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From: geert@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl (Geert Bosch)
Subject: Re: Standard libraries (Was: Environment variables)
Date: 1996/11/17
Message-ID: <56n7p5$7co@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 197094700
references: <55819q$mql@newslink.runet.edu> <DEMER.96Oct30135844@cdfsun03>
 <327A32A3.2DD0@itg-sepg.logicon.com> <1996Nov2.173625.1@eisner>
 <55kmb1$3m6@top.mitre.org> <dewar.847807475@merv>
 <56do9g$1v5@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl> <dewar.847974341@merv>
 <56kocf$65k@fozzie.sun3.iaf.nl> <dewar.848203014@merv>
organization: La Calandre Infortunee
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-11-17T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


Robert Dewar (dewar@merv.cs.nyu.edu) wrote:
  "Well it is POSIX specific rather than Unix specific, many non-Unix
   systems have promised Posix compliance (including incidentally at
   one point OS/2).  Certainly for example NT provides POSIX compliance
   and so does VMS."

I wasn't saying that it is not possible to have a POSIX-layer
(I called it POSIX-emulation) on different platforms, just that the
abstraction used is not very usable. It is just backwards to use 
very specific Unix calls which do not represent what you really want
to do and then have an emulation layer to translate the very specific
call to the more simple call that the underlying system provides.

For Ada it would be preferable to have simple extensions that use
the current standard library as a basis. Named pipes between processes
would be established by implementing a special File_Type that
can be be used as Ada.Streams.Root_Stream_Type'Class. There is a
reason that this is suggested in RM95 13.13(1). Certainly using the
Unix API standardized by POSIX is not EXACTLY the same.

Regards,
   Geert

PS. It would be straightforward to port forest to OS/2, as much as it
    is straightforward to post most Unix applications to OS/2.
-- 
E-Mail: geert@sun3.iaf.nl