26103 - [FEATURE] Add command line option to cause Windows console output to appear.

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: UI Design, defect, P3)

Description

[Bill Law]

Please see the comment from mailto:[e-mail] regarding use of 
AllocConsole() API 
(http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/psdk/winbase/conchar_6smd.htm) to dynamically 
create a Windows console.

This may permit us to accept a -console option so that users can choose to see 
the console output in release builds.

Comment 1

[don]

You can sneak this into M14 but I'm gonna set the milestone to M15.  OK?

Comment 2

[Bill Law]

Correct.  The only reason I didn't target it there myself is because there's no 
Target Milestone field on the Create Bug form.

Comment 3

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

From the docs, it looks like stdout is set up by AllocConsole. Unless there's
something special going on in NSPR, you shouldn't have to do much more than

else if (PL_strcmp(argv[1], "-console") == 0) {
#ifdef XP_PC
  AllocConsole();
#endif
}

just underneath the "-version" test in nsAppRunner.cpp.

Forcing -console to be the first argument isn't too pretty, but it means you can
see messages during XPCOM startup.

Comment 4

[Bill Law]

Sounds plausible.  My concern was prompted by the mention of querying the 
console's handles via GetConsoleHandle() (or some such).  I thought it must be 
trickier than first glance since you wouldn't need to query the handles if it 
was stdout (handle==1).  But, as you say, it's a simple matter to code something 
up and see what happens.  Thanks again, I'll test this out at some point today 
(hopefully).

Comment 5

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Welcome to the wild world of Windows. Win32 file handles and POSIX-ish file 
descriptors are completely different creatures; to the extent that the latter 
are supported, it's by an emulation layer in the MSVC runtime library.

Actually, your concerns are well founded. MSVCRT does not adjust its mappings of 
filedescriptors 0, 1, and 2 when a new console is created. The issue is quite 
well documented in this KB article:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q105/3/05.asp
That article provides code that should basically solve our problems.

Comment 6

[Asa Dotzler [:asa]]

*** Bug 26643 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 7

[Grace Bush]

adding paw, gbush to cc list

Comment 8

[Paul Wyskoczka]

Without this fix our performance test scripts will not run.

Comment 9

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Note: if you have a "cat" binary on your Windows box, then you can see the 
console by starting a shell, then running "mozilla | cat".

Comment 10

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Unfortunately "mozilla | cat" doesn't work on Win9x because of COMMAND.COM 
braindamage. I will attach "mozcon.exe" which runs mozilla and does its own 
piping to standard output --- just copy to the mozilla/bin directory and run 
"mozcon.exe" instead of "mozilla.exe". This should be a reasonable workaround 
for anyone who stumbles over this bugzilla bug ... if it catches on someone 
could check it in. The code is originally due to [e-mail]; he posted it 
to mozilla.xpfe, I made some small changes.

Comment 11

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Attachment: The mozcon.exe binary executable; put in your mozilla/bin directory

Comment 12

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Attachment: source code for mozcon.exe (mozcon.c)

Comment 13

[leger]

There is a workaround. Putting on the PDT- radar for beta1.

Comment 14

[Paul Wyskoczka]

mozcon.exe is great for looking at the console output but I does not aid us in running our performance scripts.  A number of processes 
are left around after running our perl scripts using mozcon.exe. Bindu wrote a program to kill the processes but it does not completely 
work.  We still need a solution that will enable our performance scripts to work and that will be cross platform.  Mozcon.exe only works 
for Windows.  

Comment 15

[ekrock's old account (dead)]

Changing proposed priority level from beta1 to dogfood (which is higher). This 
is a QA performance testing blocker. Right now, improving product performance is 
one of our highest priority areas, and anything that blocks QA from being able 
to measure should be considered a dogfood QA blocker bug. To quote JimB, "You 
can't improve what you can't measure."

Comment 16

[Robert O'Callahan (:roc) (email my personal email if necessary)]

Can't QA's builds be built with the MOZ_CONSOLE option? If they're relying on 
Tinderbox, then one of the Win32 Tinderbox machines could build it that way.

Another option would be to add a new build target "mozcon" with the same rules 
as "mozilla" but linked as a console app.

Comment 17

[leger]

Putting on PDT+ radar for beta1.  

Comment 18

[Bill Law]

I don't know anything about an XP solution.  Doesn't this work OK on Linux 
already?  Somebody else will have to help out with the Mac.  I can look at this 
starting Wed probably.

Comment 19

[Phil Peterson]

PDT is scared by the 4/1 ETA for a dogfood bug. Can you workaround by writing to
a file instead of to stdout?

Comment 20

[Bill Law]

I wasn't really serious about 4/1.  That's April Fools Day, is all.

We need a better performance measuring strategy.  But this crappy one can be 
tweaked some more.  I have all my other PDT+ bugs fixed so I'll look at this 
tomorrow.  I dunno about the Mac, however.

Comment 21

[don]

Moving to M14.

Comment 22

[Bill Law]

Attachment: Patch to add support for -console option.

Comment 23

[Bill Law]

I attached the patch that gets this new "-console" option working.  I'd like 
somebody to review the code so I can get approval to check it in.  The code is 
basically from the MSDN sites (use of AllocConsole and _open_osfhandle/_fdopen 
to map stdout/stderr to that console.

Seems to work for me on WinNT.  I will be testing on Win98 shortly.  Provided 
that works and I get requisite review/approval, I'll be checking this in 
tomorrow.

Thanks for all the assistance.  I just hope it works for the performance 
testing.

Comment 24

[Bill Law]

Works on Win98 also.  

Comment 25

[Bill Law]

Fix checked in this evening, you should be able to use "-console" (or 
"/console") in tomorrow's build.

Comment 26

[Paul MacQuiddy]

verified 3/3 commercial windows builds