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Subject: Re: How to detect OS type and version?
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From: Ray Blaak <rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net>
Organization: The Transcend
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Date: Tue, 18 Oct 2005 16:58:45 GMT
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Date: 2005-10-18T16:58:45+00:00
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Pascal Obry <pascal@obry.net> writes:
> Agreed, all this is a configuration management problem. It is far better
> in my view to have some kind of script that configure the software
> before compilation. This script will check the OS for example and use
> the proper bodies for some of the OS specific packages. This is exactly
> was the ./configure & make does on most software. I think it is wrong to
> try doing that with the language itself. As pointed out there it can
> work in some very simple case but it won't generally.

In languages like Ada that tend to need to be separately compiled for the
target OS, this is reasonable.

In languages that can portably run "anywhere", like Java in particular, some
sort of runtime query is needed, since the code is built once but executed in
multiple environments.

And then there is the case of ports of Ada to the JVM, so that Ada apps can in
fact run in multiple environments as well.

-- 
Cheers,                                        The Rhythm is around me,
                                               The Rhythm has control.
Ray Blaak                                      The Rhythm is inside me,
rAYblaaK@STRIPCAPStelus.net                    The Rhythm has my soul.