Return to README.win32 CVS log

Up to [local] / OpenXM_contrib / gc

Annotation of OpenXM_contrib/gc/README.win32, Revision 1.1

1.1     ! maekawa     1: The collector has only been compiled under Windows NT, with the
        !             2: original Microsoft SDK, with Visual C++ 2.0 and later, with
        !             3: the GNU win32 environment, with Borland 4.5, and recently with
        !             4: Watcom C.
        !             5:
        !             6: It runs under both win32s and win32, but with different semantics.
        !             7: Under win32, all writable pages outside of the heaps and stack are
        !             8: scanned for roots.  Thus the collector sees pointers in DLL data
        !             9: segments.  Under win32s, only the main data segment is scanned.
        !            10: (The main data segment should always be scanned.  Under some
        !            11: versions of win32s, other regions may also be scanned.)
        !            12: Thus all accessible objects should be accessible from local variables
        !            13: or variables in the main data segment.  Alternatively, other data
        !            14: segments (e.g. in DLLs) may be registered with the collector by
        !            15: calling GC_init() and then GC_register_root_section(a), where
        !            16: a is the address of some variable inside the data segment.  (Duplicate
        !            17: registrations are ignored, but not terribly quickly.)
        !            18:
        !            19: (There are two reasons for this.  We didn't want to see many 16:16
        !            20: pointers.  And the VirtualQuery call has different semantics under
        !            21: the two systems, and under different versions of win32s.)
        !            22:
        !            23: The collector test program "gctest" is linked as a GUI application,
        !            24: but does not open any windows.  Its output appears in the file
        !            25: "gc.log".  It may be started from the file manager.  The hour glass
        !            26: cursor will appear as long as it's running.  If it is started from the
        !            27: command line, it will usually run in the background.  Wait a few
        !            28: minutes (a few seconds on a modern machine) before you check the output.
        !            29: You should see either a failure indication or a "Collector appears to
        !            30: work" message.
        !            31:
        !            32: The cord test program has not been ported (but should port
        !            33: easily).  A toy editor (cord/de.exe) based on cords (heavyweight
        !            34: strings represented as trees) has been ported and is included.
        !            35: It runs fine under either win32 or win32S.  It serves as an example
        !            36: of a true Windows application, except that it was written by a
        !            37: nonexpert Windows programmer.  (There are some peculiarities
        !            38: in the way files are displayed.  The <cr> is displayed explicitly
        !            39: for standard DOS text files.  As in the UNIX version, control
        !            40: characters are displayed explicitly, but in this case as red text.
        !            41: This may be suboptimal for some tastes and/or sets of default
        !            42: window colors.)
        !            43:
        !            44: For Microsoft development tools, rename NT_MAKEFILE as
        !            45: MAKEFILE.  (Make sure that the CPU environment variable is defined
        !            46: to be i386.)
        !            47:
        !            48: For GNU-win32, use the regular makefile, possibly after uncommenting
        !            49: the line "include Makefile.DLLs".  The latter should be necessary only
        !            50: if you want to package the collector as a DLL.  The GNU-win32 port is
        !            51: believed to work only for b18, not b19, probably dues to linker changes
        !            52: in b19.  This is probably fixable with a different definition of
        !            53: DATASTART and DATAEND in gcconfig.h.
        !            54:
        !            55: For Borland tools, use BCC_MAKEFILE.  Note that
        !            56: Borland's compiler defaults to 1 byte alignment in structures (-a1),
        !            57: whereas Visual C++ appears to default to 8 byte alignment (/Zp8).
        !            58: The garbage collector in its default configuration EXPECTS AT
        !            59: LEAST 4 BYTE ALIGNMENT.  Thus the BORLAND DEFAULT MUST
        !            60: BE OVERRIDDEN.  (In my opinion, it should usually be anyway.
        !            61: I expect that -a1 introduces major performance penalties on a
        !            62: 486 or Pentium.)  Note that this changes structure layouts.  (As a last
        !            63: resort, gcconfig.h can be changed to allow 1 byte alignment.  But
        !            64: this has significant negative performance implications.)
        !            65: The Makefile is set up to assume Borland 4.5.  If you have another
        !            66: version, change the line near the top.  By default, it does not
        !            67: require the assembler.  If you do have the assembler, I recommend
