          WWWOFFLE - World Wide Web Offline Explorer - Version 2.4a
          =========================================================


WHAT?
-----

The format of the cache that WWWOFFLE uses to store the web pages changed in
version 2.x compared to the previous versions.  There was however an oversight
that meant that the file names in the cache were different on big-endian
machines (e.g. sparc, 68000) compared to little-endian machines (e.g. ix86).

*** If you don't use a big-endian CPU then you do not need to do anything. ***
*** This is most users, in particular those on Intel or Intel-clone CPUs. ***

If you are not sure then run the program endian-cache with no arguments.  If you
do not need to use it then it will tell you.


HOW?
----

         *** READ ALL THIS SECTION BEFORE DOING ANYTHING ELSE ***


When you compile WWWOFFLE there is another program called 'endian-cache' that is
also compiled.  You need to run this program to convert the cache from the
'wrong' format to the 'correct' one.


There are a number of options that you can take for this conversion route, the
following applies to all of them.

In each of the options the basics are that you must run endian-cache and it
takes an argument of the name of the cache directory that is used (usually
/var/spool/wwwoffle).  When the program runs it prints out informational and
warning messages, these may be useful.


Option 1 - Be reckless

Run 'endian-cache /var/spool/wwwoffle', watch the messages go flashing by and
hope that it works.

Option 2 - Be brave

With sh/bash run 'endian-cache /var/spool/wwwoffle > convert.log 2>&1'
or with csh/tcsh run 'endian-cache /var/spool/wwwoffle >& convert.log'
read the messages and check the warnings.

Option 3 - Be safe

Backup the cache first then follow option 2.
With GNU tar I suggest that you use the --atime-preserve option so that the
access times of the files in the cache are not modified by performing the
backup.  The index and purge options in WWWOFFLE use these so it is important.


When it finishes, the protocol and other special directories in
/var/spool/wwwoffle are replaced by converted versions, the old ones if they
remain are named with a '.old' postfix (e.g. http.old).

If there are any of the '*.old' directories left then then you should decide
what needs doing.  It is probably because there is a spare file in one of the
host directories that needs deleting.

If the endian-cache program crashes then that is a bug - tell me.

If you are left with many files or directories and the warnings are unclear then
this may be a bug - tell me.

If there are only a small number of spare files or directories, then just delete
them, you probably won't notice that they are missing.


WHY?
----

The wwwoffled program creates a hash value from the URL and mangles this before
using it for the filename.  The hash function used is the md5 function, this
needed to be compiled differently on big-endian machines compared to
little-endian, but I had not noticed this.  The problem only arises when files
created on one type of system are transfered to another, it was not until people
tried doing this that the problem was noticed.
