[Python-Dev] Status of MS Windows CE port

[Ulrich Eckhardt]

On Wednesday 24 September 2008, Neal Norwitz wrote:
> In general, we try to ensure that there is an active maintainer,
> preferably more than one.  As long as it doesn't make the code that
> much harder to maintain, it is desirable to support more platforms.

Actually, looking at the sources, there are several places where even existing 
win32 ports would benefit. There are four main differences between CE and the 
desktop variants:
1. TCHAR is always WCHAR
2. some APIs are missing
3. the vendor-supplied C or C++ stdlibs are rather minimal
4. you always cross-compile

The first point is interesting to the desktop win32 variants because 
everything since NT4 (or even 3.x) also used UCS2 or UTF-16 internally. Only 
win9x and ME(?) use 8-bit chars, and since support for them is being dropped, 
this would save a few conversions while allowing better Unicode support. I 
think getting Python to compile with _UNICODE #defined will be my first step.

The second point is mainly about features that don't exist like a current 
directory for a process or environment variables. Some other APIs don't 
support all parameters or similar differences. This should be rather easy to 
do.

The third means that functions like e.g. system() are simply not available in 
the supplied C API. If the functionality itself exists, it can be built on 
top of the win32 API. There might be a few cases where the desktop variants 
would benefit from one less adaption layer, too.

The last one only affects the build system and possibly the integration of 
unit testing. pythonce.sf.net already have one based on SCons, which is nice 
and easily extended. Being able to build 64 bit variants on 32 bit systems 
and vice versa might be another benefit.

> It's possible.  The best way to get the ball rolling is to produce
> some patches against the mainline.

Hmmm, which mainline? 2.5, 2.6 or 3.0? Up to now I have only looked at 2.5, 
because that one is stable. However, quite a few of above changes are not 
suitable for a stable version though, so I'll either have to restrict them to 
only CE or rather apply them to version 3. We can discuss that when I have 
actual patches.

> Perhaps the best way to start is using Bazaar or some distributed
> version control system for your patches.  Once you've demonstrated
> your ability and intent, we can make a branch.

I'll be digging into Bazaar, looks like an interesting topic by itself anyway. 
You'll hear from me!

cheers

Uli

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