Re: xterm is a console program?

["Early Ehlinger" <early at respower dot com>]

"Karl Waclawek" <karl@waclawek.net> wrote:
> > Case one
> > 4) Double-clicked X apps should not open a command-prompt window at all.

This is rather easy to implement, as I mentioned in my thread-starting
post - simply have a WinMain that parses GetCommandLine() and then calls
main().  This could even be put into a lib file that the application links
against via makefile magic.

The only reason I haven't already done this is lack of time.

> > Case two
> > 3) *CRUCIAL PART*  The X app, being very smart, notices that it was
> > launched from a console window and attaches its text output to that very
> > same console window.  NO NEW CONSOLE IS CREATED.
> >
> > 4) Any text error messages (via printf, etc.) from the X app go to the
> > command prompt window that the X app was launched from.

Can't an X app check GetConsoleWindow()?  If it returns a value other than
NULL, do not create a Console, and attach text output to it - simply use
CreateFile with "$CONOUT" for console output, and "$CONIN" for console
input.  Granted, it can't see who actually "owns" the console, but it can
certainly attach to it.

Now, when the console isn't a console in the Windows sense (e.g., it's an
xterm), this stuff will not help and you'll need to have an IPC mechanism of
some sort to determine who the parent process is, but:

> I can do 2) but not 1), since on Windows there is no such concept
> as a parent process, so you can't find out which process is your parent
> and check if it has a console associated with it. Otherwise you could
> simply free your console when the parent didn't have one.
>
> On NT/2000 it might be possible using the NtQueryInformationProcess() API,
> which also returns the ID of the "parent" process from which the
> process inherited.

Isn't this something that cygwin1.dll could offer?  It should be a doable
task.  See

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml

Which appears to display the process tree on windows 9x and NT/2k/xp.  I
haven't tried it on 9x, since I have no 9x boxes (275 computers and not a
single one running Windows 9x :-) , but the page suggests that it will work
there.  Perhaps somebody with a downrev Windows version will take the time
to try it out and report the results back here?

An alternative solution could be to have cygwin1.dll check a special
environment variable, say "PTY_CONSOLE_HANDLE" which would be

--
-- Early Ehlinger CEO, ResPower Inc - Toll-Free : 866-737-7697
-- www.respower.com -- 500+ GHz Supercomputer Starting At USD$0.50/GHz*Hour