simplification-history

name

simplification-history

description

Detailed changelog of the 2026-06 simplification campaign - platform/feature removals (Windows/OS2/VMS, Android, SSL/Kerberos, K&R C, obsolete platform macros, dead makefile targets, ifdef COMMENT blocks) and the macro-expansion modernizations, with per-change caveats and pointers to the SIMPLIFY_*/report files. Use when investigating why code, macros, files, or makefile targets are absent; before removing anything as "obsolete"; or when planning/writing a new simplification.

Simplification history (2026-06-12 → 2026-06-16)

doc/BASE_20260616.md is the consolidated overview of the whole campaign (initial-without-windows-or-vms = 5a8fc5a → base-20260616 = 2eab866, 60 commits). This skill keeps the per-change caveats that matter for future work. The premise throughout: this is a Linux/macOS/Unix-only tree.

Platform & feature removals

• Windows/OS2/VMS removed 2026-06-12, before the initial commit (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260612.md): all ckv* files deleted, #ifdef blocks stripped with unifdef.
• Android removed the same day, commit ad4139f (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260612_2.md).
• SSL/TLS + Kerberos removed 2026-06-13 (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260613.md): the whole Telnet authentication/encryption stack (KRB4, SRP, DES/CAST). The ck_* security files plus ckuath.*/ckuat2.h deleted; all +ssl/+krb*/+srp makefile targets removed.
• Non-ANSI / K&R C removed, commit 20bf398 (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260613_2.md): CK_ANSIC is assumed always defined; all pre-ANSI fallback branches stripped.
• 26 obsolete platform macros removed from the C source, commit c1c710b (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260613_3.md, doc/OS_FLAGS_20260613.md): AS400 __386BSD__ C70 CIE SINIX SNI544 SNI543 SNI541 POWERMAX ICL_SVR4 XF68R3V6 XF88R32 IX370 PCIX sxaE50 RTU TRS16 _386BSD OU8 UW7 NEUTRINO LYNXOS UTS24 VXVE ZILOG AMIX treated as permanently undefined; dead branches deleted with unifdef.
• Dead makefile targets removed in waves (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260613_4.md, _5.md, _6.md, doc/OS_SIMPLIFY_20260613.md, doc/OS_SIMPLIFY_PLAN_20260613*.md): first the 38 targets defining those macros (commit aca665a), then 64 Xenix/ancient-BSD/SunOS-3-4 targets (commit 86e1cb0), then all remaining foreign-Unix families and the orphaned generic bases bsd/bsd42/bsd44/bsd44c/posix. The makefile keeps only Linux, macOS, and modern-BSD (FreeBSD/NetBSD/OpenBSD/MirBSD) targets; linuxa is kept — linux/ gnu-linux dispatch to it. makefile: 9,520 → ~1,200 lines. Some stale foreign-Unix comment prose remains — harmless, recipe-less text. Method caveat for future stanza removal: GNU make treats blank/comment lines between tab-prefixed recipe lines as part of one recipe; boundary detection must consume the whole recipe to its last tab-line or it orphans recipe fragments onto kept targets.
• #ifdef COMMENT dead-code blocks removed, commit 3201982 merged via f5456b8 (doc/SIMPLIFY_SUMMARY_20260613.md): COMMENT was never #defined anywhere, so #ifdef COMMENT … #endif was C-Kermit's "comment out a region" idiom. All 731 guards (704 #ifdef + 27 #ifndef) across 37 files removed (~6,300 lines); build provably unchanged. Surviving uses of the word "COMMENT" are correct and must stay: the user-facing Kermit COMMENT script command (ckuus2.c/ckuusr.c), SSH key-comment fields, the directive escaped inside /* */ in ckuusx.c, and prose mentions.

Source modernization (behavior-preserving)

• _PROTOTYP() expanded and removed (doc/SIMPLIFY_20260615.md): all 1,175 pre-ANSI prototype-forwarding macro invocations expanded to plain ANSI prototypes; the #define deleted from ckcdeb.h. Byte-identical build.
• VOID/CKVOID/CONST aliases expanded and removed (doc/PROTOTYP_PLAN_20260615_2.md): 688 exact-token substitutions to void/const; no portability alias macros remain in the tree. Sibling macros sharing substrings (MAINISVOID, TPUTSISVOID, TPUTSARG1CONST, PAM_CONST, …) and the Kermit VOID script-command help string were correctly left alone. The ckuusx.c #undef VOID curses guard became a no-op and was removed. Byte-identical.
• Signal modernization — SIGTYP/SIGRETURN expansion, the ck_signal() sigaction wrapper, and the ck_sig_t typedef: see the signal-handling skill (doc/SIGTYPE_PLAN_20260615.md, doc/SIGACTION_PLAN_20260615.md, doc/SIGACTION_MACOS_20260615.md, doc/CK_SIG_T_20260616.md, doc/SIGNAL_TYPE_20260615.md).
• ckuver.h herald selector flattened and clang-format SortIncludes/InsertBraces enabled with ckcdeb.h pinned first: see the format-and-editor-tooling skill (doc/SIMPLIFY_SUMMARY_20260613.md §3, doc/MOVE_CKCDEB_H_20260615.md, doc/ENABLE_SORTINCLUDES_20260615.md, doc/INSERT_BRACES_20260615.md).
• Dead/unused file deletions: ckcsym.h (doc/CKCSYM_H_DELETION_20260615.md), ckusig.h (superseded by ckcsig.h — ckusig.c is kept and still built), ckcmdb.c, cku2tm.c, ckustr.c/ckustr.sed, plus build cruft (.cmake-format.py ckpker.mak ckubs2.mak makecmd.sh). See doc/BASE_20260616.md §3.

Rules distilled from the campaign

• Do not remove SVR4, SVR3, or ATTSV (also in CLAUDE.md): live on macOS/BSD via the MACOSX10 → MACOSX → BSD44 → SVR4 → SVR3/ATTSV implication chain in ckcdeb.h; undefined only on the linux build.
• Before declaring any macro "always undefined", check the macOS/BSD builds (gcc -E -DMACOSX10 … / -DBSD44), not just make linux.
• ckcpro.w is the source of truth for the protocol state machine; after editing it, regenerate ckcpro.c (make wart && make ckcpro.c) — see the build-and-verify skill.
• Every simplification gets a dated *_20260NNN.md report under doc/ and a verification at the strongest applicable level (byte-identical / per-object / token proof / runtime — see the build-and-verify skill).
• Build test reports: doc/UBUNTU_TEST_20260612.md, doc/UBUNTU_TEST_20260613.md.