/dev/conout

[Andrew DeFaria]

On 12/18/2009 11:00 AM, Marc Girod wrote:
> defaria wrote:
>> the problem is that cleartool is written for Windows thus uses 
>> /dev/conout
> I can see /dev/conout, but what can I do with it?
I don't know. I've never tried to do anything with it.
> I found one hit in the docs:
> http://www.cygwin.com/1.7/cygwin-ug-net/using-specialnames.html
As I understand it /dev/conout is the same as the Windows CONOUT$ 
device. As such it's Windows stdout, as per se. As a Windows stdout, it 
doesn't know anything about Cygwin's POSIX implementation of ptys. So, 
in a Cygwin Windows Window (i.e. the same window that you get when you 
do a cmd window in Windows) output to /dev/conout should show up just 
find in Cygwin's stdout. Therefore a cleartool ci <file> should prompt 
you for a checkin comment.

However, if you used ptys then the output to /dev/conout, and thus to 
Cygwin's stdout, will not show up because, again, Windows CONOUT$ does 
not understand ptys. How/Why do you use ptys in Cygwin? Various ways. 
For example, if you use xterm or rxvt, you'll be using ptys. This sucks 
because I like rxvt much better than the cruddy Windows window and rxvt 
doesn't incur the overhead of an X server - it can work without it.

How else do you start using ptys? Well if you ssh to a machine, again, 
you'll be using ptys.

So I've always just used something like "cleartool ci -c 'my comment' 
<file>" or "cleartool ci -nc <file>" and if I ever do a cleartool 
command and it seems to hang the first thing I think of is "Oh I bet 
it's that pty thing".

There is another terminal emulator software called "terminal" I think, 
that runs on Windows and interacts well with Cygwin. It also allows you 
to do gnome-terminal like things like transparent backgrounds. IIRC it 
seems to run a cmd window in the background and handles this issue with 
cleartool (and, BTW cqperl's debugger) properly - well sorta properly.

I'm sorry I don't have a better reference for that terminal emulator. I 
used it at my last client. I have IM'ed a friend to ask him where he 
found it. I'll report back if I get a good reference.
-- 
Andrew DeFaria <http://defaria.com>
Attempt to get a new car for your spouse-it'll be a great trade!


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