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Re: /dev/conout


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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