Implementing javax.comm for free software java implementations (Was: Re: [kaffe] Notes on kaffe (GNU Classpath integration) todo items)

[Dalibor Topic]

Hi Chris,

I've CC:ed Trent Jarvi, the maintainer of rxtx, see http://www.rxtx.org 
for more information about it.

Chris Gray wrote:
> On Monday 14 July 2003 00:11, Mark Wielaard wrote:
> 
> 
>>- javax.comm stuff
>>  - Kaffe has incomplete stubs
>>  - There is the rxtx (sp?) project which has been usable.
>>    (Check kaffe mailinglist archives)
>>    They have ported to lots of platforms
>>  - Wonka also has a implementation... (Status?)
> 
> 
> Wonka implementation status:
>   [+] works, tested in a number of real-life situations. Uses async i/o on 
> Linux.
>   [-] ugly as hell: hard-coded data structures for 4 serial ports, giant 
> switch statements, etc. Uses Wonka Native Interface (WNI), would need porting 
> to JNI (but this is not hard).
> 
> For a project I'm working on currently it could be interesting to either 
> convert the current Wonka implementation to JNI or switch to rxtx. Has anyone 
> out there anyhing good or bad to say about rxtx?

For kaffe it would be nice to use rxtx, since

* we had it nicely running under kaffe 
http://www.kaffe.org/pipermail/kaffe/2003-April/029251.html

* it is supposed to be quite portable

The following OS's should have full Serial Commapi Serial Support:

	mingw32 (windows 9* NT*)  (no printer support)
	WinCE (no printer support)
	Solaris 2.x (*-*-solaris2*) x86 and sparc
	Linux ELF (*-*-linux*, except aout, coff, and oldld)
	FreeBSD 3.x 4.x (*-*-freebsd2*, *-*-freebsd3*)
	Mac OS X
	HP-UX 10.x (*-*-hpux10*)
	SCO OpenServer 5.x (*-*-sco3.2v5*) (there may be recent breakage)
	UnixWare
	Digital/UNIX

* it appears to be in widespread use in different projects.

* it can be 'plugged in' into Sun's javax.comm implementation.

On the negative side:
* it needs someone to write the java part of javax.comm (which wonka 
already has working, kaffe has a GPLd implementation of unknown quality).

* We don't have anyone from rxtx on Classpath's or Kaffe's mailing 
lists, so there is a communication gap.

cheers,
dalibor topic