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<title>sciteco/src/spawn.c, branch v2.5.2</title>
<subtitle>Scintilla-based Text Editor and COrrector</subtitle>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/'/>
<entry>
<title>GTK: SIGTERM/SIGHUP always terminates the program and dumps recovery files</title>
<updated>2026-04-12T21:00:40+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>rhaberkorn@fmsbw.de</email>
</author>
<published>2026-04-12T19:47:58+00:00</published>
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<id>0a8770ac7d382df8976b2448fccc6cfe434cd4d1</id>
<content type='text'>
* SIGTERM used to insert the ^KCLOSE key macro.
  However with the default ^KCLOSE macro, which inserts `EX`,
  this may fail to terminate the editor if buffers are modified.
  If the process is consequently killed by a non-ignorable signal,
  we may still loose data.
* SIGTERM is used to gracefully shut down, so we now always terminate.
  Since we have recovery files, they are now dumped before terminating.
  This makes sure that recovery files are more up-to-date during
  unexpected but gracefull terminations.
* The same functionality is planned on Curses, but requires more fundamental
  changes (TODO).
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* SIGTERM used to insert the ^KCLOSE key macro.
  However with the default ^KCLOSE macro, which inserts `EX`,
  this may fail to terminate the editor if buffers are modified.
  If the process is consequently killed by a non-ignorable signal,
  we may still loose data.
* SIGTERM is used to gracefully shut down, so we now always terminate.
  Since we have recovery files, they are now dumped before terminating.
  This makes sure that recovery files are more up-to-date during
  unexpected but gracefull terminations.
* The same functionality is planned on Curses, but requires more fundamental
  changes (TODO).
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>fixup ea0a23645f03a42252ab1ce8df45ae4076ebae75: pass teco_string_t by value in Windows-only code as well</title>
<updated>2026-01-01T19:20:15+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>rhaberkorn@fmsbw.de</email>
</author>
<published>2026-01-01T19:20:15+00:00</published>
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<id>304c617a68c7c9dbc720a7d5c58ef4614898b915</id>
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</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>updated copyright to 2026</title>
<updated>2026-01-01T06:59:49+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>rhaberkorn@fmsbw.de</email>
</author>
<published>2026-01-01T06:59:49+00:00</published>
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<id>c2feb2a6f71fc9adb20226fb3c2260c236e974e0</id>
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</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>teco_string_t is now passed by value like a scalar if the callee isn't expected to modify it</title>
<updated>2025-12-28T19:57:31+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>rhaberkorn@fmsbw.de</email>
</author>
<published>2025-12-28T15:23:22+00:00</published>
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<id>ea0a23645f03a42252ab1ce8df45ae4076ebae75</id>
<content type='text'>
* When passing a struct that should not be modified, I usually use a const pointer.
* Strings however are small 2-word objects and they are often now already passed via separate
  `gchar*` and gsize parameters. So it is consistent to pass teco_string_t by value as well.
  A teco_string_t will usually fit into registers just like a pointer.
* It's now obvious which function just _uses_ and which function _modifies_ a string.
  There is also no chance to pass a NULL pointer to those functions.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* When passing a struct that should not be modified, I usually use a const pointer.
* Strings however are small 2-word objects and they are often now already passed via separate
  `gchar*` and gsize parameters. So it is consistent to pass teco_string_t by value as well.
  A teco_string_t will usually fit into registers just like a pointer.
* It's now obvious which function just _uses_ and which function _modifies_ a string.
  There is also no chance to pass a NULL pointer to those functions.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>TECO_DEFINE_STATE() no longer constructs callback names for mandatory callbacks, but tries to use static assertions</title>
<updated>2025-12-26T17:10:42+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>rhaberkorn@fmsbw.de</email>
</author>
<published>2025-12-26T17:10:42+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=c2114fa0af73b42bc1ef302f7511ef87690cc0b1'/>
<id>c2114fa0af73b42bc1ef302f7511ef87690cc0b1</id>
<content type='text'>
* Requiring state callbacks by generating their names (e.g. NAME##_input) has several disadvantages:
  * The callback is not explicitly referenced when the state is defined.
