[phobos] Removing std.stdio.File.popen()

[Lars Tandle Kyllingstad]

Basically because you want to know what you're piping to another
process.  Say you read a file up to some point, and want to pass the
rest of it through a pipe.  That won't work if you use File, because you
don't know what has already been buffered, and what's left in the
stream.

I was originally using File, but after Steve pointed out the problem
above we decided to add an UnbufferedFile type.  Hopefully, it will find
other uses as well -- perhaps, at some point, we can even build a new
buffered File on top of it.

The current API for UnbufferedFile is here, if anyone is wondering:

  http://www.kyllingen.net/code/ltk/doc/stdio.html

-Lars



On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 12:20 -0500, Andrei Alexandrescu wrote:
> I also like ltk process quite a bit. One q - why the need for a special 
> type UnbufferedFile?
> 
> Andrei
> 
> David Simcha wrote:
> > This looks terrific.  I've always found the old std.process to be way 
> > underpowered, especially on Windows.  Does your statement about 
> > cross-platformness imply that Windows will eventually be supported, too?
> > 
> > On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 9:20 AM, Lars Tandle Kyllingstad 
> > <lars at kyllingen.net <mailto:lars at kyllingen.net>> wrote:
> > 
> >     On Mon, 2010-08-16 at 09:04 -0400, Adam Ruppe wrote:
> >      > I actually use it (which is why I duplicated your bug), but am OK
> >     with
> >      > removing it, since it is easy enough to get at anyway. For a while, I
> >      > did a separate extern(C) for pclose anyway!
> >      >
> >      > However, I don't think something being POSIX only is a good reason to
> >      > remove something. D should take advantages of whatever platform it is
> >      > on. Portability is good when you can have it, but it shouldn't be a
> >      > function killer alone.
> > 
> >     Two comments:
> > 
> >     1. I disagree with you. :)  I think that Phobos' user-visible interface
> >     should be completely platform agnostic.  Code that depends only on
> >     Phobos should compile and run on any platform.
> > 
> >     2. Steve and I have been working on a new version of std.process, which
> >     will at some point, hopefully, obviate the need for popen().  See
> >     pipeProcess() here:
> > 
> >      http://www.kyllingen.net/code/ltk/doc/process.html
> > 
> >     The POSIX implementation is more or less complete, but its inclusion in
> >     Phobos is currently being blocked by bug 3979.  Also, Steve has run into
> >     some very tricky issues with pipes on Windows, fundamentally caused by
> >     D's dependence on the DMC runtime.  I don't know how (or if) that is
> >     working out.
> > 
> >     -Lars
> > 
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