documentation/winedev-kernel.sgml

  <chapter>
    <title>Kernel modules</title>
    <para>
      This section covers the kernel modules.  As already stated, Wine
      implements the NT architecture, hence provides <filename>NTDLL</filename>
      for the core kernel functions, and <filename>KERNEL32</filename>, which is
      the implementation of the basis of the Win32 subsystem, on top of
      <filename>NTDLL</filename>.
    </para>
    <para>
      This chapter is made of two types of material (depending of their point of
      view).  Some items will be tackled from a global point of view and then,
      when needed, explaining the split of work between
      <filename>NTDLL</filename> and <filename>KERNEL32</filename>; some others
      will be tackled from a DLL point of view (<filename>NTDLL</filename> or
      <filename>KERNEL32</filename>).  The choice is made so that the output is
      more readable and understantable.  At least, that's the intend (sigh).
    </para>

    <sect1 id="initialization">

      <title>The Wine initialization process</title>

      <para>
	Wine has a rather complex startup procedure, so unlike many programs the
	best place to begin exploring the code-base is
	<emphasis>not</emphasis> in fact at the	<function>main()</function>
	function but instead at some of the  more straightforward DLLs that
	exist on the periphery such as MSI, the widget library (in
	<filename>USER</filename> and <filename>COMCTL32</filename>) etc. The
	purpose of this section is to document and explain how Wine starts up
	from the moment the user runs "<command>wine myprogram.exe</command>" to
	the point at which <filename>myprogram</filename> gets control.
      </para>

      <sect2>
	<title>First Steps</title>

	<para>
	  The actual wine binary that the user runs does not do very much, in
	  fact it is only responsible for checking the threading model in use
	  (NPTL vs LinuxThreads) and then invoking a new binary which performs
	  the next stage in the startup sequence. See the beginning of this
	  chapter for more information on this check and why it's necessary. You
	  can find this code in <filename>loader/glibc.c</filename>. The result
	  of this check is an exec of either <command>wine-pthread</command> or
	  <command>wine-kthread</command>, potentially (on Linux) via the
	  <emphasis>preloader</emphasis>. We need to use separate binaries here
	  because overriding the native pthreads library requires us to exploit
	  a property of ELF symbol fixup semantics: it's not possible to do this
	  without starting a new process.
	</para>

	<para>
	  The Wine preloader is found in
	  <filename>loader/preloader.c</filename>, and is required in order to
	  impose a Win32 style address space layout upon the newly created Win32
	  process. The details of what this does is covered in the address space
	  layout chapter. The preloader is a statically linked ELF binary which
	  is passed the name of the actual Wine binary to run (either
	  <command>wine-kthread</command> or <command>wine-pthread</command>)
	  along with the arguments the user passed in from the command line. The
	  preloader is an unusual program: it does not have a
	  <function>main()</function> function. In standard ELF applications,
	  the entry point is actually at a symbol named
	  <function>_start()</function>: this is provided  by the
	  standard <command>gcc</command> infrastructure and normally jumps to
	  <function>__libc_start_main()</function> which initializes glibc before
	  passing control to the main function as defined by the programmer.
	</para>

	<para>
	  The preloader takes control direct from the entry point for a few
	  reasons. Firstly, it is required that glibc is not initialized twice:
	  the result of such behaviour is undefined and subject to change
	  without notice. Secondly, it's possible that as part of initializing
	  glibc, the address space layout could be changed - for instance, any
	  call to <function>malloc()</function> will initialize a heap arena
	  which modifies the VM mappings. Finally, glibc does not return to
	  <function>_start()</function> at any point, so by reusing it we avoid
	  the need to recreate the ELF bootstrap stack
	  (<varname>env</varname>, <varname>argv</varname>, auxiliary array etc).
	</para>

	<para>
	  The preloader is responsible for two things: protecting important
	  regions of the address space so the dynamic linker does not map shared
	  libraries into them, and once that is done loading the real Wine
	  binary off disk, linking it and starting it up. Normally all this is 
	  automatically by glibc and the kernel but as we intercepted this
	  process by using a static binary it's up to us to restart the
	  process. The bulk of the code in the preloader is about loading
	  <command>wine-[pk]thread</command> and
	  <filename>ld-linux.so.2</filename> off disk, linking them together,
	  then starting the dynamic linking process.
	</para>