    So an unintroduced reader will see some static function, which is nowhere referenced and still
    doesn't cause "unused" warnings.
  * You cannot choose the name of function that implements the callback freely.
  * In "substates" you need to generate a callback function if you want to provide a default.
    You also need to provide dummy wrapper functions whenever you want to reuse some existing
    function as the implementation.
* Instead, we are now using static assertions to check whether certain callbacks have been
  implemented.
  Unfortunately, this does not work on all compilers. In particular GCC won't consider
  references to state objects fully constant (even though they are) and does not allow
  them in _Static_assert (G_STATIC_ASSERT). This could only be made to work in newer GCC
  with -std=c2x or -std=gnu23 in combination with constexpr.
  It does work on Clang, though.
  So I introduced TECO_ASSERT_SAFE() which also passes if the expression is *not* constant.
  These static assertions are not crucial - they do not check anything that can differ between
  systems. So we can always rely on the checks performed by FreeBSD CI for instance.
  Also, you will of course quickly notice missing callbacks at runtime - with and without
  additional runtime assertions.
* All mandatory callbacks must still be explicitly initialized in the TECO_DEFINE_STATE calls.
* After getting rid of generated callback implementations, the TECO_DEFINE_STATE macros
  can finally be qualified with `static`.
* The TECO_DECLARE_STATE() macro has been removed. It no longer abstracts anything
  and cannot be used to declare static teco_state_t anyway.
  Also TECO_DEFINE_UNDO_CALL() also doesn't have a DECLARE counterpart.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* Requiring state callbacks by generating their names (e.g. NAME##_input) has several disadvantages:
  * The callback is not explicitly referenced when the state is defined.
    So an unintroduced reader will see some static function, which is nowhere referenced and still
    doesn't cause "unused" warnings.
  * You cannot choose the name of function that implements the callback freely.
  * In "substates" you need to generate a callback function if you want to provide a default.
    You also need to provide dummy wrapper functions whenever you want to reuse some existing
    function as the implementation.
* Instead, we are now using static assertions to check whether certain callbacks have been
  implemented.
  Unfortunately, this does not work on all compilers. In particular GCC won't consider
  references to state objects fully constant (even though they are) and does not allow
  them in _Static_assert (G_STATIC_ASSERT). This could only be made to work in newer GCC
  with -std=c2x or -std=gnu23 in combination with constexpr.
  It does work on Clang, though.
  So I introduced TECO_ASSERT_SAFE() which also passes if the expression is *not* constant.
  These static assertions are not crucial - they do not check anything that can differ between
  systems. So we can always rely on the checks performed by FreeBSD CI for instance.
  Also, you will of course quickly notice missing callbacks at runtime - with and without
  additional runtime assertions.
* All mandatory callbacks must still be explicitly initialized in the TECO_DEFINE_STATE calls.
* After getting rid of generated callback implementations, the TECO_DEFINE_STATE macros
  can finally be qualified with `static`.
* The TECO_DECLARE_STATE() macro has been removed. It no longer abstracts anything
  and cannot be used to declare static teco_state_t anyway.
  Also TECO_DEFINE_UNDO_CALL() also doesn't have a DECLARE counterpart.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>properly document some functions in expressions.c and simplified code</title>
<updated>2025-07-26T13:48:56+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>robin.haberkorn@googlemail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2025-07-26T13:30:17+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=0ea082b74414696a7800455a437656fca2886f6d'/>
<id>0ea082b74414696a7800455a437656fca2886f6d</id>
<content type='text'>
* Practically all calls to teco_expressions_args() must be preceded by teco_expressions_eval().
* In code paths where we know that teco_expressions_args() &gt; 0, it is safe
  to call teco_expressions_pop_num(0) instead of teco_expressions_pop_num_calc().
  This is both easier and faster.
* teco_expressions_pop_num_calc() is for simple applications where you just want to get
  a command argument with default (implied) values.
