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Differences From the Tcl Embedding Interface
The remote Tcl interface is designed to be largely compatible with the
embedded Tcl interface, so that a user GUI can be written that allows
either interfaces to be used, while sharing most of the code in both
ECLiPSe and Tcl. An example of this is the Tkeclipse development tools.
Some remote specific code would need to be written. This includes code to
handle the connection and disconnection of the Tcl and ECLiPSe sides. In
addition, the user may need to provide code to restrict the interaction
within the Tcl/Tk GUI when control is transferred to ECLiPSe. Aside from
this, the rest of the code should be reusable, if the user exercises some
care.
The supported compatible methods of communicating between Tcl and
ECLiPSe in the two interfaces is via the ec_rpc calls and the use
of the I/O queues. The ec_rpc mechanism should behave the same in
both interfaces. For the queues, there are some differences because the
queues are in-memory queues in the embedded interface, but are socket
channels in the remote interface. This leads to the following differences:
- Data will not appear on the other side until the queue is
flushed on the side that is generating the output. To make code
compatible, output queues should be always flushed.
- In general, reading data via a blocking socket requires the
size of the data to be explicitly specified, except when I/O is done
via the EXDR primitives, where size is implicitly specified. Only
EXDR format is supported when data is sent from Tcl to ECLiPSe.
That is, a write handler for a Tcl write channel must write the data
in EXDR format. For output from the ECLiPSe side, the Tcl read
handler would be supplied with the length of the output when it is
invoked, and this information must be used if the Tcl read is not
done via an EXDR primitive. However, in general it is strongly
suggested that only EXDR formatted data should be sent via the queues
in both direction.
- An I/O operation on the stream may block if there is no
handler to consume/produce the data on the other side. If a handler
is specified via the command argument, then a corresponding
handler in the Tcl side will be invoked at the correct place when the
ECLiPSe side produces output or request input.
- The channel identifier is not of the form ec_queueX. To make code portable, the name of the channel should be
obtained from the ECLiPSe stream symbolic name or number via the
commands ec_streamname_to_channel or ec_streamnum_to_channel.
- Asynchronous queues are bi-directional. In the embedding interface,
there are no asynchronous queues, and ec_async_queue_create is
aliased to ec_queue_create, and a uni-directional queue is
created. Thus for compatibility, these queues should only be used
in one direction.
In summary, to write code that will work for both the remote and embedded
interfaces, the data should be sent using EXDR format, flush always
performed, and a handler (command argument) provided. The Tcl
channel identifier should not be constructed explicitly.
However, there may be cases where the two interfaces need to be
distinguished. For example, if the Tcl side is to perform some operations
on the file system for the ECLiPSe side (e.g. selecting a file via a
GUI), then with the remote interface, the two sides might not have access
to the same file systems, and being able to distinguish whether the
interface is remote or embedded allows the user to provide code to handle
this.
To obtain information on which interface is being used, use the command:
- ec_interface_type
-
returns remote for the remote interface, and embedded for the
embedding interface.
Next: Tcl Peer Multitasking Interface
Up: Remote Tcl Interface
Previous: Example
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Warwick Harvey
2004-08-07