	<para>
	  One of the last things the preloader does before jumping into the
	  dynamic linker is scan the symbol table of the loaded Wine binary and
	  set the value of a global variable directly: this is a more efficient
	  way of passing information to the main Wine program than flattening
	  the data structures into an environment variable or command line
	  parameter then unpacking it on the other side, but it achieves pretty
	  much the same thing. The global variable set points to the preload
	  descriptor table, which contains the VMA regions protected by the
	  preloader. This allows Wine to unmap them once the dynamic linker has
	  been run, so leaving gaps we can initialize properly later on.
	</para>

      </sect2>
    
      <sect2>
	<title>Starting the emulator</title>

	<para>
	  The process of starting up the emulator itself is mostly one of
	  chaining through various initializer functions defined in the core
	  libraries and DLLs: <filename>libwine</filename>, then
	  <filename>NTDLL</filename>, then <filename>KERNEL32</filename>.
	</para>

	<para>
	  Both the <command>wine-pthread</command> and
	  <command>wine-kthread</command> binaries share a common
	  <function>main()</function> function, defined in
	  <filename>loader/main.c</filename>, so no matter which binary is
	  selected after the preloader has run we start here. This passes the
	  information provided by the preloader into
	  <filename>libwine</filename> and then calls
	  <function>wine_init()</function>, defined in
	  <filename>libs/wine/loader.c</filename>. This is where the emulation
	  really starts: 
	  <function>wine_init()</function> can, with the correct preparation,
	  be called from programs other than the wine loader itself.
	</para>

	<para>
	  <function>wine_init()</function> does some very basic setup tasks such
	  as initializing the debugging infrastructure, yet more address space
	  manipulation (see the information on the 4G/4G VM split in the address
	  space chapter), before loading <filename>NTDLL</filename> - the core
	  of both Wine and the Windows NT series - and jumping to the
	  <function>__wine_process_init()</function> function defined
	  in <filename>dlls/ntdll/loader.c</filename>
	</para>

	<para>
	  This function is responsible for initializing the primary Win32
	  environment. In <function>thread_init()</function>, it sets up the
	  TEB, the <command>wineserver</command> connection for the main thread
	  and the process heap. See the beginning of this chapter for more
	  information on this.

	</para>

	<para>
	  Finally, it loads and jumps to
	  <function>__wine_kernel_init()</function> in
	  <filename>KERNEL32.DLL</filename>: this is defined in
	  <filename>dlls/kernel32/process.c</filename>. This is where the bulk
	  of the work is done. The <filename>KERNEL32</filename> initialization
	  code  retrieves the startup info for the process from the server,
	  initializes the registry, sets up the drive mapping system and locale
	  data, then begins loading the requested application itself. Each
	  process has a <structname>STARTUPINFO</structname> block that can be
	  passed into <function>CreateProcess</function> specifying various
	  things like how the first window should be displayed: this is sent to
	  the new process via the <command>wineserver</command>.
	</para>

	<para>
	  After determining the type of file given to Wine by the user (a Win32
	  EXE file, a Win16 EXE, a Winelib app etc), the program is loaded into
	  memory (which may involve loading and initializing other DLLs, the
	  bulk of Wines startup code), before control reaches the end of
	  <function>__wine_kernel_init()</function>. This function ends with the
	  new process stack being initialized, and start_process being called on
	  the new stack. Nearly there!
	</para>

	<para>
	  The final element of initializing Wine is starting the newly loaded
	  program itself. <function>start_process()</function> sets up the SEH
	  backstop handler, calls <function>LdrInitializeThunk()</function>
	  which performs the last part of the process initialization (such as
	  performing relocations and calling the <function>DllMain()</function>
	  with <constant>PROCESS_ATTACH</constant>), grabs the entry point of
	  the executable and then on this line:
	</para>

	<programlisting>
ExitProcess( entry( peb ) );
	</programlisting>

	<para>
	  ... jumps to the entry point of the program. At this point the users
	  program is running and the API provided by Wine is ready to be
	  used. When entry returns, the <function>ExitProcess()</function> API
	  will be used to initialize a graceful shutdown.
	</para>
      </sect2>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="threading">
      <title>Multi-threading in Wine</title>

      <para>
	This section will assume you understand the basics of multithreading. If
	not there are plenty of good tutorials available on the net to get you
	started.
      </para>

