First, those functions are unavailable to D programs, because that is the microsoft runtime, D uses the DMC runtime (DMC does have equivalent functions for those). Second, getting the file descriptor, or creating a FILE * from a file descriptor, are not good enough.
To create a pipe, I need to use CreatePipe on Windows, or else a C-library wrapper (on Microsoft, it's _pipe). The problem is, CreatePipe returns HANDLEs, which are not file descriptors. So I need a way to transform HANDLEs into file descriptors. With Microsoft's runtime there are two functions: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ks2530z6%28VS.71%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bdts1c9x%28VS.71%29.aspx With DMC, there are no such functions (including a _pipe equivalent). However, Walter has showed me some internal DMC runtime code, which I can port to D to get it to work properly. But it does raise the concern -- we are depending on 20-25 year old code that may not allow us to write to newer OS APIs, and which leaves some aspects of I/O (arguably one of the most important performance-oriented parts of a standard lib) closed to innovation. I think eventually, it would be best for phobos to ditch dependence on FILE *, and I would argue, the C runtime in general. Of course, the C runtime should be *available* to people who want to use it, but Phobos shouldn't use it. For a good example of why this absolutely sucks, see what the original author of std.process had to do to get shell() to work on Windows: version (Windows) string shell(string cmd) { // Generate a random filename Appender!string a; foreach (ref e; 0 .. 8) { formattedWrite(a, "%x", rndGen.front); rndGen.popFront; } auto filename = a.data; scope(exit) if (exists(filename)) remove(filename); errnoEnforce(system(cmd ~ "> " ~ filename) == 0); return readText(filename); } -Steve ----- Original Message ---- > From: Andrei Alexandrescu <[email protected]> > http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235401%28VS.80%29.aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms235351%28VS.80%29.aspx Andrei Lars > Tandle Kyllingstad wrote: > On Tue, 2010-05-04 at 13:28 -0700, Walter > Bright wrote: >> Lars Tandle Kyllingstad wrote: >>> On Mon, > 2010-05-03 at 18:54 -0700, Steve Schveighoffer wrote: >>>> I can > create pipes by directly calling the Windows system call, the problem is, the > C > runtime lacks a way of wrapping a Windows HANDLE type into a FILE *. > [...] >>>> >>> You'd think that would > be a common enough situation to warrant having a >>> function in the > Windows API doing just that -- like POSIX' fdopen(). I >>> > mean, isn't FILE* the de facto file handle standard in the C world? >> > Pipes aren't standard C <g>. > > I didn't mean the pipe > creation functions. :) > > On POSIX you have fdopen() to wrap a > FILE* handle around an OS file > descriptor, and fileno() to extract an OS > file descriptor from a FILE* > handle. These are part of the POSIX > specification, and therefore > available regardless of which runtime is > being used. > > If I've understood Steve correctly, the same isn't > true on Windows. > Rather, it seems Microsoft have tucked the > corresponding functions away > in their own C runtime. :( > > > -Lars > > _______________________________________________ > > phobos mailing list > > href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected] > > http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos _______________________________________________ phobos > mailing list > href="mailto:[email protected]";>[email protected] > href="http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos"; target=_blank > >http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos _______________________________________________ phobos mailing list [email protected] http://lists.puremagic.com/mailman/listinfo/phobos
