An interesting project...Well anyways, I'm a programmer that knows cross-processor asm, C, C++, VC++, VB, Basic (eww), Euphoria (the predecessor to C (and Pascal?)), and am learning Pascal. Anyways, I noticed how GNU Pascal is lacking a standard Pascallian library, and am interested in writing it. I would do so in DGJPP C (not C++: too hard to interface with pascal (i think)), NASM assembly, and possibly something else...however, I would need a few things first: 1) your approval 2) A standard (borland or watcom or something) Pascal library reference (or one of each type to write multiple libraries :), with descriptions of what each does etc. 3) A knowledge of how GNU Pascal calling convention works: (it should interface nicely with DJGPP-C type, right?), offsets that function paramaters are passed at (i.e. are 16-bit #'s passed as 32-bit #'s), etc. 4) A quick reference of GNU Pascal supported pointer types (far, near, huge), supported data types, how structures are setup 5) A reference of how the filetypes in the libraries are setup
If given the above, I would write a full-featured library for use with GNU Pascal (or, at least, get pretty darn close :) that would be almost 100% compatible with normal Pascal libraries, and I would also maintain it, too :) Yes, I realize that this may be a huge task (how long did it take them to write the DJGPP2 libc? :), and that it would take a little while, but hey, it sounds interesting :) and you could take that little 'con' out of the cons section. In addition, non-C (but Pascal) programmers could use your compiler because you'd have a similar-to-Pascal-lib, and they wouldn't have to 'decipher' the c reference :).
NOTE: Just in case I wasn't clear, what I meant by writing a "standard Pascal lib" is writing the lib that is to Pascal as libc is to DJGPP :)
Oh, and on the side, wouldn't it be an interesting thing to write a GNU Basic compiler that was _FAST_, had unsigned numbers, had more needed functions that aren't able to be made/used (i.e. an 'asm'-like command ;), used pointers, and some more stuff like being almost completely compatible with existing QBASIC programs and compiler-commands (i.e. '#include') and some more stuff? If you guys would want to do the lex. analyzer/compiler/etc. part, I'd write the library that would be the _FAST_ version of the normal BASIC lib...we could help BASIC programmers out there do alot better :) even tho it still wouldn't be as good as C...
Anyways, thanx for your time.
-Iron Helix
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