[comp.emacs] Problem with GNU Emacs hanging solved

dwp@mtune.ATT.COM (David Preisler) (10/28/89)

Problem:
/-----
|
|  On a 3b2 700 under sVr3 I've got GNU Emacs 18.54 built [ HAVE_PTY defined ],
| but I find that it does not work properly through a DataKit VC.  I do find
| however, that when run through a direct port it appears to work properly.
|
| Symptoms:  The screen opens up correctly, but typed chars do not appear on 
| the screen.  Ctrl chars are also generally ignored.  Emacs will beep at ^g 
| and ^z, and occasionally it will produce the unsupported operation message 
| ( autosave, abort- core dump ).
|
|
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SOLUTION:

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|
| Date: Fri, 27 Oct 89 19:52:41 EDT
| From: Jonathan Simon Kay <@JHMAIL.HCF.JHU.EDU:kay@JHUNIX.BITNET>
| Subject: Emacs pty problems
| To: dwp@mtune.ATT.COM
|
|     
| Simple.  It's a bug in the pty device driver.  Seems the master end of
| the ptys don't support nonblocking I/O.  So emacs is blocked - it only
| responds to characters bound to signals in the tty (that's why ^G
| produces a response).  The easiest fix is to give up on ptys.  If you
| really want 'em, I'll send you my workaround code.  What it does is
| starts up a whole new process that does the waiting instead of emacs
| and sends what it gets to emacs via a pipe, which does support
| nonblocking I/O.  Very inefficient and kinda slow, but it does work.
|     
|     
|                                        Jon Kay
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Thanks,
david

The Distributed Programming Tools Group: "Don't Panic!"