Looking into this a little bit further, it seems that it would be sufficient to re-establish the
documentation for these functions:
B.2.1. RexxUtil Semaphore functions
The following RexxUtil functions related to semaphore-processing have been
deprecated.
SysCloseEventSem SysPostEventSem
SysCloseMutexSem SysPulseEventSem
SysCreateEventSem SysReleaseMutexSem
SysCreateMutexSem SysRequestMutexSem
SysOpenEventSem SysResetEventSem
SysOpenMutexSem SysWaitEventSem
It would be necessary to obtain the documentation from ooRexx 4.2.0 and incorporate it into the
current documentation for rexxref.pdf, adding a note that it is not currently available for the
macOS platform.
Additionally, the deprecation notices from Appendix B in rexxref.pdf should be
removed then.
We would need to create a RFE for undeprecating it to record the re-establishment of the
documentation against it.
Would there be any takers for this task?
---rony
On 09.11.2025 00:54, Rony G. Flatscher wrote:
On 08.11.2025 23:11, Rick McGuire wrote:
On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 5:00 PM Rony G. Flatscher <[email protected]>
wrote:
On 08.11.2025 21:25, Rick McGuire wrote:
They got deprecated because they are impossible to implement on every
platform.
It seems that in
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/discussion/408478/thread/4d937f7069/?limit=25#c04f>
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/discussion/408478/thread/4d937f7069/?limit=25#c04f>
an
inter-process synchronization is sought on Windows. (The built-in classes
EventSemaphore and
MutexSemaphore would work on all platforms, but within a single process
only.)
As we have a few Sys-functions (rexxref.pdf, "8.2. List of Rexx Utility
Functions") that work
only on Windows (e.g., SysBootDrive()) and a few others that work only on
Unix (e.g.,
SysCreatePipe()), we could probably undeprecate these Windows-only
Sys-functions as long as
they can be implemented on Windows. This would allow the ooRexx users
exploiting these
Sys-functions to keep on using ooRexx.
The functions also work on the various *ix variants, except for the mac, They are still getting
built for all the platforms, but are useless on the mac. If they get undeprecated, then the mac
issue needs to be addressed, either by no longer including the functions on the mac build or by
potentially raising a "Not supported" error on that platform.
Thank you for the information and the hint about the Mac platform!
---rony
On Sat, Nov 8, 2025 at 3:21 PM Rony G. Flatscher <[email protected]>
wrote:
Here from rexxref.pdf:
B.1. Incompatible ooRexx features
Functions or features which have been changed in ooRexx 5.0 in a
way that will lead to
incompatibilities with prior versions.
B.1.1. RexxUtil SysTempFileName
SysTempFileName on Unix-like platforms now behaves identically to
SysTempFileName on
Windows.
It no longer uses only the first five characters of the file name
part of the
template, appending a
random string to make it unique. It also no more prepends an
operating system-chosen
writable path if
no path is given in the template. Instead it now uses the same
filler-based
mechanism as the Windows
version does.
Existing ooRexx programs using SysTempFileName on Unix-like
platforms will need to
be amended.
B.2. Deprecated Rexx features
In exceptional circumstances, ooRexx may deprecate functions or
features, which
means the use
of these functions is discouraged, documentation is no longer
provided, and bug
reports against
deprecated functions will not be accepted. Reasons for deprecation
include broken
functionality,
features that were never officially documented, or functions no
longer required.
Although existing code using deprecated functions is expected to
continue to work
as-is, you are
strongly encouraged to migrate to the replacement functionality, as
these functions
may be removed
from future releases of the interpreter.
B.2.1. RexxUtil Semaphore functions
The following RexxUtil functions related to semaphore-processing
have been deprecated.
SysCloseEventSem SysPostEventSem
SysCloseMutexSem SysPulseEventSem
SysCreateEventSem SysReleaseMutexSem
SysCreateMutexSem SysRequestMutexSem
SysOpenEventSem SysResetEventSem
SysOpenMutexSem SysWaitEventSem
They have been superseded by the new EventSemaphore Class and
MutexSemaphore Class.
... cut ...
---rony
On 08.11.2025 21:14, Rony G. Flatscher wrote:
There are a couple of Sys-functions that got deprecated by removing
their documentation
from the installation package of ooRexx 5.1.0. Still, these functions
get used and it
seems that their system-wide functionality cannot be replaced by any of
the new ooRexx
classes.
The thread in
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/discussion/408478/thread/4d937f7069/?limit=25#c04f>
<https://sourceforge.net/p/oorexx/discussion/408478/thread/4d937f7069/?limit=25#c04f>
leads to the question:
"Can't the native functions be undeprecated? It doesn't seem like
there is a
replacement for key features they provide, like the ability to
share across
processes including non-Rexx processes that can also interact with
the underlying
operating system objects."
Would there be any downsides, if re-instatitng the documentation of
these Sys-functions
and formally removing the "deprecate" tag on them?
---rony
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