  Since it includes teco_expressions_eval(), we can avoid superfluous calls.
* -EC...$ turned out to be broken and is fixed now.
  A test case has been added.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* Practically all calls to teco_expressions_args() must be preceded by teco_expressions_eval().
* In code paths where we know that teco_expressions_args() &gt; 0, it is safe
  to call teco_expressions_pop_num(0) instead of teco_expressions_pop_num_calc().
  This is both easier and faster.
* teco_expressions_pop_num_calc() is for simple applications where you just want to get
  a command argument with default (implied) values.
  Since it includes teco_expressions_eval(), we can avoid superfluous calls.
* -EC...$ turned out to be broken and is fixed now.
  A test case has been added.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>revised command topics</title>
<updated>2025-07-18T13:37:13+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>robin.haberkorn@googlemail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2025-07-18T13:37:13+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=2c236869333dd20b77109fe7e9bb4ace30c0f774'/>
<id>2c236869333dd20b77109fe7e9bb4ace30c0f774</id>
<content type='text'>
* Added some keywords.
* Consistently added command variants with all modifiers.
  In principle including modifiers in the topics is unnecessary -
  you can always strip the modifiers and look up the raw command.
  However, looking up a command with modifiers can speed up the process
  (compare looking up ?S&lt;TAB&gt; vs ?::S&lt;TAB&gt;
* The `@` modifier is listed only for commands without string arguments.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* Added some keywords.
* Consistently added command variants with all modifiers.
  In principle including modifiers in the topics is unnecessary -
  you can always strip the modifiers and look up the raw command.
  However, looking up a command with modifiers can speed up the process
  (compare looking up ?S&lt;TAB&gt; vs ?::S&lt;TAB&gt;
* The `@` modifier is listed only for commands without string arguments.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>^S/^Y calculates the glyph offsets earlier</title>
<updated>2025-06-08T18:54:29+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>robin.haberkorn@googlemail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2025-06-08T18:54:29+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=aaa1d51a4c85fcc627e88ef7cf5292d9c5f5f840'/>
<id>aaa1d51a4c85fcc627e88ef7cf5292d9c5f5f840</id>
<content type='text'>
* Previously, deleting text after a text match or insertion
  could result in wrong ^S/^Y results.
  In particular, the amount of characters deleted by &lt;FD&gt; at the end of a buffer
  couldn't be queried.
* This also fixes the M#rf (reflow paragraph) macro.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* Previously, deleting text after a text match or insertion
  could result in wrong ^S/^Y results.
  In particular, the amount of characters deleted by &lt;FD&gt; at the end of a buffer
  couldn't be queried.
* This also fixes the M#rf (reflow paragraph) macro.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>fixed undoing bitfields on Windows</title>
<updated>2025-04-12T22:33:43+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>robin.haberkorn@googlemail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2025-04-12T21:40:37+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=628c73d984fd7663607cc3fd9368f809855906fd'/>
<id>628c73d984fd7663607cc3fd9368f809855906fd</id>
<content type='text'>
* It turns out that `bool` (_Bool) in bitfields may cause
  padding to the next 32-bit word.
  This was only observed on MinGW.
  I am not entirely sure why, although the C standard does
  not guarantee much with regard to bitfield memory layout
  and there are 64-bit available due to passing anyway.
  Actually, they could also be layed out in a different order.
* I am now consistently using guint instead of `bool` in bitfields
  to prevent any potential surprises.
* The way that guint was aliased with bitfield structs
  for undoing teco_machine_main_t and teco_machine_qregspec_t flags
  was therefore insecure.
  It was not guaranteed that the __flags field really "captures"
  all of the bit field.
  Even with `guint v : 1` fields, this was not guaranteed.
  We would have required a static assertion for robustness.
  Alternatively, we could have declared a `gsize __flags` variable
  as well. This __should__ be safe since gsize should always be
  pointer sized and correspond to the platform's alignment.
  However, it's also not 100% guaranteed.
