Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Tomas Hajny wrote: On 17 Dec 14, at 15:38, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: Hopefully, FPC core maintainers are not distracted by the legacy support. My philosophy is that supporting multiple platforms- different word sizes, alignment requirements and so on- is a good way to flush out problems. With all the respect to your opinions: If you want to discuss potential reasons for using various operating systems (and/or continuing support of such operating systems in FPC), I suggest that you move that discussion to fpc-other. For now, let's stick to a reminder that the whole FPC is a hobby project. I second that. However I'd add that I do so advisedly: I used OS/2 for quite a few years and I still feel unwell whenever I see it mentioned. -- Mark Morgan Lloyd markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk [Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues] ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Hi Tomas, On 17-12-14 21:30, Tomas Hajny wrote: On 17 Dec 14, at 19:27, Dave Parsons wrote: Hi Dave, I needed to create an OS/2 DLL today was disappointed by the compiler (v2.6.4) telling me that they were not supported. http://www.freepascal.org/faq.var#os2-dll section 6.3 seems to agree but is rather old. Can anyone confirm that this is still true? Yes, it's still the case. Google didn't find much and it is not mentioned on the Future Plans page. What is the reason? Too difficult, no demand/request, no time or whatever. The primary reason is the fact that creation of DLLs is not supported by the ancient EMX port of the GNU linker ld.exe. As far as I know, OS/2 ports of GCC (both the original EMX port and the recent ones) solve this issue by using the IBM linker (possibly masked by EMXOMFLD binary). However, this has several caveats (no special order): 1) Object files need to be translated/transformed from the a.out format supported by the GNU binutils (as.exe and ld.exe) to Intel OMF expected by the IBM linker (e.g. using the tool EMXOMF supplied with EMX), or they need to be assembled using a different assembler supporting this format (such as Watcom assembler or NASM) from the very beginning, or support for direct creation of object files in this format needs to be added to FPC directly. When I tried translating object files created by FPC (using as.exe) with EMXOMF some time ago, it failed to process some of them. I didn't manage to find out the reasons so that I could possibly fix them at that point in time (no we get to amount of time available mentioned by you). 2) Binaries linked with IBM LINK.EXE cannot be debugged using GDB/PMGDB any longer (and no other debugger either, in fact, because LINK.EXE would not support the stabs debug format which is currently the only alternative supported for the OS/2 target in FPC). 3) There are certain special features which would need to be solved differently if using a different linker (e.g. support for direct port access). These wouldn't prevent most common uses, but they would require spending some time on their resolution too. Now back to your questions: 1) Is it possible to solve it? Yes, certainly. 2) Does the resolution require considerable amount of time? Yes, it probably does (especially if the only person working on it is me). 3) Has there been strong demand? Well, not really (although some questions already arose in the past). I don't have much time for working on this task, but I'm willing to spend some time on it as soon as I finish my current work on finally properly supporting all UnicodeString Manager functions for OS/2 (that requires some time, but it is quite simple from technical point of view). My motivation to work on the linker issue would be higher if someone else joins me in this effort. Feel free to contact me directly if you're interested. Tomas Thanks for the information. At first glance it looks like the best way forward might be to give up EMX use Watcom since we already have wasm support. Anyway I'll think about it a bit more contact you directly. Dave ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/17/2014 2:56 PM, mark diener wrote: Ralf, I am not goint to tell you to do anything, but gently suggest that you chill out. Well, how about you live what you are preaching? Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On Thu, December 18, 2014 19:49, Ralf Quint wrote: On 12/17/2014 2:56 PM, mark diener wrote: Ralf, I am not goint to tell you to do anything, but gently suggest that you chill out. Well, how about you live what you are preaching? I'd like to ask everybody to stop responding to this part of the thread and restrict him/herself to on topic messages on this list. Thank you Tomas (one of the list moderators) ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
[fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Hi, I needed to create an OS/2 DLL today was disappointed by the compiler (v2.6.4) telling me that they were not supported. http://www.freepascal.org/faq.var#os2-dll section 6.3 seems to agree but is rather old. Can anyone confirm that this is still true? Google didn't find much and it is not mentioned on the Future Plans page. What is the reason? Too difficult, no demand/request, no time or whatever. Cheers, Dave ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? There is an operating system called Linux and its very nice and modern. You should try it. md On 12/17/2014 1:27 PM, Dave Parsons wrote: Hi, I needed to create an OS/2 DLL today was disappointed by the compiler (v2.6.4) telling me that they were not supported. http://www.freepascal.org/faq.var#os2-dll section 6.3 seems to agree but is rather old. Can anyone confirm that this is still true? Google didn't find much and it is not mentioned on the Future Plans page. What is the reason? Too difficult, no demand/request, no time or whatever. Cheers, Dave ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 17.12.2014 21:08, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? There is an operating system called Linux and its very nice and modern. You should try it. You do know that you are saying this on a mailing list of a compiler that recently gained 16-bit MS-DOS support and regained m68k-amiga support? Supporting exotic platforms is one of the strong points of FPC. Regards, Sven ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/17/2014 12:20 PM, Sven Barth wrote: On 17.12.2014 21:08, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? There is an operating system called Linux and its very nice and modern. You should try it. You do know that you are saying this on a mailing list of a compiler that recently gained 16-bit MS-DOS support and regained m68k-amiga support? Supporting exotic platforms is one of the strong points of FPC. Not to mention that our friend probably never used or even has seen an OS/2 system... ;-) Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 17 Dec 14, at 19:27, Dave Parsons wrote: Hi Dave, I needed to create an OS/2 DLL today was disappointed by the compiler (v2.6.4) telling me that they were not supported. http://www.freepascal.org/faq.var#os2-dll section 6.3 seems to agree but is rather old. Can anyone confirm that this is still true? Yes, it's still the case. Google didn't find much and it is not mentioned on the Future Plans page. What is the reason? Too difficult, no demand/request, no time or whatever. The primary reason is the fact that creation of DLLs is not supported by the ancient EMX port of the GNU linker ld.exe. As far as I know, OS/2 ports of GCC (both the original EMX port and the recent ones) solve this issue by using the IBM linker (possibly masked by EMXOMFLD binary). However, this has several caveats (no special order): 1) Object files need to be translated/transformed from the a.out format supported by the GNU binutils (as.exe and ld.exe) to Intel OMF expected by the IBM linker (e.g. using the tool EMXOMF supplied with EMX), or they need to be assembled using a different assembler supporting this format (such as Watcom assembler or NASM) from the very beginning, or support for direct creation of object files in this format needs to be added to FPC directly. When I tried translating object files created by FPC (using as.exe) with EMXOMF some time ago, it failed to process some of them. I didn't manage to find out the reasons so that I could possibly fix them at that point in time (no we get to amount of time available mentioned by you). 2) Binaries linked with IBM LINK.EXE cannot be debugged using GDB/PMGDB any longer (and no other debugger either, in fact, because LINK.EXE would not support the stabs debug format which is currently the only alternative supported for the OS/2 target in FPC). 3) There are certain special features which would need to be solved differently if using a different linker (e.g. support for direct port access). These wouldn't prevent most common uses, but they would require spending some time on their resolution too. Now back to your questions: 1) Is it possible to solve it? Yes, certainly. 2) Does the resolution require considerable amount of time? Yes, it probably does (especially if the only person working on it is me). 3) Has there been strong demand? Well, not really (although some questions already arose in the past). I don't have much time for working on this task, but I'm willing to spend some time on it as soon as I finish my current work on finally properly supporting all UnicodeString Manager functions for OS/2 (that requires some time, but it is quite simple from technical point of view). My motivation to work on the linker issue would be higher if someone else joins me in this effort. Feel free to contact me directly if you're interested. Tomas ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/17/2014 3:23 PM, Ralf Quint wrote: On 12/17/2014 12:20 PM, Sven Barth wrote: On 17.12.2014 21:08, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? There is an operating system called Linux and its very nice and modern. You should try it. You do know that you are saying this on a mailing list of a compiler that recently gained 16-bit MS-DOS support and regained m68k-amiga support? Supporting exotic platforms is one of the strong points of FPC. Not to mention that our friend probably never used or even has seen an OS/2 system... ;-) Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? Hopefully, FPC core maintainers are not distracted by the legacy support. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/17/2014 3:08 PM, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? absolutely not... it is a good OS for the jobs that it does... it isn't targeted by skiddies and hackers, either... personally speaking, my OS/2 boxen have been my front line servers for as long as i can remember... i so use linux, too, though ;) -- NOTE: No off-list assistance is given without prior approval. Please *keep mailing list traffic on the list* unless private contact is specifically requested and granted. ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 17 Dec 14, at 15:38, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: On 12/17/2014 3:23 PM, Ralf Quint wrote: On 12/17/2014 12:20 PM, Sven Barth wrote: On 17.12.2014 21:08, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? There is an operating system called Linux and its very nice and modern. You should try it. You do know that you are saying this on a mailing list of a compiler that recently gained 16-bit MS-DOS support and regained m68k-amiga support? Supporting exotic platforms is one of the strong points of FPC. Not to mention that our friend probably never used or even has seen an OS/2 system... ;-) Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? Hopefully, FPC core maintainers are not distracted by the legacy support. With all the respect to your opinions: If you want to discuss potential reasons for using various operating systems (and/or continuing support of such operating systems in FPC), I suggest that you move that discussion to fpc-other. For now, let's stick to a reminder that the whole FPC is a hobby project. Tomas ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 12/17/2014 12:38 PM, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... Thanks! What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? What ever the user wants to do! Who are you to tell other people what is a valid use case or not?!? And just for your information, OS/2 (now under the name eComStation) is still a commercially available OS (http://www.ecomstation.com/). But in your case, as good old Mr. Thomas Gray said, Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Am 17.12.2014 22:37, schrieb Ralf Quint: On 12/17/2014 12:38 PM, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... Thanks! What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? What ever the user wants to do! Who are you to tell other people what is a valid use case or not?!? And just for your information, OS/2 (now under the name eComStation) is still a commercially available OS (http://www.ecomstation.com/). I am a professional working developer, and I am still using two OS/2 development machines to build software, most of the time written in ANSI C, which is targetted in the end to other platforms like Unixes or z/OS mainframe, but OS/2 still is the development platform I like most. And I use it almost every day. The IBM compilers and debuggers etc. are superb, I also use (old versions of) Oracle and DB2 on this platform and many own - portable - libraries for XML processing, for example, and other interesting tasks. I would like to help Tomas in his efforts, but at the moment I have no time .. maybe next year. Kind regards Bernd But in your case, as good old Mr. Thomas Gray said, Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
Thanks for the use case Bernd, a fully functional population of true legacy users with working systems of OS/2 in 2014. That is a surprise. Ralf, I am not goint to tell you to do anything, but gently suggest that you chill out. On Wed, Dec 17, 2014 at 3:51 PM, Bernd Oppolzer bernd.oppol...@t-online.de wrote: Am 17.12.2014 22:37, schrieb Ralf Quint: On 12/17/2014 12:38 PM, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: Ralf, Such passion for obsolescence... Thanks! What is the use case other than a hobby and pride for OS/2 support? What ever the user wants to do! Who are you to tell other people what is a valid use case or not?!? And just for your information, OS/2 (now under the name eComStation) is still a commercially available OS (http://www.ecomstation.com/). I am a professional working developer, and I am still using two OS/2 development machines to build software, most of the time written in ANSI C, which is targetted in the end to other platforms like Unixes or z/OS mainframe, but OS/2 still is the development platform I like most. And I use it almost every day. The IBM compilers and debuggers etc. are superb, I also use (old versions of) Oracle and DB2 on this platform and many own - portable - libraries for XML processing, for example, and other interesting tasks. I would like to help Tomas in his efforts, but at the moment I have no time .. maybe next year. Kind regards Bernd But in your case, as good old Mr. Thomas Gray said, Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise. Ralf --- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. http://www.avast.com ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
Re: [fpc-devel] OS/2 and DLLs
On 17-12-14 21:08, rpzrpz...@gmail.com wrote: No disrespect, but, don't you think it is time to retire your OS/2 computer? No. I use OS/2 Linux daily and until recently OpenVMS XP also. Dave ___ fpc-devel maillist - fpc-devel@lists.freepascal.org http://lists.freepascal.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fpc-devel