      <para>
	Threading in Wine is somewhat complex due to several factors. The first
	is the advanced level of multithreading support provided by Windows -
	there are far more threading related constructs available in Win32 than
	the Linux equivalent (pthreads). The second is the need to be able to
	map Win32 threads to native Linux threads which provides us with
	benefits like having the kernel schedule them without our
	intervention. While it's possible to implement threading entirely
	without kernel support, doing so is not desirable on most platforms that
	Wine runs on.
      </para>

      <sect2>
	<title>Threading support in Win32</title>

	<para>
	  Win32 is an unusually thread friendly API. Not only is it entirely
	  thread safe, but it provides many different facilities for working
	  with threads. These range from the basics such as starting and
	  stopping threads, to the extremely complex such as injecting threads
	  into other processes and COM inter-thread marshalling.
	</para>

	<para>
	  One of the primary challenges of writing Wine code therefore is
	  ensuring that all our DLLs are thread safe, free of race conditions
	  and so on. This isn't simple - don't be afraid to ask if you aren't
	  sure whether a piece of code is thread safe or not!
	</para>

	<para>
	  Win32 provides many different ways you can make your code thread safe
	  however the most common are <emphasis>critical section</emphasis> and
	  the <emphasis>interlocked functions</emphasis>. Critical sections are
	  a type of mutex designed to protect a geographic area of code. If you
	  don't want multiple threads running in a piece of code at once, you
	  can protect them with calls to
	  <function>EnterCriticalSection()</function> and
	  <function>LeaveCriticalSection()</function>. The first call to
	  <function>EnterCriticalSection()</function> by a thread will lock the
	  section and continue without stopping. If another thread calls it then
	  it will block until the original thread calls
	  <function>LeaveCriticalSection()</function> again.
	</para>

	<para>
	  It is therefore vitally important that if you use critical sections to
	  make some code thread-safe, that you check every possible codepath out
	  of the code to ensure that any held sections are left. Code like this:
	</para>

	<programlisting>
if (res != ERROR_SUCCESS) return res;
	</programlisting>

	<para>
	  is extremely suspect in a function that also contains a call to
	  <function>EnterCriticalSection()</function>. Be careful.
	</para>

	<para>
	  If a thread blocks while waiting for another thread to leave a
	  critical section, you will see an error from the
	  <function>RtlpWaitForCriticalSection()</function> function, along with
	  a note of which thread is holding the lock. This only appears after a
	  certain timeout, normally a few seconds. It's possible the thread
	  holding the lock is just being really slow which is why Wine won't
	  terminate the app like a non-checked build of Windows would, but the
	  most common cause is that for some reason a thread forgot to call
	  <function>LeaveCriticalSection()</function>, or died while holding the
	  lock (perhaps because it was in turn waiting for another lock). This
	  doesn't just happen in Wine code: a deadlock while waiting for a
	  critical section could be due to a bug in the app triggered by a
	  slight difference in the emulation.
	</para>
    
	<para>
	  Another popular mechanism available is the use of functions like
	  <function>InterlockedIncrement()</function>
	  and <function>InterlockedExchange()</function>. These make use of native
	  CPU abilities to execute a single instruction while ensuring any other
	  processors on the system cannot access memory, and allow you to do
	  common operations like add/remove/check a variable in thread-safe code
	  without holding a mutex. These are useful for reference counting
	  especially in free-threaded (thread safe) COM objects.
	</para>

	<para>
	  Finally, the usage of TLS slots are also popular. TLS stands for
	  thread-local storage, and is a set of slots scoped local to a thread
	  which you can store pointers in. Look on MSDN for the
	  <function>TlsAlloc()</function> function to learn more about the Win32
	  implementation of this. Essentially, the contents of a given slot will
	  be different in each thread, so you can use this to store data that is
	  only meaningful in the context of a single thread. On recent versions
	  of Linux the __thread keyword provides a convenient interface to this
	  functionality - a more portable API is exposed in the pthread
	  library. However, these facilities are not used by Wine, rather, we
	  implement Win32 TLS entirely ourselves.
	</para>
      </sect2>

      <sect2>
	<title>SysLevels</title>

	<para>
	  SysLevels are an undocumented Windows-internal thread-safety
	  system. They are basically critical sections which must be taken in a
	  particular order. The mechanism is generic but there are always three
	  syslevels: level 1 is the Win16 mutex, level 2 is the
	  <filename>USER</filename> mutex and level 3 is the
	  <filename>GDI</filename> mutex.
	</para>

