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

[Trent Jarvi]

On Mon, 14 Jul 2003, Dalibor Topic wrote:

> 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.
> 

There should also be minimal support for printer ports on w32 also.

We'd be more than willing to work with Classpath and or Kaffe to get this
working. RXTX 2.1 implements CommAPI from the top down but is in package
gnu.io to avoid confusion with Sun's impementation.

RXTX 2.0 implements the lower portion of CommAPI and could be made to work 
with the upper portion offered in Kaffe.  The Kaffe shell classes did look 
acceptable when I read through them.

--
Trent Jarvi