[GRASS-dev] [GRASS GIS] #1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with cmd.exe

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 5:41am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with cmd.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Making a new ticket for this as it has little to do with #1891.

the task: replace msys's rxvt.exe with Microsoft's built in conhost.exe
terminal emulator.

IIUC, conhost.exe is new for Windows7, Windows XP doesn't have it. At
least mine doesn't in C:\windows\system32. If so that's a problem, half of
the world's installed Windows systems are still running XP.

know problems with MSys's rxvt:
  - not compatible with pdcurses (e.g. r.support run from the command line,
edit categories will fail)
  - isatty() function returns false
  - ?

(I've used it a bunch and not run into any problems, so beyond the above
I'm not really seeing what all the fuss is about. what exactly about it is
buggy?)

the bug where msys converts and C: to /c/ in strings when you don't want
it to -- is that msys's rxvt or something else in their bash.exe?

since msys+rxvt is the most stable of the grass Command Line menu items
right now, I'd strongly suggest to delay replacement of it until 6.4.3 is
out the door.

thanks,
Hamish

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 5:41am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:1>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 6:14am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by hamish):

Replying to [ticket:1950 hamish]:
> IIUC, conhost.exe is new for Windows7, Windows XP doesn't have it. At
least mine
> doesn't in C:\windows\system32.

maybe it is csrss.exe there?

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:2>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 7:37am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by mmetz):

Replying to [comment:2 hamish]:
> Replying to [ticket:1950 hamish]:
> > IIUC, conhost.exe is new for Windows7, Windows XP doesn't have it. At
least mine
> > doesn't in C:\windows\system32.
>
> maybe it is csrss.exe there?

Can you test if GRASS 7 with MSYS console works for you? Because there the
MSYS console does not use rxvt and does not care about csrss.exe or
conhost.exe, it simply starts sh as a shell in msys.bat.

Markus M

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:3>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 7:52am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by hamish):

Replying to [comment:3 mmetz]:
> Can you test if GRASS 7 with MSYS console works for you?

I haven't tested it extensively, but yes, the msys bash command prompt for
grass7 wingrass works on XP.

> Because there the MSYS console does not use rxvt and does not
> care about csrss.exe or conhost.exe, it simply starts sh as a
> shell in msys.bat.

fwiw, looking in the taskman, sh.exe seems to be running in csrss.exe
there.

the existing trouble with grass6 cmd.exe Command Line mode is that shell
scripts run within shell scripts can't find them. (e.g. v.in.lines(.sh)
calling v.in.mapgen(.sh) seen in another bug report)
It's not something which is done in trunk so untested with shell scripts.
This is the class of new subtle bug I'm worried about introducing into 6.x
if we make a last minute change away from rxvt for 6.4.3 since there's
little time for testing.
In the days before release, tested>>theoretically better.

thanks,
Hamish

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:4>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 7:24pm

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by glynn):

Replying to [ticket:1950 hamish]:

> the task: replace msys's rxvt.exe with Microsoft's built in conhost.exe
terminal emulator.
>
> IIUC, conhost.exe is new for Windows7, Windows XP doesn't have it. At
least mine doesn't in C:\windows\system32. If so that's a problem, half of
the world's installed Windows systems are still running XP.

The console window was part of the csrss.exe (Client-Server Runtime Sub-
System) service prior to Windows 7.

The exact details aren't important; all versions of Windows automatically
create a console window if a "console mode" program is run without an
existing console (e.g. from a desktop icon or start menu entry).

> (I've used it a bunch and not run into any problems, so beyond the above
I'm not really seeing what all the fuss is about. what exactly about it is
buggy?)

I've found that copy+paste often caused rxvt to crash. But given that a
number of 6.x modules either use curses or modify their behaviour
depending upon whether isatty() returns true for stdin/stdout, the fact
that rxvt won't work correctly with those modules can also be considered a
bug.

> the bug where msys converts and C: to /c/ in strings when you don't want
it to -- is that msys's rxvt or something else in their bash.exe?

That's bash. And it's largely unavoidable if it's to be compatible with
scripts written for Unix.

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:5>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 7:36pm

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by glynn):

Replying to [comment:4 hamish]:

> the existing trouble with grass6 cmd.exe Command Line mode is that shell
scripts run within shell scripts can't find them. (e.g. v.in.lines(.sh)
calling v.in.mapgen(.sh) seen in another bug report)

That's because $GISBASE/scripts isn't added to PATH on Windows.

bash has its own execution mechanism; in particular, it doesn't use
PATHEXT, so you can't run a batch file without specifying the .bat or .cmd
extension. But because shell scripts don't have a .sh extension (and the
.sh extension probably isn't associated with bash anyhow), they can't just
be "executed" normally. So GRASS 6.x creates a .bat file in $GISBASE/bin
for each shell script.

This works when executing scripts via cmd.exe, system(),
subprocess.Popen(), etc, as those all use PATHEXT. But bash doesn't use
PATHEXT, so it doesn't find the .bat files, and it doesn't find the
scripts themselves because $GISBASE/scripts isn't in $PATH.

