[ENH] One-click executables

Raab, Andreas Andreas.Raab at disney.com
Wed Jul 14 01:05:00 UTC 1999


> I started to implement support for storing additional files along with the
> VM file, eventually being able to create a one-click executable.  The
> current state is a proof of principle. It works on Windows.  However, I'd
> like to know whether the same approach would work on other platforms, too,
> before I continue.
> 
It should work as long as you're creating a copy of the VM and an extract
the stuff by using a read-only file. The only problem I can see is how the
VM would determine the start/length of the image to run. How do you like
storing start and length (plus perhaps a magic number) at the very end of
the generated file?!

> Unfortunately, it seems that Squeak cannot uncompress a source file that
> was compressed using "gzip -9 SqueakV2.sources".  I get a "subscript out
> of
> bounds: 65537" error.  Somebody assumes that the decompression buffer
> needs
> only a size of 64K which is obviously a wrong assumption  :-)
> 
Hm ... do you have update 1017 in your image?! This problem should be fixed
with the update. If not then I'll have to double check (because 64k is not
just an assumption; its the max size than can actually occur with a 15bit
window).

> What's left?  Add SQR support to the VM.  This would be my next goal. If
> there's an entry ending with .image, load it.  Create a special image that
> is able to extract all other files.  Setup a minimal VM, strip down an
> image as you never stripped one and create a SQR file containing the new
> VM, the setup image, the normal image and all other files needed.
> 
I would just add a trivial check to the startup code if the executable file
contains an image (see above), then modify #readImageFile: to have an
optional offset and then load the image and goooo ;-)

Anyways, I'm really excited about this stuff. Let me know how it is coming
along.

  Andreas
--
+===== Andreas Raab ========= (andreasr at wdi.disney.com) ==+
| Walt Disney Imagineering        Phone: +1 818 544 5016  I
I Glendale, CA                    Fax:   +1 818 544 4544  I
+======< http://isgwww.cs.uni-magdeburg.de/~raab >========+





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