From: Shea Martin <null@...0>
Date: 2005-10-14T01:16:54+09:00
Subject: Re: threading in win32

Ara.T.Howard wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Oct 2005, Shea Martin wrote:
> 
>>>> Only version 1 allows teh gui to remain responsive.  Unfortunately 
>>>> it does not capture the output of the copy command.  I would like to 
>>>> something with a fork, though win32 ruby does not seem to support it.
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> i think reading from pipes should not block the whole process in 
>>> windows, at
>>> least this works fine on my win system:
>>>
>>>   Thread::abort_on_exception = true
>>>   t = Thread::new{ IO::popen("tree c:").read }
>>>   (4 << 2).times{ p 42; sleep 0.42 }
>>>   puts t.value
>>>
>>> does it work on yours?
>>>
>>> perhaps you need something like
>>>
>>>   #version 4
>>>   def runCommand( cmd )
>>>     Thread::new do
>>>       IO::popen("#{ cmd 2>&1 }"){|pipe| pipe.each{|line| addText line}}
>>>     end
>>>   end
>>>
>>> which is to say spawn the thread and let it go.  you'll need to 
>>> prevent two
>>> commands being run at once too...
>>>
>>> hth.
>>>
>>> -a
>>
>>
>>
>> Everything works for fine when cmd = "tree C:\ /F". The text area is 
>> updating, with gobs of output, and I can still use the scroll bars, etc.
>> But when cmd = "copy /Y 1GB_FILE.BIG BAK_1GB_FILE.BIG", the problem 
>> occurrs. Scrollbars don't work, etc. I guess this must be a windows 
>> limitation.  This is a 3.2 GHz machine with H/T enabled, and 2GB of 
>> RAM, so I don't think it is a h/w limitation (though it is only IDE).  
>> Also, if I use the system( cmd ), version it does not happen, and it 
>> does not happen if I just copy the file (manually) while running the 
>> gui.  I'll have to try it when I get home tonight on my solaris and 
>> linux boxen.
>>
>> What happens when you try cmd = "copy /Y 1GB_FILE.BIG BAK_1GB_FILE.BIG"?
> 
> 
> it hangs.  but this is no fault of ruby - it is some crappy detail of copy
> and/or the way windows interacts with it.  for instance, this program 
> manages
> to copy huge files just fine while background threads/processes continue to
> run, new ones can be started, and the gui works all the while:
> 
>     require "tk"
>     require "fileutils"
> 
>     gb = 2 ** 30
>     mb = 2 ** 20
>     kb = 2 ** 10
> 
>     unless test ?e, 'gb'
>       puts "writing file 'gb'. be patient..."
>       buf = "\0" * mb
>       open('gb', 'w'){|f| kb.times{ f.write buf }}
>       puts "wrote 'gb'"
>     end
> 

This works, but my problem is I was using 'copy' as an example, b/c I 
was pretty sure you would have that command.

The actual command is xbcp which is xbox copy.  It comes with 
Microsoft's Xbox development software, and is to copy files to a 
microsft xbox debug machine.  I don't know what the protocol used is, so 
I am kind of locked into the command.  I suspect, that it is ftp or 
samba, but I am getting OT.

Your point a good one, and I guess someday when I have more time, I will 
look into implementing xbcp in ruby.  (Should be easy if protocol is 
indeed FTP).

Thanks for your help, it is much appreciated.

~S