Maybe adding $GISBASE/scripts to PATH in scripts/windows_launch.bat would
work? Or it might not, as the updated PATH would be inherited by anything
run from the script; presumably there's a reason for $GISBASE/scripts
being excluded from PATH, rather than just being after $GISBASE/bin.

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:6>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 25, 2013, 10:55pm

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by mmetz):

Replying to [comment:5 glynn]:
> Replying to [ticket:1950 hamish]:
> > (I've used it a bunch and not run into any problems, so beyond the
above I'm not really seeing what all the fuss is about. what exactly about
it is buggy?)

The only fuss I see is about keeping rxvt. I don't see what all the fuss
is about. It has been settled for MSYS four years ago.

>
> I've found that copy+paste often caused rxvt to crash. But given that a
number of 6.x modules either use curses or modify their behaviour
depending upon whether isatty() returns true for stdin/stdout, the fact
that rxvt won't work correctly with those modules can also be considered a
bug.

In rxvt, copy+paste never worked for me, but since I am sometimes trying
to fix bugs for wingrass, I changed years ago to system console + sh in my
local wingrass versions.

It seems that using rxvt can be regarded as a bug. I updated msys.bat to
the official stable version (MSYS 2009) in r55996,7 for rebr64, devbr6,
respectively.

About changes and testing: this change is not in a release candidate and
far from being in an official release. A pity.

--
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:7>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 26, 2013, 12:20am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.4
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------

Comment(by hamish):

Replying to [comment:7 mmetz]:
> The only fuss I see is about keeping rxvt.

I don't care about keeping rxvt. I have no problem with replacing it if
it's for the best. What I care about is last minute untested [in 6.x]
changes in the release branch, and keeping the development team a nice
community to participate in.

> In rxvt, copy+paste never worked for me,

I've used it a lot and never had a problem with that, shrug. Just re-
tested: in rxvt highlight + middle click + external ^V in textpad works
perfectly for me (both directions), and a /lot/ less annoying than menu,
mark, menu, cut, then menu, paste in a dosbox. fwiw rxvt font size options
are nicer too..

> but since I am sometimes trying to fix bugs for wingrass, I changed
> years ago to system console + sh in my local wingrass versions.

so you've no experience with the current version and are basing your
impression on some years old thing?

> It seems that using rxvt can be regarded as a bug.

the question is if it is a serious enough problem to risk destabilizing
the one wingrass command line option in 6.x which is 99% working properly,
shortly before a public release. !@$!#@$

> I updated msys.bat to the official stable version (MSYS 2009)
> in r55996,7 for rebr64, devbr6, respectively.

thanks for respecting the "just wait a bit" requests of others... great
collaborative working environment based on mutual respect we have here.

by the way, you overwrote some local changes to the msys.bat script in
your commits. (i.e. our "%PART1%" test to see that paths with spaces were
correctly quoted, see original commit to svn + #905, #629)

> About changes and testing: this change is not in a release candidate
> and far from being in an official release. A pity.

Perhaps, but 6.4.4 doesn't have to be that far away. Shoving core stuff in
at the last minute is bad bad bad bad, no matter how innocent looking it
seems. Now we have something else to spend many hours testing, which is
annoying. --have you started that? was your local replacement+testing done
for 6.x or trunk?

I'm partly annoyed as we have a number of other major wingrass bugs to fix
before release, it's hard to get anyone to work on them, and instead we
seem to be wasting time and energy here discussing the bike shed.

thanks,
Hamish

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:8>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · April 27, 2013, 5:12pm

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
Type: task | Status: new
Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.3
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Keywords: wingrass | Platform: MSWindows 7
Cpu: All |
-----------------------+----------------------------------------------------
Changes (by mmetz):

* milestone: 6.4.4 => 6.4.3

Comment:

Replying to [comment:8 hamish]:
> Replying to [comment:7 mmetz]:
> > The only fuss I see is about keeping rxvt.
>
> I don't care about keeping rxvt. I have no problem with replacing it if
it's for the best. What I care about is last minute untested [in 6.x]
changes in the release branch,

It was you how broke translation for 16 languages in the last minute. I do
not expect to be GRASS 6.4.3rc4 to be released in the next minute.

> and keeping the development team a nice community to participate in.

?

IMHO, what counts is releasing a stable version. Soon. You prevent this.
This is, i.e you are, not nice.

>
> > In rxvt, copy+paste never worked for me,
>
> I've used it a lot and never had a problem with that, shrug.

It is safer to use the system's console window.

>
> > but since I am sometimes trying to fix bugs for wingrass, I changed
> > years ago to system console + sh in my local wingrass versions.
>
> so you've no experience with the current version and are basing your
impression on some years old thing?

Your thing is even older. Please keep the development team a nice
community and do not post provoking posts.

I understand, I will immediately update mswindows/osgeo4w/msys.bat to the
current stable version of msys. Oops, noting to update, stable since 2009.

