Re: AS/400 client -- LINUX5250

James David Rich wrote:

> On Tue, 12 Dec 2000, Scott Klement wrote:
> 
>> In what way is the Linux tn5250 "not reliable"?  If you've found something
>> wrong with it, please let us know so it can be fixed...
>> 
>> If people don't report their problems, how are we to ever fix them?
> 
> 
> Good point.  I have put off sending a bug report because I haven't had
> time to make a tracefile (and still don't have one - sorry).  tn5250
> occasionally crashes when I do STRPASTHR.  It may be important that upon
> connecting the system displays a message such "Display type not
> recognized.  Function limited."  I get the same message occasionally when
> I use an IBM Infowindow II, so I don't think it has anything to do with
> tn5250.  tn5250 usually dies when I use a program that has windows (I mean
> DDS defined windows here - not some non-AS/400 window).
> 
> Other than that tn5250 is perfectly stable.  Note that this problem was
> with 0.16.0-pre2.  So far I haven't tried with 0.16.0.
> 
> As a side note:  how about changing it to accept GNU-style long options?
> tn5250 -v or tn5250 --version is more common than tn5250 -version, I
> believe.  Similarly, tn5250 -u or tn5250 --underscores is probably more
> standard wasy of indicating options.

I tried to make the syntax as similar to GNU-style long options as 
possible.  The problem is that the option needs to indicate whether or 
not it has an argument, as the 5250 emulator may not understand the 
option and have to pass it to one of the other modular pieces, like the 
terminal driver or the stream driver.

For example, with the following:

tn5250 --underscores SOMEHOST

is `SOMEHOST' a parameter to `--underscores' or a separate command-line 
argument?  The --underscores option is handled by the curses terminal 
driver, and since we now have three terminal drivers, I'd like the main 
code to not require modifications for the terminal drivers or the stream 
drivers.  This is especially true since we'll probably need a lot of 
configuration for any future HTML-based front-end (terminal driver) and 
for a future SSL stream driver.   The SSL driver may have to be 
distributed separately, maybe as a loadable module. (Even with the 
lessened US export regulations, there are some hooks...)

An alternative would be to do something like this:

--underscores            (turn option on)
--underscores=off    (turn option off)
--env.TERM=IBMxxxx  (set option to arbitrary value).

But then, `tn5250 --underscores off' wouldn't work, or `tn5250 
--env.TERM IBMxxxx' wouldn't either.

> 
> James Rich
> james@eaerich.com
> 
-Jay 'Eraserhead' Felice

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