  Using classic ANSI C enums with bit operations to encode multiple
  fields and flags into a single integer also doesn't look very
  attractive.
* Instead, we now define scalar types with their own teco_undo_push()
  shortcuts for the bitfield structs.
  This is in one way simpler and much more robust, but on the other
  hand complicates access to the flag variables.
* It's a good question whether a `struct __attribute__((packed))` bitfield
  with guint fields would be a reliable replacement for flag enums, that
  are communicated with the "outside" (TECO) world.
  I am not going to risk it until GCC gives any guarantees, though.
  For the time being, bitfields are only used internally where
  the concrete memory layout (bit positions) is not crucial.
* This fixes the test suite and therefore probably CI and nightly
  builds on Windows.
* Test case: Rub out `@I//` or `@Xq` until before the `@`.
  The parser doesn't know that `@` is still set and allows
  all sorts of commands where `@` should be forbidden.
* It's unknown how long this has been broken on Windows - quite
  possibly since v2.0.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
* It turns out that `bool` (_Bool) in bitfields may cause
  padding to the next 32-bit word.
  This was only observed on MinGW.
  I am not entirely sure why, although the C standard does
  not guarantee much with regard to bitfield memory layout
  and there are 64-bit available due to passing anyway.
  Actually, they could also be layed out in a different order.
* I am now consistently using guint instead of `bool` in bitfields
  to prevent any potential surprises.
* The way that guint was aliased with bitfield structs
  for undoing teco_machine_main_t and teco_machine_qregspec_t flags
  was therefore insecure.
  It was not guaranteed that the __flags field really "captures"
  all of the bit field.
  Even with `guint v : 1` fields, this was not guaranteed.
  We would have required a static assertion for robustness.
  Alternatively, we could have declared a `gsize __flags` variable
  as well. This __should__ be safe since gsize should always be
  pointer sized and correspond to the platform's alignment.
  However, it's also not 100% guaranteed.
  Using classic ANSI C enums with bit operations to encode multiple
  fields and flags into a single integer also doesn't look very
  attractive.
* Instead, we now define scalar types with their own teco_undo_push()
  shortcuts for the bitfield structs.
  This is in one way simpler and much more robust, but on the other
  hand complicates access to the flag variables.
* It's a good question whether a `struct __attribute__((packed))` bitfield
  with guint fields would be a reliable replacement for flag enums, that
  are communicated with the "outside" (TECO) world.
  I am not going to risk it until GCC gives any guarantees, though.
  For the time being, bitfields are only used internally where
  the concrete memory layout (bit positions) is not crucial.
* This fixes the test suite and therefore probably CI and nightly
  builds on Windows.
* Test case: Rub out `@I//` or `@Xq` until before the `@`.
  The parser doesn't know that `@` is still set and allows
  all sorts of commands where `@` should be forbidden.
* It's unknown how long this has been broken on Windows - quite
  possibly since v2.0.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
<entry>
<title>EC/EG command: check for null-bytes in $COMSPEC/$SHELL</title>
<updated>2025-02-26T22:09:21+00:00</updated>
<author>
<name>Robin Haberkorn</name>
<email>robin.haberkorn@googlemail.com</email>
</author>
<published>2025-02-26T22:09:21+00:00</published>
<link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='https://git.fmsbw.de/sciteco/commit/?id=a338e1a880cf14cad6034bd6d837e0f3c35756b9'/>
<id>a338e1a880cf14cad6034bd6d837e0f3c35756b9</id>
<content type='text'>
Environment variables will of course never contain null-bytes.
However you can always set them later on from TECO code and include nulls.
We therefore everywhere check for null-bytes in all registers used as null-terminated strings
to avoid unexpected behavior.
</content>
<content type='xhtml'>
<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'>
<pre>
Environment variables will of course never contain null-bytes.
However you can always set them later on from TECO code and include nulls.
We therefore everywhere check for null-bytes in all registers used as null-terminated strings
to avoid unexpected behavior.
</pre>
</div>
</content>
</entry>
</feed>