>
> > It seems that using rxvt can be regarded as a bug.
>
> the question is if it is a serious enough problem to risk destabilizing
the one wingrass command line option in 6.x which is 99% working properly,
shortly before a public release. !@$!#@$

Stabilizing, not destabilizing.
>
> > I updated msys.bat to the official stable version (MSYS 2009)
> > in r55996,7 for rebr64, devbr6, respectively.
>
> thanks for respecting the "just wait a bit" requests of others... great
collaborative working environment based on mutual respect we have here.

The request to not use rxvt is rather old.

Why did you not "just wait a bit" before breaking translations?

>
> by the way, you overwrote some local changes to the msys.bat script in
your commits. (i.e. our "%PART1%" test to see that paths with spaces were
correctly quoted, see original commit to svn + #905, #629)

These are not local changes. The part you refer to is not even in
msys-1.0.11. Can you please provide an example where this test is needed?

>
> > About changes and testing: this change is not in a release candidate
> > and far from being in an official release. A pity.
>
> Perhaps, but 6.4.4 doesn't have to be that far away. Shoving core stuff
in at the last minute is bad bad bad bad, no matter how innocent looking
it seems. Now we have something else to spend many hours testing, which is
annoying.

> have you started that? was your local replacement+testing done for 6.x
or trunk?

I spent years testing. In trunk and relbr64. Not in debr6, because there
is no reason for the existence of devbr6. Please respond in the
appropriate thread.

> I'm partly annoyed as we have a number of other major wingrass bugs to
fix before release, it's hard to get anyone to work on them, and instead
we seem to be wasting time and energy here discussing the bike shed.

My .2c:

downgrade the osgeo4w python and wxpython versions
upgrade msys and mingw
fix grass-addons

>
>
> thanks,
> Hamish

welcome,

Markus

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:9>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>

GDAL · May 2, 2013, 10:39am

#1950: wingrass: replace rxvt with conhost.exe
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
  Reporter: hamish | Owner: grass-dev@…
      Type: task | Status: closed
  Priority: major | Milestone: 6.4.3
Component: Packaging | Version: svn-develbranch6
Resolution: fixed | Keywords: wingrass
  Platform: MSWindows 7 | Cpu: All
--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------
Changes (by hamish):

* status: new => closed
* resolution: => fixed

Comment:

Replying to [comment:8 hamish]:
> > I don't care about keeping rxvt. I have no problem with replacing
> > it if it's for the best. What I care about is last minute untested
> > [in 6.x] changes in the release branch,

Replying to [comment:9 mmetz]:
> It was you how broke translation for 16 languages in the last minute.

consider 2/400 modules with possibly untranslated descriptions. consider
also one of the main startup methods of grass about to be released with
next to ''zero'' field testing.
Which one is worth losing more sleep over?

(and again, I mean byte-for-byte in-place implementation in grass on a
widespread section of end-user systems; time is the only tool we have
against the subtle unforeseen bugs, it is unhumble of us to assume that we
can know those).

> I do not expect to be GRASS 6.4.3rc4 to be released in the next minute.

maybe not ever. straight to -final!

> > and keeping the development team a nice community to participate in.
>
> ?
>
> IMHO, what counts is releasing a stable version.

We all agree on that. The best one we can. I'm trying to throw emphasis on
the word "stable", by which I mean well tested and problems known +
understood.

> Soon. You prevent this. This is, i.e you are, not nice.

I do not apologize for filing blocker bugs for license violations or
things like cmd.exe totally and completely failing to launch. We could not
launch like that, but they are nearly fixed now so let's keep moving
forward.

If I apologize for anything it's to Martin for sending an email the other
day about using EPSG codes, which came out harsher than I meant it to for
something still in early development.

But for reporting new bugs? No way.

> Please keep the development team a nice community and do not post
provoking posts.

What pissed me off is this: I asked to please wait for a bit before
committing. You ignored and committed immediately anyway. So yeah,
"thanks".
That is no way for us to do business.

> Why did you not "just wait a bit" before breaking translations?

no one asked for a strings-freeze AFAIK, if there was I missed it.

> > by the way, you overwrote some local changes to the msys.bat script in
your
> > commits. (i.e. our "%PART1%" test to see that paths with spaces were
correctly
> > quoted, see original commit to svn + #905, #629)
>
> These are not local changes. The part you refer to is not even in
msys-1.0.11.

the missing piece between the two antithetical sentences above are the
patches I wrote and submitted to the msys bug system on sourceforge. for
us as long as nothing changes and the quoting stays fixed it doesn't
matter,
http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.comp.gis.grass.devel/37771/focus=37847

> My .2c:
>
> downgrade the osgeo4w python and wxpython versions

what's the bug? news to me. ticket #?

> upgrade msys and mingw

what's missing/broken in the current one? ticket #?

> fix grass-addons

where/what? OSX?

anyway this one is done, let's move on.

Hamish

--
Ticket URL: <https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1950#comment:10>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>