What is winutils?

winutils is a collection of useful Tcl commands that access some part of the Win32 API. This enables the user to use Windows specific services.

Who wrote it?  [David Gravereaux]

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Example :

[David Gravereaux] mailto:davygrvy@pobox.com recently wrote in news:comp.lang.tcl

 Message-ID: <7enq0u4h5t4hkcrb564rco60okvh5fcttf@4ax.com>


 You can simplify that down a whole lot with my winutils extension and it's
 winutils::shell command.  It's like `eval exec [auto_execok start] $file &`, but
 without the momentary command prompt flashing up on the screen.

 http://sf.net/projects/tomasoft

 package require winutils
 proc LaunchEditor {myfile} {
    # try the "edit" command first.
    if {[catch {winutils::shell -v edit $myfile}]} {
        winutils::shell -v open $myfile
    }
 }
 proc Launch {args} {
    eval winutils::shell -v open $args
 }

This makes use of associations and even does full URLs in the exact manner and
behavior of the "Run..." dialog off the Start menu.

 % Launch mailto:davygrvy@pobox.com?subject=hi%20there&body=was%20up?
 % Launch http://tcl.activestate.com
 % Launch somefile.txt
 % Launch netstat -a 2

I forget if I added the "edit" command to my .tcl association or whether the
[ActiveTcl] installer did it for me..

 % LaunchEditor c:/progra~1/tcl/lib/tcl8.4/init.tcl

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[Pat Thoyts] has suggested the
GetLocaleInfo() API
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/intl/nls_34rz.asp]
join winutils.

What other pieces of win32 make a nice fit here?

   * The special folders stuff - SHGetFolderPath() for retrieving the official path to application data user profile  etc. This can be important for NT/XP systems where we may have reduced rights to write files elsewhere.


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http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1616&release_id=89891

http://prdownloads.sourceforge.net/tomasoft/winutils-0.6.zip

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As the "directory watching" ability of winutils appears to undocumented, here is some info straight from David:

  set w [winutils::dirwatch new c:/somedir { puts gotcha! }]

close the watch with:

  winutils::dirwatch delete $w

or if I left the [incr Tcl] class for it, it would be:

  set w [winutils::dirwatch #auto c:/somedir { puts gotcha! }]
  $w delete

When a file is modified or created in the directory, the script fires.  It saves
the script as a persistent Tcl_Obj*, so the bytecode rep is maintained.  It runs
essentially as a proc in that any temp variables are cleared.  Use [global] to
link to any globals.  I run it also from the scope of the ::winutils namespace,
which might not be useful.

I can fire multiple times for the same event.  I think because of the flags used
with FindFirstChangeNotification().  Some experiments with changing the flags
could improve it.

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[Scott Nichols]
I recommend adding this C++ code to the WinUtils library for creating unique global identifiers (GUIDs). I had a customer that required a GUID be generated with each SOAP transaction so I wrote the Tcl method call in C++ (below) for this, and thought it might be a good candidate for the WinUtils library. The C++ code below is using two dependent libs: tclstub83.lib and rpcrt4.lib. Rpcrt4.lib is part of the Windows OS, and should come with Visual Studio or .net. The source code is so short I went ahead and posted both source files below:

""TclGUID.h:"

 /*
 * TclGUID.h v1.0 12-11-2003 Scott Nichols
 *
 */

 /* TCL Function prototype declarations */
 #ifndef TclGUID_H
 #define TclGUID_H

 #define USE_NON_CONST
 #define TCL_USE_STUBS
 
 /* Not sure if all the includes are needed */
 #include <string.h>
 #include <tcl.h>
 #include <iostream>
 #include <afx.h>
 #include "StdAfx.h"


 extern "C"
 {
    __declspec(dllexport) int Tclguid_Init(Tcl_Interp* interp);

 }

 static int	GetGUID_ObjCmd _ANSI_ARGS_((ClientData clientData,
		    Tcl_Interp *interp, int objc, Tcl_Obj *CONST objv[]));

 #endif


""TclGUID.cpp:""

 /*
 * TclGUID.cpp, v1.0 12/11/2003, Scott J. Nichols
 * scott.nichols4@comcast.net
 *
 * The GetGUID Tcl method returns a 128 bit unique identifier
 * to the Tcl interpeter. Microsoft calls it a globally unique identifier.
 * The application I am using for is the transaction ID for SOAP messages. This was a customer
 * requirment of mine.
 *
 */

 #include "TclGUID.h"

 static int	GetGUID_ObjCmd _ANSI_ARGS_((ClientData clientData,
		    Tcl_Interp *interp, int objc, Tcl_Obj *CONST objv[]))
 {

	GUID guid;

	// create random GUID
	guid = GUID_NULL;
	::CoCreateGuid(&guid);
	
	if (guid == GUID_NULL)
	{
		Tcl_Obj		*obj_result = Tcl_NewStringObj((const char *)"Unable to create GUID.",
                                strlen((const char *) "Unable to create GUID."));
		Tcl_SetObjResult(interp,obj_result);
		
		return TCL_ERROR;
	}
	else
	{

		BYTE * str;
		UuidToString((UUID*)&guid, &str);

		CString unique((LPTSTR)str);

		unique.MakeUpper();
	
		RpcStringFree(&str);
		
		// Return the GUID to the Tcl Interpreter
		Tcl_Obj	*obj_result = Tcl_NewStringObj((const char *)unique,
                                                       strlen((const char *)unique));
		Tcl_SetObjResult(interp,obj_result);
		return TCL_OK;
	}

 }

 /* Main Routine in the TCL Extension DLL */
 int Tclguid_Init(Tcl_Interp *interp)
 {

	#if TCL_MAJOR_VERSION == 8 && TCL_MINOR_VERSION >= 1
		// Does the TCL interpreter support version 8.3 of TCL?
		if (Tcl_InitStubs(interp,"8.3",0) == NULL)
			return TCL_ERROR;
	#endif

	Tcl_CreateObjCommand(interp, "GetGUID", GetGUID_ObjCmd,
		      (ClientData) NULL, (Tcl_CmdDeleteProc *) NULL);

	return (Tcl_PkgProvide(interp,"TclGUID","1.0") == TCL_ERROR ? TCL_ERROR : TCL_OK);
 }

Each time the GetGUID method is called from Tcl a different 128 bit number is returned that looks similar to this: DE4ED408-5200-46E5-8AD1-EEF7351A7C07

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