OSWord_ReadLine

[Tony van der Hoff]

On 2 Nov 2001, in message <200111021011.KAA05610 at inputplus.demon.co.uk>,
Ralph Corderoy <ralph at inputplus.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> 
> > OSWord_ReadLine has always been deprecated in RISC OS, but supported
> > by OSLib. Given that its restrictions make it potentially dangerous
> > in use, I now propose to make it obsolete. 
> > 
> > Similarly, OSWord_ReadGCol was made obsolete in PRM5a. I propose to
> > do similar in OSLib.
> > 
> > Do any users have a problem with either of these changes?
> 
> With a view to DefMod generating code for riscose could they be left in
> but a `deprecated' flag added to the grammar and DefMod made to skip
> them for C library generation?
> 
> Only riscose would like to implement those one day.
> 
> If you think that's a valid approach I'm happy to supply a patch.
> 

The problem has gone away in this particular instance (see thread in -user).
However, thre are other SWIs that are not implemented in OSLib for various
reasons; usually because they aren't APCS compliant, or were already
obsolete when OSLib was written, and therefore were never embodied. DefMod
declares them as ABSENT.

I believe that relying on the OSLib SWI files for riscose will, in the long
term be fraught with problems, both for you, and for us. Your problem with
MessageTrans serves to illustrate this problem. If you were to require extra
fields in the SWI files, specifically for riscose, then this would place a
maintenance burden on the OSLib developers, which is unlikely to be
acceptable. I know you haven't suggested it, but I find it difficult to
envisage a scenario where the SWI files contain elements to support riscose.
Another back-end for DefMod is maybe easier to envisage.

By all means use the SWI files, but I suggest you supplement them with
exception files for riscose. That way you'd be able to overcome the mismatch
between the two objectives.
 
-- 
Tony van der Hoff         | MailTo:tony at mk-net.demon.co.uk
                          | MailTo:avanderhoff at iee.org
Buckinghamshire, England  | http:www.mk-net.demon.co.uk