quickfix-developers

[Quickfix-developers] VMS port of QF

[John G. <joh...@wa...>]

Hi there,

I did not find anything relevent in the archives, so I am askng on the 
list : has anyone tried to port / compile QuickFix to VMS operating system 
?
The company I am working at runs an in-house fix client that is very badly 
written, but runs on windows, all unixes, and VMS. We are thinking of 
moving to QuickFix, but we need to port it to VMS. If anyone has had any 
experience with that kind of sport, I'd be happy to have some feedback. I 
already compiled libxml2 (had to disable a few functions new to 2.6.17 and 
some const pointers that the C vms compiler considered not const) but I do 
have a libxml lib. I am now in the process of rewriting a config.h and 
makefiles. 

Second, non technical question I have, is about Fixml : how often is it 
found in real life production applications ? If I want to developp a fix 
server to collect orders in Fix format, should I really develop this 
part, which seems right now pretty unused to me, at least in Europe. I 
found some opinions in this direction in the archives, but that was nearly 
a year ago.

TIA for any hints.

Sincerely,
John GALLET

Re: [Quickfix-developers] VMS port of QF

[Joerg T. <Joe...@ma...>]

Hi John,

> I did not find anything relevent in the archives, so I am askng on the 
> list : has anyone tried to port / compile QuickFix to VMS operating system 
> ?
> The company I am working at runs an in-house fix client that is very badly 
> written, but runs on windows, all unixes, and VMS. We are thinking of 
> moving to QuickFix, but we need to port it to VMS. If anyone has had any 
> experience with that kind of sport, I'd be happy to have some feedback. I 
> already compiled libxml2 (had to disable a few functions new to 2.6.17 and 
> some const pointers that the C vms compiler considered not const) but I do 
> have a libxml lib. I am now in the process of rewriting a config.h and 
> makefiles. 

Having not worked with VMS for years now, I guess there is a decent C++ compiler now. 
Since the UNIX build system of QuickFIX is based on the GNU autotools (automake, autoconf) 
I wonder whether they can also cope with VMS. Perhaps you should check www.gnu.org for 
this; it would make the life much easier. In addition, check if there is a UNIX/POSIX etc. 
compatibility layer on VMS. I am sure, there some stuff of this kind.

> Second, non technical question I have, is about Fixml : how often is it 
> found in real life production applications ? If I want to developp a fix 
> server to collect orders in Fix format, should I really develop this 
> part, which seems right now pretty unused to me, at least in Europe. I 
> found some opinions in this direction in the archives, but that was nearly 
> a year ago.

We are Europe based and doing (Quick)FIX consulting. But up to now I did not hear about 
any production usage of FIXML in Europe. But the best way to find out is probably to post 
the question in the FPL forums at http://www.fixprotocol.org

Looking forward to hear news from the VMS port...

Cheers, Jörg

-- 
Joerg Thoennes
                                http://macd.com
Tel.: +49 (0)241 44597-24      Macdonald Associates GmbH
Fax : +49 (0)241 44597-10      Lothringer Str. 52, D-52070 Aachen

Re: [Quickfix-developers] VMS port of QF

[John G. <joh...@wa...>]

Hi and thanks for the answer,

> Having not worked with VMS for years now, I guess there is a decent C++ compiler now. 
Should be ok as far as c++ is concerned.

> Since the UNIX build system of QuickFIX is based on the GNU autotools (automake, autoconf) 
> I wonder whether they can also cope with VMS. Perhaps you should check www.gnu.org for 
> this; it would make the life much easier. In addition, check if there is a UNIX/POSIX etc. 
> compatibility layer on VMS. I am sure, there some stuff of this kind.

It seems it depends on the considered tool. The gnu build system is nice
for a gnu OS but is a real pain to cope with if not. If you want to fully
compile PHP or QF on a Solaris machine, you'll need to install M4,
autoconf, automake, libtool at least. On a VMS machine, may be add perl to
that. I had a look at the GVN project, which basically looks like a "vms
cygwin" that does not build necessarily build native vms libs, and anyway
the VMS version requirements are not met (still in 7.1, need 7.3).

> Looking forward to hear news from the VMS port...
Well, so far, I am slowly tracking all the G++ includes needed and 
wondering why one of them (streambuf.h) does not compile, so it looks like 
a looooong night coming along ;-)

Thanks for feedback on fixml too.

Sincerely,
John GALLET