[pdf-devel] Portability and supported host types

[jemarch]

Hi.

One of the goals for the GNU PDF library is portability. 

You can see that the wiki page http://gnupdf.org/Portability is
empty. That mean we have not detailed requirements for the portability
issue.

Right now we are writing down the API and the architecture of the
modules for the base layer. Since the base layer is the responsible to
provide common system-independent abstractions to other parts of the
library, we need to define detailed requirements for portability:
which systems should be supported?

There is a preliminary list of target host types:

* GNU systems

The primary target for the software developed by the GNU PDF project
is the GNU System (including the several GNU/Linux variants).

We can use GNU-specific features only when running in a GNU system if
needed. 

* POSIX systems

Being POSIX compliant would allow us to run in many many Unix
variants.

* Windows systems

Both the workstation version and the mobile version.

* Mac OS X

It is a BSD system emulated in top of mach, is POSIX compliance
enough?

* Mac OS

Old. It is useful to support this host type?

The PDF reference includes dispositions for several specific host
types: Unix, Windows and MacOS. Note that even if our library is not
able to run on Mac OS we still should be prepared to manage PDF files
made in Mac OS.


Ideas? Suggestions?

-- 
Jose E. Marchesi <address@hidden>

Project Engineer
Real Time System Division
Deimos Space, SL (http://www.deimos-space.com)