Re: GNU Emacs: Client/Server

[storm@cua.dk (Kim F. Storm)]

"Dhruva Krishnamurthy" <gnu@furby.fastmail.fm> writes:

> Hello,
>  The fact that "emacsclient" does not build on MS Windows platform
>  (correct me if I am wrong), we end up depending on "gnuserv"
>  functionality. This is *NOT* part of distribution and therefore makes it
>  difficult to keep update with changes in "gnuserv" (if there are any,
>  recently).
> 
>  I was toying with the idea of making the GNU Emacs behave as a client or
>  server through command line options or Elisp functions.
> 
> (On Microsoft Platform on which I work)
> For server:
> - Create a server thread which will use some IPC (mail slots or named
> pipes kernel object) through which Elist expressions can be exchanged
> which can be evaluated by the server

If we could enhance make-network-process to support either of these
connection types (both as client and server), I don't see why not.

I guess it would be a different :family, e.g. :family mailslot, with
suitable new ADDRESS format for :local and :remote addresses, and then
extend the process code to handle such connections/servers as any other
kind of service.

I don't know what it takes to handle connection setup, input/output,
etc., so I cannot say whether it can be done through the normal process-

If you have specific ideas how to do this, you are welcome to discuss
them here.


Alternatively, can't you just use an oridinary stream socket on some
random port of your choice?


> Could we use the above approach and do away with the gnuserv/emacsclient
> dependency?

I would suppose that if it is done properly, the emacs server side for
Windows would then be the same as for the currently supported platform
(except for initial setup, of course).

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk