Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 13:29:14 +0200 (IST)
From: Eli Zaretskii <eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il>
To: Steve Higgins <steve AT psp-digital DOT co DOT uk>
Cc: "'DJGPP Mail List'" <djgpp AT delorie DOT com>
Subject: Re: Re RHIDE with integrated debugger.
In-Reply-To: <01BB7249.827B0520@psp3>
Message-Id: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960716132251.16752E-100000@is>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII


On Mon, 15 Jul 1996, Steve Higgins wrote:

> As I understand it, GDB just uses the standard input/output to communicate
> with the outside world.
> 
> So rather than re-inventing the wheel, would it be possible to intercept the
> relevent int 21h routines, spawn GDB, then write the code to translate the 
> data sent to and from the standard i/o into your RHIDE display updates etc.

You are talking about a multi-tasker that will work on MSDOS in protected 
mode.  That is a very good idea, but it's not so trivial to accomplish.  
If you (or anybody else) would to write such a beast, there will be 
undoubtedly a lot of very useful applications that could take advantage 
of it.

I suspect that Robert wanted to avoid such a major undertaking.

> I understand that in the un*x world there are a number of gdb front ends,
> including the emacs front end, written in this way (they are able to use 
> pipes of course!). 

On Unix, the fork/exec pair of calls and the `pipe' function are a 
standard feature of the OS.  But DOS is not Unix (at least until somebody 
writes these functions for DJGPP).