AmigActive 19/AACD19.BIN/AACD/System/SnoopDos/SnoopDos_Src/Readme.source

Text File | 2001-02-04 | 8KB | 182 lines

                        SnoopDos 3.0 -- Source Code Release

           Copyright © Eddy Carroll, September 1994. Freely distributable.

           Updated by Luca Longone and Massimo Tantignone in January 2000.

       Updated by Grzegorz Chmie and Thomas Richter in March 2000.

       Updated again in August 2000 by Thomas Richter.

       Updated yet again in February 2001 by Thomas Richter.


NOTE ABOUT THE 3.6 UPDATE

    Note that there's no 3.5 update, it was an internal release that never
    made it to the public.
    The 3.6 update fixes two major bugs. The first bug is that the LoadSeg()
    patch did not kept care about overlayed files and therefore might have
    trashed overlayed programs. Note that LoadSeg() takes actually three
    arguments and not one!
    The second bug is even more severe, and is only partially fixed by this
    release. SnoopDos semaphore handling was and still is extremly fragile.
    SnoopDos 3.4 and before could have run into a race condition caused by
    a cycling semaphore lock-up of three partners the patch code did not and
    cannot check for. SnoopDos, workbench and input device hung then
    simultaneously.
    There are other race conditions of this kind, and all of them could only
    be fixed if the patch code of SnoopDos would be completely re-designed,
    a job I currently cannot and will not do.
    Therefore, SnoopDos 3.6 contains a workaround and uses now a semaphore
    mechanism which may "time out". The net effect is that at least the most
    common semaphore deadlock should be avoidable now, but at the price that
    the SnoopDos main window cannot be guaranteed to be 100% accurately up-
    dated. Hence, in case the main window seems to have forgotten to update
    its snoop list, or the result codes of some snoop entries are missing, or
    some reports seem to be missing at all, don't worry! The alternative in
    these cases would have been to deadlock your system. As a side effect,
    the ugly layers semaphore check was disabled now as it is no longer
    needed, and in fact never really worked as it was unable to detect a
    cyclic deadlock of three or more partners.


NOTE ABOUT THE 3.4 UPDATE

    This update fixes one feature, and one bug. The feature is that the
    stack swap code was removed from SnoopDos 3.2 and up, and since people
    tend not to read the instructions, SnoopDos crashed on some machines due
    to stack overflow. The 3.4 release checks therefore for its stack size
    and will increase it to the minimal recommended size.
    The bug is that a possible race condition when closing the main window
    was overlooked. The 3.3 and earlier releases could have caused some
    "hits" in case the main window was closed while some other program run
    in the patch routines.


NOTE ABOUT THE 3.3 UPDATE

    This update fixes a flaw of the 3.2 release that somehow was unnoticed.
    The 3.2 release could not be run from Workbench, due to an unexpected
    re-define of the WBenchMsg variable to _WBenchMsg in some of the SAS/C
    headers which broke the new startup code. I really did not expect
    this, sorry. Except the version number, and a slightly different compiler
    option, nothing changed.

NOTE ABOUT THE 3.2 UPDATE

    This new update fixes one frequent hit I got when SnoopDos logged some
    system calls while a second task was working on the layers. The
    problem is that some graphics.library and rtg calls NULL the Rastport->
    Layer field temporarely, and SnoopDos did not check before using this
    pointer.
    Additionally, the SnoopDos iconfication code did not work with "newicons"
    which store their image data in an unorthogonal way. This was fixed by
    Grzegorz Chmie, I used his code almost unchanged. Thanks!

    The file snoopdos.h has been enhanced to contain all exported functions
    completely, to allow a clean recompile using the registerized parameters
    model of SAS/C.

    Two obsolete amiga.lib calls, CreateExtIO() and DeleteExtIO() have been
    replaced by their exec.library equivalence for orthogonality.

    All changes in the code have been marked by "THOR" so you may easely
    identify my changes and additions.

    You can find the archive with the executable compiled from this source
    code on Aminet (util/moni/snoopdos32.lha).

    For further questions, contact me at:

    [e-mail]    (Thomas Richter)


NOTE ABOUT THE 3.1 UPDATE

    This update removes an Enforcer hit which can happen with version 3.0
    when a program is launched from ToolManager's dock and SnoopDos is
    running with its "SendRexx" patch turned on. Said hit doesn't seem to
    cause any harm, however it can be an annoyance for people which have
    Enforcer running all the time.
    The hit is apparently due to the way ToolManager sets up its message
    port and only happens when SnoopDos 3.0 is running. Since we can't fix
    ToolManager right now, we made SnoopDos able to avoid the hit, by adding
    a safety check on the memory type at line 4466 in the "patches.c" module.

    The following files have been updated for this release:

    snooptext.h           snooptext.ct           snooptext.cd
    SnoopDos.Roadmap      snoopdos.c             patches.c

    All files other than "patches.c" have been changed just to update the
    version information; no changes were made to the actual code.

    You can find the archive with the executable compiled from this source
    code on Aminet (util/moni/snoopdos31.lha).

    Note: references to PGP in the documentation aren't valid anymore for
    SnoopDos versions greater than 3.0. If you need authentication, please
    write to one of the following e-mail addresses:

    [e-mail], [e-mail] (Luca Longone)
    [e-mail] (Massimo Tantignone)
    [e-mail] (Eddy Carroll)
    [e-mail] (Thomas Richter)

    The rest of this file is unchanged from the original Readme.source file
    as found in the SnoopDos 3.0 source code distribution.


INTRODUCTION

    SnoopDos patches a variety of AmigaDOS library functions that
    are commonly called by other programs and allows you to monitor
    the activities carried out by those programs.

    The source code allows you to examine how SnoopDos operates. You
    may find it useful as example code if you are interested in any
    of the following:

      - patching system library functions
      - creating font-sensitive gadtools or BOOPSI GUI interfaces
        without the help of a third party GUI library
      - accessing AmigaGuide help
      - copying text to the clipboard
      - allowing localisation of all program text strings
      - supporting drag & drop operations
      - seeing how a medium sized Amiga application is constructed

    I don't claim that this code is perfect but it does have the advantage
    of actually working, so it's a useful starting point.

    You will probably also want to obtain the companion binary archive
    snoopdos30.lha, available in the /pub/aminet/util/moni directory on
    AmiNet. This contains the SnoopDos executable, and also an extensive
    AmigaGuide help file which should prove useful while browsing the
    source code.

    See the file SnoopDos.Roadmap inside the source directory for information
    about how the source code is organised.


DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS

    You may freely use portions of the SnoopDos source code in your
    own programs if you wish. However, if you use two or more complete
    functions from the SnoopDos code, you must acknowledge the origin
    of those functions in your documentation and source code.

    You may modify the SnoopDos source code to create new versions of
    SnoopDos for your own use only. You may not redistribute such new
    versions without my explicit permission.


AUTHOR

    You can contact the author at:

        [e-mail]
        [e-mail]