	<para>
	  When entering a syslevel, the code (in
	  <filename>dlls/kernel/syslevel.c</filename>) will check that a higher
	  syslevel is not already held and produce an error if so. This is
	  because it's not legal to enter level 2 while holding level 3 - first,
	  you must leave level 3.
	</para>

	<para>
	  Throughout the code you may see calls to
	  <function>_ConfirmSysLevel()</function> and
	  <function>_CheckNotSysLevel()</function>. These functions are
	  essentially assertions about the syslevel states and can be used to
	  check that the rules have not been accidentally violated. In
	  particular, <function>_CheckNotSysLevel()</function> will break
	  probably into the debugger) if the check fails. If this happens the
	  solution is to get a backtrace and find out, by reading the source of
	  the wine functions called along the way, how Wine got into the invalid
	  state.
	</para>
      </sect2>

      <sect2>
	<title>POSIX threading vs. kernel threading</title>

	<para>
	  Wine runs in one of two modes: either pthreads (posix threading) or
	  kthreads (kernel threading). This section explains the differences
	  between them. The one that is used is automatically selected on
	  startup by a small test program which then execs the correct binary,
	  either <command>wine-kthread</command> or 
	  <command>wine-pthread</command>. On NPTL-enabled systems pthreads
	  will be used, and on older non-NPTL systems kthreads is selected.
	</para>

	<para>
	  Let's start with a bit of history. Back in the dark ages when Wine's
	  threading support was first implemented a problem was faced - Windows
	  had much more capable threading APIs than Linux did. This presented a
	  problem - Wine works either by reimplementing an API entirely or by
	  mapping it onto the underlying systems equivalent. How could Win32
	  threading be implemented using a library which did not have all the
	  needed features? The answer, of course, was that it couldn't be.
	</para>

	<para>
	  On Linux the pthreads interface is used to start, stop and control
	  threads. The pthreads library in turn is based on top of so-called
	  "kernel threads" which are created using the
	  <function>clone(2)</function> syscall. Pthreads provides a nicer (more
	  portable) interface to this functionality and also provides APIs for
	  controlling mutexes. There is a <ulink
	    url="http://www.llnl.gov/computing/tutorials/pthreads/"> good
	    tutorial on pthreads</ulink> available if you want to learn more.
	</para>

	<para>
	  As pthreads did not provide the necessary semantics to implement Win32
	  threading, the decision was made to implement Win32 threading on top
	  of the underlying kernel threads by using syscalls like
	  <function>clone()</function> directly. This provided maximum
	  flexibility and allowed a correct implementation but caused some bad
	  side effects. Most notably, all the userland Linux APIs assumed that
	  the user was utilising the pthreads library. Some only enabled thread
	  safety when they detected that pthreads was in use - this is true of
	  glibc, for instance. Worse, pthreads and pure kernel threads had
	  strange interactions when run in the same process yet some libraries
	  used by Wine used pthreads internally. Throw in source code porting
	  using WineLib - where you have both UNIX and Win32 code in the same
	  process - and chaos was the result.
	</para>

	<para>
	  The solution was simple yet ingenious: Wine would provide its own
	  implementation of the pthread library <emphasis>inside</emphasis> its
	  own binary. Due to the semantics of ELF symbol scoping, this would
	  cause Wine's own implementation to override any implementation loaded
	  later on (like the real libpthread.so). Therefore, any calls to the
	  pthread APIs in external libraries would be linked to Wine's instead
	  of the system's pthreads library, and Wine implemented pthreads by
	  using the standard Windows threading APIs it in turn implemented
	  itself.
	</para>

	<para>
	  As a result, libraries that only became thread-safe in the presence of
	  a loaded pthreads implementation would now do so, and any external
	  code that used pthreads would actually end up creating Win32 threads
	  that Wine was aware of and controlled. This worked quite nicely for a
	  long time, even though it required doing some extremely un-kosher
	  things like overriding internal libc structures and functions. That
	  is, it worked until NPTL was developed at which point the underlying
	  thread implementation on Linux changed dramatically.
	</para>

	<para>
	  The fake pthread implementation can be found in
	  <filename>loader/kthread.c</filename>, which is used to
	  produce the <command>wine-kthread</command> binary. In contrast,
	  <filename>loader/pthread.c</filename> produces the
	  <command>wine-pthread</command> binary which is used on newer NPTL
	  systems.
	</para>

