Re: [ANNOUNCEMENT] Server Test 50

[Christopher Faylor <cgf at redhat dot com>]

On Sat, Oct 20, 2001 at 07:49:31PM -0400, Harold Hunt wrote:
>> One thing about the logfile: The usage message should not into
>> the logfile!
>
>Yeah, I just ran into the same issue when I ran:
>XWin -help
>
>There was no output :)
>
>> And how can I switch off logging to a logfile? I like seeing the output
>> of Xwin. It's better for debugging and isolating problems.
>
>That's a tricky one.  I admit that it would be great to be able to toggle
>between logged output and console output.  However, there is an issue that
>stands in the way.  The problem is that we have to make a choice between the
>X Server being a Windows executable or a DOS executable.  DOS executables
>open that annoying DOS box that doesn't do anything if you are logging to a
>file.  Windows executables don't open a DOS box in any circumstance, even
>when you want to output to the console.
>
>That gives us a dilemma because we can't have a Windows executable that
>allows console output, yet we don't want a DOS executable for when we are
>logging to a file.

FWIW, this is exact problem plagues the Windows version of insight (aka gdb).
The only solution we ever came up with was either to call AllocConsole when
we needed to write something to a console -- which sucks for when you're
starting the program via the console, or to build the program as a console
app -- which means that you always get a flashing black box if you double
click on a gdb icon.

It *looks* like the MSVC program somehow manages to do what we want here
since it seems to exist as both a console and a windows app but I was
never able to figure out how to do what it did.  Most likely, I am just
misinterpreting what it does do.

cgf