed program or component. The history file consists of a series of 80-character records. The first two records contain the install data and all subsequent records contain update data. There are three different formats of 80-character records: Record Description Information Identified by an "a", "c", "r", or "v" character in position 1. The install and update procedures use information records to identify the licensed program or component name; the current version, release, and level; the date the record was added; and the user who initiated the install or update. Figure 5 shows the format of the fields in the information records. Title Identified by a t in character position 1. Contains the descriptive title (up to 30 characters) for the licensed program or component, starting in character position 3. The title record must always be the second record in the history file. Comment Identified by an * (asterisk) in character position 1. Allows descriptive comments to be entered into the history file. An * is usually placed in character position 79 to ensure a full 80-column record. The last character of each record (character position 80) must be a new-line character. Unused character positions must be blank-filled. Tab characters are not permitted. The first record in a history file must be an information record with a c in character position 1. The second record must be the title record. These two records contain data about the installation of the program. The remaining records in the file may be any combination of information and comment records, and they identify updates to the program. Processed November 7, 1990 HISTORY(5,F) 1 HISTORY(5,F) AIX Technical Reference HISTORY(5,F) Figure 5 shows the format of an information record in the history file. The definitions for each of the fields other than character position 1 are explained following the figure. +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | This figure cannot be displayed properly on the screen. | | Please refer to the printed book. | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+ Figure 5. Information Record Format Location Field Description 1 .S The type of information record: a Indicates that the update has been applied. c Indicates that the update or install has been committed (accepted). r Indicates that the update has been rejected. 3-10 pgm-name The name assigned to the program (lowercase characters only). If the name contains less than 8 characters, it must be padded with blanks. 11-17 reserved Reserved 18-20 VV. A 2-digit numeric field followed by a period indicating the version number of the program. The version number indicates the level of the hardware and operating system with which the program works. 21-23 RR. A 2-digit numeric field followed by a period indicating the release number of the program. The release number tracks changes to external programming interfaces since the last version change. This number is generally incremented each time the external interface to the program changes. 24-28 LLLL. A 4-digit numeric field indicating the update level of the program. This field is incremented when the changes to the program do not affect external programs that may use the documented external interface for the program. The level, together with the S field, ensures that all changes up to and including the current change are installed on the system. The fourth (or units) digit of the level is normally 0. IBM reserves this digit for future use. Processed November 7, 1990 HISTORY(5,F) 2 HISTORY(5,F) AIX Technical Reference HISTORY(5,F) Location Field Description 29-32 FFFF A 4-digit numeric field indicating the fix number applied to the program. A fix number of 0 denotes an upgrade; all other values denote fixes. 33 blank Blank 34-39 DDMMYY These three numeric fields indicate the date the program changed: DD Day of the month (1 to 31). MM Month of the year (1 to 12). YY Year (00 to 99). 40 blank Blank 41-48 username An alphanumeric field that contains the user name of the person who installed the program. If the user name is shorter than eight characters, it must be padded with blanks. 49 blank Blank 50-79 comment A 30-character field for comments. An * (asterisk) field is usually placed in character position 79 to ensure a full 80-column record. 80 \n A required new-line character, indicating the end of the record. Each cluster site also has a local history file that is used to log relevant information on changes made to the local file system on that site. This file is called /local/lpp.hist. Local history files are of interest to the system administrator as a log of each site's past. They are not used for determining the local changes pending for a site or as a means of controlling programs; these functions are performed by the queue mechanism. The format for the local history file is identical to the format described above. FILE /usr/lpp/pgm-name/lpp.hist RELATED INFORMATION The installp and updatep commands in AIX Operating System Commands Reference. Processed November 7, 1990 HISTORY(5,F) 3