Plugins and Platforms

Hi folks,

when writing a plugin in Slang I encountered two problems wrt  
platform specifics:

1) convert a squeak pathname to a platform pathname:

        * my plugin links to a library that expects a platform file path
        * must convert from Squeak path (char encoding etc.)
        * sqFilenameFromString() should do this

        * PROBLEM: this does not work in an external plugin
        * because it is just a macro pointing to some platform-code function  
that would have to be linked to the external plugin

        * PROPOSAL: provide an ioFilenameFromString() function exported from  
the VM
        * looked up by plugin via interpreterProxy->ioLoadFunctionFrom
("ioFilenameFromString", "")
        * could trivially be implemented by using sqFilenameFromString macro?

2) endianness:

        * I need to know the current platform's endianness
        * because the linked library provides 8 bit bitmap data in platform  
order
        * and I want to adjust the Squeak form from the plugin (set depth to  
-8 on little-endian machine)

        * PROBLEM: which function/macro to use?

        * there seem to be several:
        - LSB_FIRST used in B3DAcceleratorPlugin.c
        - MSB_FIRST used in sqWin32Window.c
        - WORDS_BIGENDIAN defined on Mac OS and Unix -  is this the one?

thanks,

- Bert -

On 25-Nov-05, at 3:47 AM, Bert Freudenberg wrote:

This would be good, since the sqFilenameFromString is responsible (if  
in fact it does on all platforms) to translate from squeak file name  
encoding
to platform character set dependent encoding.

--
========================================================================
===
John M. McIntosh <[hidden email]> 1-800-477-2659
Corporate Smalltalk Consulting Ltd.  http://www.smalltalkconsulting.com
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On 25-Nov-05, at 10:43 AM, John M McIntosh wrote:

It took me enough effort just to get the macro incorporated many  
years ago. On RISC OS the macro points to a nice function that has to  
do a full canonicalisation proces to get the OS to work out the  
proper filename. From recent discussions with John it sounds like  
Apple desperately need to provide a similar OS call to save  
application writers from losing all their hair.
I'll happily add this to the queue for the next VMMaker, but please  
don't hold you breath. Blue is such an ugly colour for a human face.  
Of course if this is a Sophie critical thing it can be done much sooner.

Likewise the endian stuff.


tim
--
tim Rowledge; [hidden email]; http://www.rowledge.org/tim