Re: Other notes about libs-steptalk

On 26/11/2025 19:38, Patrick Cardona wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I am following my exploration of libs-steptalk. Please, be patient 
> with my newbye questions or notations.
>
> 1) I run several tests like the above:
>
> patrick@pi400:~/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Testing $ stexec 
> /home/patrick/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Examples/Developer/StepUnit.st
> *** Scanning for tests in directory 
> /home/patrick/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Testing ***
> *** Scanning for tests in directory 
> /home/patrick/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Testing/leaks ***
> *** Scanning for tests in directory 
> /home/patrick/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Testing/Smalltalk ***
> *** Test Case 1: 
> /home/patrick/SOURCES/libs-steptalk/Testing/Smalltalk/test.st start ***
> stexec: Uncaught exception STInvalidArgumentException, reason: 
> unhandled ObjC type 'O@'
>
> Is this exception expected or unexpected?

I had a look, and fixed the bug.  The problem was that the code there 
was not handling the type qualifier 'O' which means that a method has a 
value passed to it 'bycopy'.


> 2) Also, I noted the module 'ReadlineTranscript' was missing in 
> 'libs-steptalk/Modules/GNUMakefile'.
> I built it and installed it manually, which permitted then to run the 
> above test. Before it was failing to run.

My guess is that this is intentional since libreadline is not available 
on all systems, and a fail;ing testcase is better than a failed build 
because of a missing dependency.

> 3) Some other scripts need to be modified in 'Examples/AppKit':
>
> a) As for 'listFonts.st', file extension in 'text.st' should be 'rtfd'.
Done.
> b) In 'listFonts', we should handle the case of 'fontNames' with space 
> or number. They silently fail to show in 'Fonts.rtfd'.
Fixed the script to list fonts rather than font families (the issue was 
that the names were not font names, rather thasn that they contained 
spaces).
> c) In 'printers.st': 'printerTypes' (prints out 'Type Unknown') should 
> be better replaced by 'printerNames' which is able to list 'PDF' and 
> my effective printer name attached to my system.

I will do that.

> 4) Maybe the 'documentation' folder could be installed in a way the 
> user could find it on a system ready to use. Or at least, a man page 
> to mention it, or a mention at the end of 'stexec -help' command?
I'll take a look.
> 5) From the help options list, it is not evident to know is an option 
> needs to be used with a mandatory following script or if it could run 
> alone. Except for evident '-help', the other options I have tested 
> printed a empty line and the process seemed hanging. I needed to use 
> 'CTRL-C' to stop it.
>
> e.g.:
> patrick@pi400$ stexec -host $HOSTNAME
> ^C 

I know no more about this than you do ... perhaps we can find some 
documentation of what this is supposed to do (and maybe update the 
-=-help option.