Re: [gnugo-devel] Windows on desktops and Pocket PCs

[Paul Pogonyshev]

Arend wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Dec 2004, Paul Pogonyshev wrote:
> > If you remember, we had mails from Vadim Lyakhovsky who ported
> > GNU Go to Pocket PC (with Windows CE.)  This was the reason I
> > implemented socket support in GNU Go: there are no pipes on
> > Pocket PC, so we planned to extend socket support to Windows
> > and allow him to compile GNU Go with no or less changes.
> >
> > Recently he got time for it again.  From his tests he concluded
> > that the current method of socket support in GNU Go cannot be
> > ported to Windows, neither Pocket PC nor even desktop versions.
> > He claims that it is impossible to access sockets using normal
> > stream IO functions (fputs(), fgets(), printf() and the like.)
> >
> > So he proposed that we completely replace those functions in
> > GNU Go to something like gg_fputs() etc.  On POSIX systems,
>
> I don't quite understand the problem. Does he want to connect to GNU Go
> via GTP? If so, wouldn't it be sufficient to change gtp.c?

Yes, sorry.  The patch would have about the same scope as adding
support for sockets on POSIX systems (which added `gtp_output_file'.)
However, in this case we'll have to abandon unconditional use of
`stdio.h' functions in every place that now uses `gtp_output_file',
which is not limited to `gtp.c' and `play_gtp.c'.

Well, actually this looks less drastical a change than I firstly
described.  If nobody minds, I'll start working on this.

> When I searched about these things for the GTP FAQ, I concluded that
> Named pipes or TCP/IP would be the natural option under Windows. Doesn't
> this work for Pocket PCs? Or was my conclusion wrong?

He's using TCP/IP sockets.  However, he claims that under Windows one
cannot use sockets just like every other file.  You have to use recv()
and send() or something.  (Well, you knew that Windows sucked before too,
right?)

Paul