From: benson AT healthcare DOT com ("Kirk W. Benson") Subject: Re: Gnu-Win32 and Tcl/Tk 17 Dec 1996 10:03:19 -0800 Sender: daemon AT cygnus DOT com Approved: cygnus DOT gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Distribution: cygnus Message-ID: <1.5.4.32.19961217174218.006bcb98.cygnus.gnu-win32@vault.healthcare.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" X-Sender: benson AT vault DOT healthcare DOT com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.4 (32) Original-To: gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com Original-Sender: owner-gnu-win32 AT cygnus DOT com A couple of comments on interfacing Gnu-win32 and TCL: The work of Mr. Hamel is interesting in that it proves that it is possible to write TCL extensions under Gnu-win32 and interface them to the Win32-native release of TCL. However, the reality is that most "large" TCL projects involve the use of other extensions which in many cases do not provide Win32 versions. Therefore, the "best" solution IMO is to build the UNIX source base(s) under Gnu-win32 such that all will inter-operate on NT under the same environment. This would then encompass TK given X11R6 and a builtin X-server. The goal would then be for Gnu-win32 to provide sufficiently robust compatibility that these modules will operate. That said, there appear to several areas where native Win32 TCL has compatibility problems with external unix ports. There has already been some discussion in this list relative to these: a. Heap allocatiobn. If the Gnu-win32 extension malloc's memory which is freed within the TCL DLL, the freeing will fail. This can be avoided by calling the Tcl_Alloc/Tcl_Free routines within the extension. b. File handles. The DLL uses NT handles to represent open files within the channel structures. Therefore, a channel cannot be registered with the DLL using an fd returned from a Gbu-win32 function. Using an fd as an event source will require an API call which returns the NT Handle given a fd; a converse function to import a NT Handle into the fd space would also be needed. --------------------------------------------------------- Kirk W. Benson Ph: 214-851-7076 Healthcare Communications Inc. FAX 214-851-7045 15301 Dallas Parkway Ste. 950 email: benson AT healthcare DOT com Dallas, TX 75248 - For help on using this list, send a message to "gnu-win32-request AT cygnus DOT com" with one line of text: "help".