Doing Windows Programming

How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs: *moving data between windows apps *gaining access to windows registry *in general, access to the available Windows APIs I'm sure folks must be writing Windows apps in Haskell somewhere. How do I get started? Brian McQueen

Hi,
The CVS version of Hugs for Windows has a module
System.Win32.Registry, along with quite a few other windows modules.
I'm not sure if the last stable releases have these features in or not.
Thanks
Neil
On 9/11/05, Brian McQueen
How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs:
*moving data between windows apps *gaining access to windows registry *in general, access to the available Windows APIs
I'm sure folks must be writing Windows apps in Haskell somewhere. How do I get started?
Brian McQueen _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

GHC 6.4's support for Win32 is definitely broken. However, I've been experimenting with implementing a wrapper using FFI, and that has proven to be reasonably easy. The only gotchas: 1- You have to run ghc --make with the extra -lGdi32, -lUser32, etc... switches. 2- You can't use something like ghc -e:Main.main Main.hs to run Win32 programs. As soon as you are passing function pointers around (WindowProcs and the like) it just won't work because of the stub.c files. 3- Safely managing function pointers can be tricky, because FuncPtr has to be explicitly deallocated or else it will leak. 4- If you don't want to have the console window, you have to add the -optl-mwindows switch to the command line (hopefully, it'll be documented at some point) and refrain from ever writing anything out to stdout or stderr. If you want to be able to write stuff out (so that you can see it by ommitting the switch) then do something like this: ---8<--------------------------- initGUI = catch (putStr " \b" >> hFlush stdout) $ \_ -> do fd <- open "nul" 2 0 dup2 fd 0 dup2 fd 1 dup2 fd 2 return () open fname oflag pmode = withCString fname $ \c_fname -> c_open c_fname oflag pmode foreign import ccall unsafe "HsBase.h __hscore_open" c_open :: CString -> CInt -> CInt -> IO CInt foreign import ccall unsafe "HsBase.h dup2" dup2 :: CInt -> CInt -> IO CInt ---8<--------------------------- and then call initGUI from your main. All very platform/compiler dependent, of course, so use with good judgement. JCAB Neil Mitchell wrote:
Hi,
The CVS version of Hugs for Windows has a module System.Win32.Registry, along with quite a few other windows modules.
I'm not sure if the last stable releases have these features in or not.
Thanks
Neil
On 9/11/05, Brian McQueen
wrote: How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs:
*moving data between windows apps *gaining access to windows registry *in general, access to the available Windows APIs
I'm sure folks must be writing Windows apps in Haskell somewhere. How do I get started?
Brian McQueen _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Thanks for this! That is helpful and eye-opening. I do want to use
ghc, though I don't really have a good reason for that choice. It
seems that if I were to go with hugs, it would be easier going.
On 9/15/05, Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza
GHC 6.4's support for Win32 is definitely broken. However, I've been experimenting with implementing a wrapper using FFI, and that has proven to be reasonably easy. The only gotchas:
1- You have to run ghc --make with the extra -lGdi32, -lUser32, etc... switches. 2- You can't use something like ghc -e:Main.main Main.hs to run Win32 programs. As soon as you are passing function pointers around (WindowProcs and the like) it just won't work because of the stub.c files. 3- Safely managing function pointers can be tricky, because FuncPtr has to be explicitly deallocated or else it will leak. 4- If you don't want to have the console window, you have to add the -optl-mwindows switch to the command line (hopefully, it'll be documented at some point) and refrain from ever writing anything out to stdout or stderr. If you want to be able to write stuff out (so that you can see it by ommitting the switch) then do something like this:
---8<--------------------------- initGUI = catch (putStr " \b" >> hFlush stdout) $ \_ -> do fd <- open "nul" 2 0 dup2 fd 0 dup2 fd 1 dup2 fd 2 return ()
open fname oflag pmode = withCString fname $ \c_fname -> c_open c_fname oflag pmode
foreign import ccall unsafe "HsBase.h __hscore_open" c_open :: CString -> CInt -> CInt -> IO CInt foreign import ccall unsafe "HsBase.h dup2" dup2 :: CInt -> CInt -> IO CInt ---8<---------------------------
and then call initGUI from your main.
All very platform/compiler dependent, of course, so use with good judgement.
JCAB
Neil Mitchell wrote: Hi,
The CVS version of Hugs for Windows has a module System.Win32.Registry, along with quite a few other windows modules.
I'm not sure if the last stable releases have these features in or not.
Thanks
Neil
On 9/11/05, Brian McQueen
wrote: How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs:
*moving data between windows apps *gaining access to windows registry *in general, access to the available Windows APIs
I'm sure folks must be writing Windows apps in Haskell somewhere. How do I get started?
Brian McQueen _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe
_______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Hi,
I have also just started that. I have tried the
windows library with WinHugs, the wrapper librabry
SOEGraphics from the author of the School of
Expression book. These are just apart of another big
library and c++ linker, but easier. Right now I have a
hugs dotnet interpreter with a library, I think you'll
find it, it's called Hugs.net and works excellent with
the dotnet framework and delegates to a windows dotnet
function for example.
The SOE graphics is more or less for clicking with the
mouse, quite simple, but worth trying. I have also
tried a DirectX library called Fran, but the examples
had a tendency to crash. SOE is perfect and works with
unix code, almost no difference.
None of these libraries works with GHC, though. There
is a .NET version out that will compile and works with
Visual Studio IDE, but I haven't tried it. It will
compile to .NET code, at least they say so. I think
you'll find it, it's called haskell.net or something
like that.
Also, as I mentioned, the SOE and those libraries are
ripped from a C++ linker, where you can use OpenGL,
it's quite big and I haven't tried it either, since
the installation failed me, but then you'll get
absolutely everything, search for HGL I guess it's
called.
Sincerely
Ther Jessica Simpson fan
--- Brian McQueen
How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs:
*moving data between windows apps *gaining access to windows registry *in general, access to the available Windows APIs
I'm sure folks must be writing Windows apps in Haskell somewhere. How do I get started?
Brian McQueen _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe

Brian McQueen
How can I use Haskell to do general Windows programming, like you would be able to do if you were using one of those Windows IDEs:
You may find H/Direct would help with this. Unfortunately, there isn't a binary build that I can find, you need to build from source (which I've not managed to achieve). If you can get a binary version, though, it's worth a look... Paul. -- It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that. -- G. H. Hardy
participants (5)
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Brian McQueen
-
Jessica Fan
-
Juan Carlos Arevalo Baeza
-
Neil Mitchell
-
Paul Moore