5.4. - Updating spec
spec updates are normally extracted into a directory named after the spec version number, as in /usr/specadm/spec6.05.03 for version 6.05.03 of the software. The instructions above for extracting the distribution and installing the files also apply to updates.
Existing settings and config files from a previous installation will not be disturbed during an update. Each user's state file will also remain intact, although it is recommended that users either start out fresh (by typing
fourc -f)
or run the macro command
newmac after new versions are installed to
incorporate improvements to the standard macros in their state files.
Occasionally, new versions will not be compatible with
previous state files, and
spec
will automatically throw out the old state files, print a message and
start fresh anyway.
Use the
tidy_spec
utility to clean out old state files to free up disk space, especially
if the old state files are obsolete with the newer version of spec.
The help file changes will contain summaries of the significant bug fixes and improvements to spec included in the update.