Re: [libmicrohttpd] Remove PlibC from autotools files

[Christian Grothoff]

On 08/07/13 10:43, LRN wrote:
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> PLibc does a few things.
> Until yesterday, it provided a compliant printf/scanf implementation.
> Well, now it doesn't (on my machine).
>
> Also, it provides:
> * ctime() and ctime_r() that work on W32
> * Utility functions for converting W32 error codes to errno values
> * flock() that works on W32 (never tested that one though)
> * gmtime_r() that works on W32 (borrowed from GNU libc)
> * hsearch() and hsearch_r()
> * inet_ntop() and inet_pton() that work on any version of Windows (not
> just Vista and later)
> * kill() that works on W32 somewhat (only for process termination)
> * partial nl_langinfo() implementation for W32
> * lsearch() and lfind()
> * mkstemp ()
> * mmap () and munmap() that work on W32 somewhat (not very
> POSIX-compliant though)
> * some not-very-good pipe() and mkfifo() implementations
> * string conversion (utf-8 to local and back) functions that do not
> depend on libiconv (W32-only, obviously)
> * rudimental symlink support (using shortcuts, ugh!) and realpath()
> implementation based on that
> * getaddrinfo(), getnameinfo() and freeaddrinfo(), apparently
> independent of Windows version
> * statfs() that works on W32 (with obvious limitations)
> * a (presumably) fast strcasestr() implementation
> * a strerror() implementation
> * strndup() and strnlen() for W32 (well, for mingw.org; mingw-w64 has
> strnlen for sure; not sure about strndup())
> * strptime() from GNU libc
> * tsearch()
> * rudimental POSIX path support (knows how to expand ~, /tmp, /dev/null,
> /etc, /com, /var and any /-starting path, infers root directory from dll
> path or from a special registry value - i don't like it, but it's a
> valid implementation)
>
> And most importantly:
> * utf-8 everywhere
> * single integer fd space and select() that works with it (the integer
> fd space is prone to conflicts though, and select() is suboptimal. IMO,
> this is the weakest part of plibc)
>
> Does any of that apply to libmicrohttpd?

Some of it does, some does not.  The question is, which of these do we 
use for which there is also no variant available on the relevant 
w32-variants.  I cannot tell, hence I floated the patch to see how bad 
things would break ;-).

> I did notice that you've bumped
> minimal W32 version to Vista, sidestepping the inet_{ntop,pton}()
> problem.

Well, I saw that as a temporary hack for that one binary, which might 
not be useful to begin with and could thus be easily eliminated entirely.

> What about utf-8? Does MHD use open, close, readdir on disk files?

MHD never opens files.

> The select thing is probably the worst (if you compare to GNUnet
> implementation), but also the most useful for MHD. Without it you won't
> be able to select on sockets and pipes in one call.

Michael seemed to suggest that with his patch things would still work; 
obviously, without select on pipes, they won't.  Michael, did you test 
MHD with your patches first?  You wrote they worked on XP...

Happy hacking!

-Christian