	<para>
	  NPTL is a new threading subsystem for Linux that hugely improves its
	  performance and flexibility. By allowing threads to become much more
	  scalable and adding new pthread APIs, NPTL made Linux competitive with
	  Windows in the multi-threaded world. Unfortunately it also broke many
	  assumptions made by Wine (as well as other applications such as the
	  Sun JVM and RealPlayer) in the process.
	</para>

	<para>
	  There was, however, some good news. NPTL made Linux threading powerful
	  enough that Win32 threads could now be implemented on top of pthreads
	  like any other normal application. There would no longer be problems
	  with mixing win32-kthreads and pthreads created by external libraries,
	  and no need to override glibc internals. As you can see from the
	  relative sizes of the <filename>loader/kthread.c</filename> and
	  <filename>loader/pthread.c</filename> files, the difference in code
	  complexity is considerable. NPTL also made several other semantic
	  changes to things such as signal delivery so changes were required in
	  many different places in Wine.
	</para>

	<para>
	  On non-Linux systems the threading interface is typically not powerful
	  enough to replicate the semantics Win32 applications expect and so
	  kthreads with the pthread overrides are used.
	</para>
      </sect2>

      <sect2>
	<title>The Win32 thread environment</title>

	<para>
	  All Win32 code, whether from a native EXE/DLL or in Wine  itself,
	  expects certain constructs to be present in its environment. This
	  section explores what those constructs are and how Wine sets them
	  up. The lack of this environment is one thing that makes it hard to
	  use Wine code directly from standard Linux applications - in order to
	  interact with Win32 code a thread must first be
	  "adopted" by Wine.
	</para>

	<para>
	  The first thing Win32 code requires is the
	  <emphasis>TEB</emphasis> or "Thread Environment Block". This is an
	  internal (undocumented) Windows structure associated with every thread
	  which stores a variety of things such as TLS slots, a pointer to the
	  threads message queue, the last error code and so on. You can see the
	  definition of the TEB in <filename>include/thread.h</filename>, or at
	  least what we know of it so far. Being internal and subject to change,
	  the layout of the TEB has had to be reverse engineered from scratch.
	</para>

	<para>
	  A pointer to the TEB is stored in the %fs register and can be accessed
	  using <function>NtCurrentTeb()</function> from within Wine code. %fs
	  actually stores a selector, and setting it therefore requires
	  modifying the processes local descriptor table (LDT) - the code to do
	  this is in <filename>lib/wine/ldt.c</filename>. 
	</para>

	<para>
	  The TEB is required by nearly all Win32 code run in the Wine
	  environment, as any <command>wineserver</command> RPC will use it,
	  which in turn implies that any code which could possibly block for
	  instance by using a critical section) needs it. The TEB also holds the
	  SEH exception handler chain as the first element, so if disassembling
	  you see code like this:
	</para>

	<programlisting>movl %esp, %fs:0</programlisting>

	<para>
	  ... then you are seeing the program set up an SEH handler frame. All
	  threads must have at least one SEH entry, which normally points to the
	  backstop handler which is ultimately responsible for popping up the
	  all-too-familiar  This program has performed an illegal operation and
	  will be terminated" message. On Wine we just drop straight into the
	  debugger. A full description of SEH is out of the scope of this
	  section, however there are some good articles in MSJ if you are
	  interested.
	</para>

	<para>
	  All Win32-aware threads must have a <command>wineserver</command>
	  connection. Many  different APIs require the ability to communicate
	  with the <command>wineserver</command>. In turn, the
	  <command>wineserver</command> must be aware of Win32 threads in order
	  to be able to accurately report information to other parts of the
	  program and do things like route inter-thread messages, dispatch APCs
	  (asynchronous procedure calls) and so on. Therefore a part of thread
	  initialization is initializing the thread server-side. The result is
	  not only correct information in the server, but a set of file
	  descriptors the thread can use to communicate with the server - the
	  request fd, reply fd and wait fd (used for blocking).
	</para>
      </sect2>
    </sect1>

    <sect1 id="seh">
      <title>Structured Exception Handling</title>
      
      <para>
        Structured Exception Handling (or SEH) is an implementation of
	exceptions inside the Windows core. It allows code written in different
	languages to throw exceptions across DLL boundaries, and Windows reports
	various errors like access violations by throwing them. This section
	looks at how it works, and how it's implemented in Wine.
      </para>

