From p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk  Mon Mar 23 23:36:01 1998
From: p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk (Peter Dalgaard BSA)
Date: 24 Mar 1998 00:36:01 +0100
Subject: R-beta: R with gnuwin32
In-Reply-To: Thomas Lumley's message of Mon, 23 Mar 1998 13:31:55 -0800 (PST)
References: <Pine.SUN.3.95.980323132457.18565B-100000@chekov>
Message-ID: <x2d8fdgeu6.fsf@blueberry.kubism.ku.dk>

Thomas Lumley <thomas@biostat.washington.edu> writes:

> 
> 
> There has been some talk about missing header files for compiling the
> windows stuff under gcc .  A company called Willows (www.willows.com) 
> produces a set of tools for porting Windows programs to other platforms,
> including the necessary header files, all under the GNU LGPL.  This might
> have the files we need (I don't know enough about the problem to tell for
> sure).
> 
> 	-thomas

These were checked out by someone on the Gnuwin32 list a couple of
weeks ago and were found inadequate. I also tried them myself without
luck at some point.

Basically, every time you try to lift header files off of another
package in this game you find that they are incompatible in some
*other* aspect and cause your programs to get burnt to cinders in an
astounding flurry of error messages...

As I understand Guido M's work, he's filled in the few gaps necessary
to get the current R/Windows functions to run by inserting the
relevant definitions by hand. I think most of these definitions are
already in *some* freeware toolkit, so they're not likely to cause
legal trouble (and the possibility of copyrighting the information
that WM_DDE_FIRST is 0x03E0 etc., is dubious in the first place). I
haven't gotten around to looking at the details (today was crazy
enough already!) but I expect that what he's done already should make
it possible to do what we want as far as current sources are
concerned. Trouble may arise as we try to improve the Win32 functions,
though.

There are two obvious pathways to proceed along in that case:

1) Figure out exactly what you *can* do with the gnu headers and use
that. Obviously requires knowledge of the Win32 API.

2) Use a portable toolkit. V, wxWindows, Tcl/Tk, with the latter
appealing quite a bit to me as I've already indicated on a number of
occasions.

-- 
   O__  ---- Peter Dalgaard             Blegdamsvej 3  
  c/ /'_ --- Dept. of Biostatistics     2200 Cph. N   
 (*) \(*) -- University of Copenhagen   Denmark      Ph: (+45) 35327918
~~~~~~~~~~ - (p.dalgaard@biostat.ku.dk)             FAX: (+45) 35327907

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R-beta: R with gnuwin32
Peter Dalgaard BSA