Re: [Dorset] OT(ish): IDL
On Tue, 2011-10-11 at 20:16 +0100, Terry Coles wrote: So how do Unix/Linux progams export their interfaces? In MS VisualStudio, I can click on a function or method and right-click to get the interface. The free desktop way of doing this is D-Bus. The interface description for your D-Bus object is written in XML: http://dbus.freedesktop.org/doc/dbus-specification.html#introspection-format and is available at runtime using the special org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable interface on the object. You can inspect running objects visually using d-feet, and even call methods on them if you like: http://live.gnome.org/DFeet/ I believe that gtk-doc can convert the D-Bus Introspection data into e.g. HTML, as in: http://www.packagekit.org/gtk-doc/PackageKit.html For libraries, GObject Introspection is also relevant to this topic: https://live.gnome.org/GObjectIntrospection It's a method for automatically creating language bindings for APIs, including documentation. Tim. */ signature.asc Description: This is a digitally signed message part -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] OT(ish): IDL
Hi Terry, On Tuesday 11 Oct 2011, Ralph Corderoy wrote: The textual IDL file would be my first thought, or are you thinking there's a way to interrogate a peer to determine the interface it offers at run-time? AIUI, the IDL file is compiled into a 'type library' which is somehow embedded into a Windows DLL or exe, so that and IDE tool can view the information. I don't do this myself, but I've watched our programmers knock up quick and dirty code, just by looking at this info. That sounds to me more like whatever is using IDL happens to provide a discovery service to enquire about the interface and not something fundamental to DCE's lower-level IDL itself. I was hoping that there would be more than just MS tools that could do this kind of thing, or at least compile an IDL file to check for errors. I'll have a look at your other links tomorrow. Another one, Samba's PIDL IDL compiler. http://wiki.wireshark.org/Pidl I did ask this quetion at a LUG Meeting recently although in a different form. I was asking if any of the IDE tools available on Linux, (eg Eclipse, KDevelop, etc) had this kind of functionality. I don't think anyone knew at the time. I've been unable to find anything in the Help or Docs for those tools, but maybe I'm searching for the wrong string. I've not used those IDEs but DCE/RPC has been unpopular on Unix since before they came along so I doubt they've the (Windows' specific?) interrogation you're after. How do Linux programmers write function calls? Purely from the Docs? Yep. The fine man pages traditionally. Supplemented by books, other source code that uses them, and the function call source itself. I wouldn't expect an IDL to be able to describe all the semantics of an interface so even if some whizzy MS GUI lets you inspect it and see what you can poke, you may only be playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] OT(ish): IDL
Ralph, Since yesterday, I've followed up on the links you provided and had 'long and meanigful' discussions with the guys who maintain the Standard. As a result, I'm a bit more clued up than I was yesterday evening. On Wednesday 12 Oct 2011, Ralph Corderoy wrote: AIUI, the IDL file is compiled into a 'type library' which is somehow embedded into a Windows DLL or exe, so that and IDE tool can view the information. I don't do this myself, but I've watched our programmers knock up quick and dirty code, just by looking at this info. That sounds to me more like whatever is using IDL happens to provide a discovery service to enquire about the interface and not something fundamental to DCE's lower-level IDL itself. I suspect that you're right. My boss Chris has always maintained that (for all their faults) MS do produce very functional development tools. This functionality was included in Visual Studio 6, which is pretty old now. I was hoping that there would be more than just MS tools that could do this kind of thing, or at least compile an IDL file to check for errors. I'll have a look at your other links tomorrow. Another one, Samba's PIDL IDL compiler. http://wiki.wireshark.org/Pidl Thanks, I've identified several IDL compilers now including one that is open source (it's a part of omniORB a CORBA toolset). I did ask this quetion at a LUG Meeting recently although in a different form. I was asking if any of the IDE tools available on Linux, (eg Eclipse, KDevelop, etc) had this kind of functionality. I don't think anyone knew at the time. I've been unable to find anything in the Help or Docs for those tools, but maybe I'm searching for the wrong string. I've not used those IDEs but DCE/RPC has been unpopular on Unix since before they came along so I doubt they've the (Windows' specific?) interrogation you're after. In fact, IDL is separate from RPC. IDL is simply about the way in which you write you API apparently. The Standard uses it so everyone has open access to the API calls, regardless of platform. How do Linux programmers write function calls? Purely from the Docs? Yep. The fine man pages traditionally. Supplemented by books, other source code that uses them, and the function call source itself. I wouldn't expect an IDL to be able to describe all the semantics of an interface so even if some whizzy MS GUI lets you inspect it and see what you can poke, you may only be playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order. Thanks. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
[Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
Paul at work (he who turns up at the Meetings) asked me if I was aware of a Terminal program in Linux that understood ANSII codes. I've never had to do this, so I said I'd ask on the list. Any ideas? -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
Hi Terry, Paul at work (he who turns up at the Meetings) asked me if I was aware of a Terminal program in Linux that understood ANSII codes. I've never had to do this, so I said I'd ask on the list. ANSI fed into DEC's VT terminals that xterm(1) copied and all the other terminal emulators since then, e.g. gnome-terminal, so xterm or similar should handle the ANSI escape sequences he needs. (I've found gnome-terminal lacking in a few but they've fixed bugs eventually.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansi_terminal Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] OT(ish): IDL
Hi Terry, In fact, IDL is separate from RPC. IDL is simply about the way in which you write you API apparently. The Standard uses it so everyone has open access to the API calls, regardless of platform. Right, it defines how data maps to bits and what functions there are that can handle it. Kind of like a platform-agnostic C header file with knobs on. ftp://ftp.samba.org/pub/unpacked/samba_4_0_test/librpc/idl/preg.idl I suspect it's something like Microsoft's DCOM that adds the introspection stuff. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
On Wednesday 12 Oct 2011, Ralph Corderoy wrote: ANSI fed into DEC's VT terminals that xterm(1) copied and all the other terminal emulators since then, e.g. gnome-terminal, so xterm or similar should handle the ANSI escape sequences he needs. (I've found gnome-terminal lacking in a few but they've fixed bugs eventually.) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ansi_terminal I'm sure he would have tried that. I may have been guitly of oversimplfying the question; I think he might be trying to talk to another device over a serial link, just as you would have done with a VT 100. Can you use gnome- terminal or xterm to do that? -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
Hi Terry, I'm sure he would have tried that. I may have been guitly of oversimplfying the question; I think he might be trying to talk to another device over a serial link, just as you would have done with a VT 100. I was going to ask if that's what he was doing but thought better of it. :-) Can you use gnome- terminal or xterm to do that? No. There's minicom(1), though it's a clone of a DOS program, seyon(1), which uses an xterm is the ANSI-handling terminal, or cu(1), which as `call Unix' is really part of UUCP but is in its own package these days because it's handy even without the rest of UUCP. Again, it just runs at the command line so that will handle the ANSI. There are others, like cutecom, but I don't know about ANSI support for those. Cheers, Ralph. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
On Wed, Oct 12 at 05:48, Terry Coles wrote: I'm sure he would have tried that. I may have been guitly of oversimplfying the question; I think he might be trying to talk to another device over a serial link, just as you would have done with a VT 100. Can you use gnome- terminal or xterm to do that? Run picocom in your xterm of choice for this. Picocom handles the serial comms and the xterm interprets the ANSI escape sequences. There is even an easy mechanism to envoke the file transfer program of your choise. Several small programs working well together, true Unix. Just spent the day configuring expect in front of such a combination, so we can now, connect to a unit, work out what baudrate it's running, at, upload three separate software files, check the hardware type and perform a different configuartion sequence for each. Automating 20 minutes of previously tedious production work. Avoid minicom, it tries to do it all, and hence does none of it well. -- Bob Dunlop -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
Thanks Bob and Ralph for the answers. I'll pass it on. -- Terry Coles 64 bit computing with Kubuntu Linux -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
On 12/10/11 16:37, Terry Coles wrote: Paul at work (he who turns up at the Meetings) asked me if I was aware of a Terminal program in Linux that understood ANSII codes. I've never had to do this, so I said I'd ask on the list. Any ideas? I have used minicom to connect to my Sun E250 server's serial port. sudo minicom -s will enter setup where you can change the setting e.g. file transfer protocols - ascii serial port setup If you want to connect to a Linux box via serial you need to enable serial console on it :- http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/linux-serial-console-howto/ John. -- -- Discover Linux - Open Source Solutions to Business and Schools http://discoverlinux.co.uk -- -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
Re: [Dorset] Terminal that can do ANSII
On 12/10/11 17:48, Terry Coles wrote: I'm sure he would have tried that. I may have been guitly of oversimplfying the question; I think he might be trying to talk to another device over a serial link, just as you would have done with a VT 100. Can you use gnome- terminal or xterm to do that? You can use GNU screen running on a terminal emulator of your choice to do that, and it works very well. -- Next meeting: Bournemouth, Tuesday 2011-11-01 20:00 Meets, Mailing list, IRC, LinkedIn, ... http://dorset.lug.org.uk/ How to Report Bugs Effectively: http://goo.gl/4Xue