        !            68: removing the -DUSE_GENERIC.
        !            69:
        !            70: Incremental collection support was recently added.  This is
        !            71: currently pretty simpleminded.  Pages are protected.  Protection
        !            72: faults are caught by a handler installed at the bottom of the handler
        !            73: stack.  This is both slow and interacts poorly with a debugger.
        !            74: Whenever possible, I recommend adding a call to
        !            75: GC_enable_incremental at the last possible moment, after most
        !            76: debugging is complete.  Unlike the UNIX versions, no system
        !            77: calls are wrapped by the collector itself.  It may be necessary
        !            78: to wrap ReadFile calls that use a buffer in the heap, so that the
        !            79: call does not encounter a protection fault while it's running.
        !            80: (As usual, none of this is an issue unless GC_enable_incremental
        !            81: is called.)
        !            82:
        !            83: Note that incremental collection is disabled with -DSMALL_CONFIG,
        !            84: which is the default for win32.  If you need incremental collection,
        !            85: undefine SMALL_CONFIG.
        !            86:
        !            87: Incremental collection is not supported under win32s, and it may not
        !            88: be possible to do so.  However, win32 applications that attempt to use
        !            89: incremental collection should continue to run, since the
        !            90: collector detects if it's running under win32s and turns calls to
        !            91: GC_enable_incremental() into noops.
        !            92:
        !            93: James Clark has contributed the necessary code to support win32 threads.
        !            94: This code is known to exhibit some problems with incremental collection
        !            95: enabled.  Use NT_THREADS_MAKEFILE (a.k.a gc.mak) instead of NT_MAKEFILE
        !            96: to build this version.  Note that this requires some files whose names
        !            97: are more than 8 + 3 characters long.  Thus you should unpack the tar file
        !            98: so that long file names are preserved.  To build the garbage collector
        !            99: test with VC++ from the command line, use
        !           100:
        !           101: nmake /F ".\gc.mak" CFG="gctest - Win32 Release"
        !           102:
        !           103: This requires that the subdirectory gctest\Release exist.
        !           104: The test program and DLL will reside in the Release directory.
        !           105:
        !           106: This version relies on the collector residing in a dll.
        !           107:
        !           108: This version currently supports incremental collection only if it is
        !           109: enabled before any additional threads are created.
        !           110: Version 4.13 attempts to fix some of the earlier problems, but there
        !           111: may be other issues.  If you need solid support for win32 threads, you
        !           112: might check with Geodesic Systems.  Their collector must be licensed,
        !           113: but they have invested far more time in win32-specific issues.
        !           114:
        !           115: Hans
        !           116:
        !           117: Ivan V. Demakov's README for the Watcom port:
        !           118:
        !           119: The collector has been compiled with Watcom C 10.6 and 11.0.
        !           120: It runs under win32, win32s, and even under msdos with dos4gw
        !           121: dos-extender. It should also run under OS/2, though this isn't
        !           122: tested. Under win32 the collector can be built either as dll
        !           123: or as static library.
        !           124:
        !           125: Note that all compilations were done under Windows 95 or NT.
        !           126: For unknown reason compiling under Windows 3.11 for NT (one
        !           127: attempt has been made) leads to broken executables.
        !           128:
        !           129: Incremental collection is not supported.
        !           130:
        !           131: cord is not ported.
        !           132:
        !           133: Before compiling you may need to edit WCC_MAKEFILE to set target
        !           134: platform, library type (dynamic or static), calling conventions, and
        !           135: optimization options.
        !           136:
        !           137: To compile the collector and testing programs use the command:
        !           138:     wmake -f WCC_MAKEFILE
        !           139:
        !           140: All programs using gc should be compiled with 4-byte alignment.
        !           141: For further explanations on this see comments about Borland.
        !           142:
        !           143: If gc compiled as dll, the macro ``GC_DLL'' should be defined before
        !           144: including "gc.h" (for example, with -DGC_DLL compiler option). It's
        !           145: important, otherwise resulting programs will not run.
        !           146:
        !           147: Ivan Demakov (email: ivan@tgrad.nsk.su)
        !           148:
        !           149: