Re: Questions about converting apps to cygwin

["Max Bowsher" <maxb at ukf dot net>]

Chris wrote:
> Hello!
>
> For experience (and because I want to use it) I am in the process of
> converting the "bsdiff" binary diffing application to windows from *BSD,
and
> thought I would come via cygwin, and then decide if I should move to fully
> windows.
>
> A couple of questions about converting apps..
>
> 1) Cygwin seems to lack err.h (the "standard" err.h, not the one in
openssl)
> which I've seen in quite a lot of applications. It is fairly easy to stub
> around but still annoying it's not there. Is there some reason this isn't
in
> the stdlib? could it be copied there from another GPL/BSDed standary C
> library? Could I even write one? :)

Don't assume we know what this is. Explain, or point to a reference.
By the way, Cygwin's C library is newlib, so if this is a C library change,
you would have to submit it to the newlib project, and it would
automatically appear in Cygwin once it was accepted into newlib.

> 2) If I set up a pipe between two applications, there seems to be limit to
> how much I can send through it in one go, I'm not sure what the limit is
but
> under linux / bsd I regularily send through 13MB arrays in one go. However
I
> can send through 13MB without reading if I just knock it through in 10K
> sections. Is there a fixed upper limit? Any chance of it being upped
higher?

Don't know.

> 3) Disconnected from this.. cygwin doesn't seem to have ?spell (aspell,
> ispell). I've compiled both aspell and ispell and they require very little
> alteration.. is it simply a case of no-one wants to look after them? or a
> lack of languages / nice setup program?

See cygwin-apps@ archives. Aspell packages are in the pipeline.

> 4) Finally, a notational issue :) In my application I use bzipped files.
The
> program currently forks, runs bzip externally, and then reads / writes to
> it. The other alternative is to use the bzip library. Is there one of
these
> which is more "cygwinny"? :)

Either really, I would guess that performance would be better using the
library.

> Thank you for any help and advice!

You're welcome,



Max.


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