      <sect2>
        <title>How SEH works</title>

        <para>
          SEH is based on embedding
	  <structname>EXCEPTION_REGISTRATION_RECORD</structname> structures in
	  the stack. Together they form a linked list rooted at offset zero in
	  the TEB (see the threading section if you don't know what this is). A
	  registration record points to a handler function, and when an
	  exception is thrown the handlers are executed in turn. Each handler
	  returns a code, and they can elect to either continue through the
	  handler chain or it can handle the exception and then restart the
	  program. This is referred to as unwinding the stack. After each
	  handler is called it's popped off the chain.
        </para>

        <para>
          Before the system begins unwinding the stack, it runs vectored
	  handlers. This is an extension to SEH available in Windows XP, and
	  allows registered functions to get a first chance to watch or deal
	  with any exceptions thrown in the entire program, from any thread.
        </para>

        <para>
          A thrown exception is represented by an
	  <structname>EXCEPTION_RECORD</structname> structure. It consists of a
	  code, flags, an address and an arbitrary number of <type>DWORD</type>
	  parameters. Language runtimes can use these parameters to associate
	  language-specific information with the exception.
        </para>
        
        <para>
          Exceptions can be triggered by many things. They can be thrown
	  explicitly by using the RaiseException API, or they can be triggered
	  by a crash (ie, translated from a signal). They may be used internally
	  by a language runtime to implement language-specific exceptions. They
	  can also be thrown across DCOM connections.
        </para>

        <para>
          Visual C++ has various extensions to SEH which it uses to implement,
	  eg, object destruction on stack unwind as well as the ability to throw
	  arbitrary types. The code for this is in
	  <filename>dlls/msvcrt/except.c</filename>
        </para>

      </sect2>
      
      <sect2>
        <title>Translating signals to exceptions</title>

        <para>
          In Windows, compilers are expected to use the system exception
	  interface, and the kernel itself uses the same interface to
	  dynamically insert exceptions into a running program. By contrast on
	  Linux the exception ABI is implemented at the compiler level
          (inside GCC and the linker) and the kernel tells a thread of
          exceptional events by sending <emphasis>signals</emphasis>. The
	  language runtime may or may not translate these signals into native
	  exceptions, but whatever happens the kernel does not care.
        </para>

        <para>
          You may think that if an app crashes, it's game over and it really
	  shouldn't matter how Wine handles this. It's what you might
	  intuitively guess, but you'd be wrong. In fact some Windows programs
	  expect to be able to crash themselves and recover later without the
	  user noticing, some contain buggy binary-only components from third
	  parties and use SEH to swallow crashes, and still others execute
	  priviledged (kernel-level) instructions and expect it to work. In
	  fact, at least one set of APIs (the <function>IsBad*Ptr()</function>
	  series) can only be implemented by performing an operation that may
	  crash and returning <constant>TRUE</constant> if it does, and
	  <constant>FALSE</constant> if it doesn't! So, Wine needs to not only
	  implement the SEH infrastructure but also translate Unix signals into
	  SEH exceptions.
        </para>

        <para>
          The code to translate signals into exceptions is a part of
	  <filename>NTDLL</filename>, and can be found in
	  <filename>dlls/ntdll/signal_i386.c</filename>. This file sets up
	  handlers for various signals during Wine startup, and for the ones
	  that indicate exceptional conditions translates them into
	  exceptions. Some signals are used by Wine internally and have nothing
	  to do with SEH.
        </para>

        <para>
          Signal handlers in Wine run on their own stack. Each thread has its
	  own signal stack which resides 4k after the TEB. This is important for
	  a couple of reasons. Firstly, because there's no guarantee that the
	  app thread which triggered the signal has enough stack space for the
	  Wine signal handling code. In Windows, if a thread hits the limits of
	  its stack it triggers a fault on the stack guard page. The language
	  runtime can use this to grow the stack if it wants to.

