From: Hal Fulton <hal9000@...>
Date: 2003-09-01T03:51:49+09:00
Subject: Re: ruby for IBM terminal emulation

daz wrote:
> "{ vidya }" <vidu108@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> 
>>hi,
>>
>>I am not sure if this is the right address to send my question ..so.. !
>>
>>Is Ruby language a good choice for a terminal emulation software with
>>an IBM mainframe ?
>>i have to convert and port a terminal emulator currently in "C" lang
>>for communicating with the IBM mainframe.
>>It is in the MSWindows OS platform  and i want to port it to the
>>Gnu/Linux OS platform but will it work if the client has another OS/s?
>>Would Ruby be a better option to C++ ?
>>thanks for your time,
>>
> 
> 
> 
> I'd guess that your "C" program is making use of the getch() function
> (directy or indirectly).
> Because this isn't available with all compilers, Ruby uses getchar()
> which, under Win32, gets too much "help" from DOS (e.g. DOS echoes
> the characters as you type but doesn't return the input until getchar()
> sees end-of-line).  I don't know *nix but I'm fairly sure this problem
> isn't there.
> 
> So, a compiled-for-Win32 Ruby interpreter has this anomaly built-in.

Hmm, I think if you "grab" a character you don't get an echo.

> You can work-around by checking the Ruby platform in a script and calling
> Win32API but then you haven't got one script that will work for all.

This might be acceptable for him. Is Win32API a part of the
standard Ruby distribution on Windows? If so, the difference
should be imperceptible to the user.

Hal