gecko-dev/extensions/xmlterm/doc/Portability

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Portability issues
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16 Sep 1999
Much of the XMLterm code is cross-platform. Implementation features that
affect portability at the moment are:
1. Main event handling:
By default, the present implementation of XMLterm directly uses a GTK
call to set up a handler for XMLterm output events. This can be disabled
by setting NO_CALLBACK=1 in the make command line, and calling the
method mozIXMLTermShell::Poll() frequently to poll for readable output
from LineTerm.
(A better event/callback mechanism needs to be implemented.)
2. pseudo-TTY (PTY) operations:
The PTY interface for XMLterm is currently implemented only for
two platforms, Linux and Solaris. At some point, the PTY interface
should be ported to most Unix platforms. On platforms where PTY
operations are not implemented, the cross-platform NSPR process mechanism
is used to create a "slave" process. However, this process uses NSPR
pipes for communication, which prevents the use of terminal control
characters such as the most usefule Control-C. (Is there a way around
this restriction?)
What about Windows? It should be possible to use XMLterm even under Windows,
using the NSPR process/pipe functions for communication and
using the Cygwin utilities to simulate the Unix environment.
3. The lightweight GeckoTerm uses GTK.
4. The "unistring" module uses wchar functions which do not always have
the same names.
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