          <!-- fixme: is it really the language runtime that does this? i
               can't find any code in Wine to reallocate the stack on
               STATUS_GUARD_PAGE_VIOLATION -->

          However, because a guard page violation is just a regular segfault to
	  the kernel, that would lead to a nested signal handler and that gets
	  messy really quick so we disallow that in Wine. Secondly, setting up
	  the exception to throw requires modifying the stack of the thread
	  which triggered it, which is quite hard to do when you're still
	  running on it.
        </para>

        <para>
          Windows exceptions typically contain more information than the Unix
	  standard APIs provide. For instance, a
	  <constant>STATUS_ACCESS_VIOLATION</constant> exception (0xC0000005)
	  structure contains the faulting address, whereas a standard Unix
	  SIGSEGV just tells the app that it crashed. Usually this information
	  is passed as an extra parameter to the signal handler, however its
          location and contents vary between kernels (BSD, Solaris,
          etc). This data is provided in a <structname>SIGCONTEXT</structname>
	  structure, and on entry to the signal handler it contains the register
	  state of the CPU before the signal was sent. Modifying it will cause
	  the kernel to adjust the context before restarting the thread.
        </para>
      </sect2>
    </sect1>

    <sect1>
      <title>File management</title>
      <para>
	With time, Windows API comes closer to the old Unix paradigm "Everything
	is a file".  Therefore, this whole section dedicated to file management
	will cover firstly the file management, but also some other objects like
	directories, and even devices, which are manipulated in Windows in a
	rather coherent way.  We'll see later on some other objects fitting
	(more or less) in this picture (pipes or consoles to name a few).
      </para>

      <para>
	First of all, Wine, while implementing the file interface from Windows,
	needs to maps a file name (expressed in the Windows world) onto a file
	name in the Unix world.  This encompasses several aspects: how to map
	the file names, how to map access rights (both on files and
	directories), how to map physical devices (hardisks, but also other
	devices - like serial or parallel interfaces - and even VxDs).
      </para>

      <sect2>
	<title>Various Windows formats for file names</title>
	<para>
	  Let's first review a bit the various forms Windows uses when it comes
	  to file names.
	</para>
	
	<sect3>
	  <title>The DOS inheritance</title>

	  <para>
	    At the beginning was DOS, where each file has to sit on a drive,
	    called from a single letter.  For separating device names from
	    directory or file names, a ':' was appended to this single letter,
	    hence giving the (in)-famous <filename>C:</filename> drive
	    designations.  Another great invention was to use some fixed names
	    for accessing devices: not only where these named fixed, in a way
	    you couldn't change the name if you'd wish to, but also, they were
	    insensible to the location where you were using them.  For example,
	    it's well known that <filename>COM1</filename> designates the first
	    serial port, but it's also true that
	    <filename>c:\foo\bar\com1</filename> also designates the first
	    serial port.  It's still true today: on XP, you still cannot name a
	    file <filename>COM1</filename>, whatever the directory!!!
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Well later on (with Windows 95), Microsoft decided to overcome some
	    little details in file names: this included being able to get out of
	    the 8+3 format (8 letters for the name, 3 letters for the
	    extension), and so being able to use "long names" (that's the
	    "official" naming; as you can guess, the 8+3 format is a short
	    name), and also to use very strange characters in a file name (like
	    a space, or even a '.').  You could then name a file
	    <filename>My File V0.1.txt</filename>, instead of
	    <filename>myfile01.txt</filename>.  Just to keep on the fun side of
	    things, for many years the format used on the disk itself for
	    storing the names has been the short name as the real one and to use
	    some tricky aliasing techniques to store the long name.  When some
	    newer disk file systems have been introduced (NTFS with NT), in
	    replacement of the old FAT system (which had little evolved since
	    the first days of DOS), the long name became the real name while the
	    short name took the alias role.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Windows also started to support mounting network shares, and see
	    them as they were a local disk (through a specific drive letter).
	    The way it has been done changed along the years, so we won't go
	    into all the details (especially on the DOS and Win9x side).
	  </para>
	</sect3>

