Re: [MACTCL] Loading extensions under Tk on Macintosh

[Jean-Claude W. <jc...@eq...>]

Daniel A. Steffen <st...@ic...> wrote:

>For mac package loading to work off a CD, I suspect you need resource 
>forks on the cd (shared libraries on the mac need a 'cfrg' resource 
>so that they can be loaded, and mac Tcl extensions require a TEXT 
>resource with the pkgIndex).

Regarding the TEXT resource for pkgIndex.tcl: I would expect that one can
also use the *nix/win* approach and store it as normal file?

>AFAIK e.g. Toast for Mac can write hybrid CD's with HFS+, ISO, Joliet 
>and Rockridge filesystems all on one CD; this may allow you to get 
>resource forks onto the cd, as long as you master the cd on the mac.

FWIW, CD's can be mastered as hybrid on unix, using "mkisofs" - the
TclBlast! 1999 CD was built that way to work on a dozen platforms,
including classic MacOS.  It takes some tinkering, but is fully described
in the documentation (basically you need to tell mkisofs how/where to get
the resource fork data).

One can play tricks and master in such a way that some files show up only
in specific formats.  An example for this is a "readme" file, which can
be prepared with the proper LF/CR/CRLF formatting and names (README/Read
Me/readme.txt) and even with type/creator set to SimpleText on the Mac. 
Small details which can make that first experience just a little smoother...

Mastering on MacOS X might give you the best of all world, because you
could presumably mount the image as any of RockRidge/HFS+/Joliet and
check that it works properly before ever burning a single disk.

>there may be a way around the resource fork requirement; IIRC, the 
>code in tclMacLoad.c will try to load the complete datafork of a file 
>as a PPC fragment if no 'cfrg' resource can be found, and a 
>traditional pkgindex.tcl file should work with that (via [load]), but 
>I have never tried this.
>The resource fork obstacle is also the main reason why dynamic 
>library loading from vfs in tclkit doesn't work on the mac currently.

Daniel, we could use MacBinary for this.  Is there a Tcl script which
unpacks MacBinary to data/rsrc forks on the Mac?  If not, I'd be happy to
help make it happen - since this seems indeed to be the one last piece on
the puzzle to be able to run class MacOS shared libs from vfs.

-jcw