	<sect3>
	  <title>The NT way</title>
	  <para>
	    The introduction of NT allowed a deep change in the ways DOS had
	    been handling devices:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  There's no longer a forest of DOS drive letters (even if the
		  <command>assign</command> was a way to create symbolic links
		  in the forest), but a single hierarchical space.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  This hierarchy includes several distinct elements.  For
		  example, <filename>\Device\Hardisk0\Partition0</filename>
		  refers to the first partition on the first physical hard disk
		  of the system.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  This hierarchy covers way more than just the files and drives
		  related objects, but most of the objects in the system.  We'll
		  only cover here the file related part.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  This hierarchy is not directly accessible for the Win32 API,
		  but only the <filename>NTDLL</filename> API.  The Win32 API
		  only allows to manipulate part of this hierarchy (the rest
		  being hidden from the Win32 API). Of course, the part you see
		  from Win32 API looks very similar to the one that DOS
		  provided.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  Mounting a disk is performed by creating a symbol link in this
		  hierarchy from <filename>\Global??\C:</filename> (the name
		  seen from the Win32 API) to
		  <filename>\Device\Harddiskvolume1</filename> which determines
		  the partition on a physical disk where C: is going to be seen.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  Network shares are also accessible through a symbol link.
		  However in this case, a symbol link is created from 
		  <filename>\Global??\UNC\host\share\</filename> for the share
		  <filename>share</filename> on the machine
		  <filename>host</filename>) to what's called a network
		  redirector, and which will take care of 1/ the connection to
		  the remote share, 2/ handling with that remote share the rest
		  of the path (after the name of the server, and the name of the
		  share on that server).
		</para>
		<note>
		  <para>
		    In NT naming convention, <filename>\Global??</filename> can
		    also be called <filename>\??</filename> to shorten the
		    access.
		  </para>
		</note>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    All of these things, make the NT system pretty much more flexible
	    (you can add new types of filesystems if you want), you provide a
	    unique name space for all objects, and most operations boil down to
	    creating relationship between different objects.
	  </para>
	</sect3>

	<sect3>
	  <title>Wrap up</title>
	  <para>
	    Let's end this chapter about files in Windows with a review of the
	    different formats used for file names:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para><filename>c:\foo\bar</filename> is a full path.</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  <filename>\foo\bar</filename> is an absolute path; the full
		  path is created by appending the default drive (ie. the drive
		  of the current directory).
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  <filename>bar</filename> is a relative path; the full path is
		  created by adding the current directory.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  <filename>c:bar</filename> is a drive relative path.  Note
		  that the case where <filename>c:</filename> is the drive of
		  the current directory is rather easy; it's implemented the
		  same way as the case just below (relative path). In the rest
		  of this chapter, drive relative path will only cover the case
		  where the drive in the path isn't the drive of the default
		  directory.  The resolution of this to a full pathname defers
		  according to the version of Windows, and some parameters.
		  Let's take some time browsing through these issues.  On
		  Windows 9x (as well as on DOS), the system maintains a process
		  wide set of default directories per drive.  Hence, in this
		  case, it will resolve <filename>c:bar</filename> to the
		  default directory on drive <filename>c:</filename> plus file
		  <filename>bar</filename>.  Of course, the default per drive
		  directory is updated each time a new current directory is set
		  (only the current directory of the drive specified is
		  modified).  On Windows NT, things differ a bit.  Since NT
		  implements a namespace for file closer to a single tree
		  (instead of 26 drives), having a current directory per drive
		  is a bit ackward.  Hence, Windows NT default behavior is to
		  have only one current directory across all drives (in fact, a
		  current directory expressed in the global tree) - this
		  directory is of course related to a given process -,
		  <filename>c:bar</filename> is resolved this way:
		  <itemizedlist>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			If <filename>c:</filename> is the drive of the default
			directory, the final path is the current directory plus
			<filename>bar</filename>.
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			Otherwise it's resolved into
			<filename>c:\bar</filename>.
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			In order to bridge the gap between the two
			implementations (Windows 9x and NT), NT adds a bit of
			complexity on the second case.  If the
			<envar>=C:</envar> environment variable is defined, then
			it's value is used as a default directory for drive
			<filename>C:</filename>.  This is handy, for example,
			when writing a DOS shell, where having a current drive
			per drive is still implemented, even on NT.  This
			mechanism (through environment variables) is implemented
			on <command>CMD.EXE</command>, where those variables are
			set when you change directories with the
			<command>cd</command>.  Since environment variables are
			inherited at process creation, the current directories
			settings are inherited by child processes, hence
			mimicing the behavior of the old DOS shell.  There's no
			mechanism (in <filename>NTDLL</filename> or
			<filename>KERNEL32</filename>) to set up, when current
			directory changes, the relevant environment variables.
			This behavior is clearly band-aid, not a full featured
			extension of current directory behavior.
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		  </itemizedlist>
		  Wine fully implements all those behaviors (the Windows 9x vs
		  NT ones are triggered by the version flag in Wine).
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  <filename>\\host\share</filename> is <firstterm>UNC</firstterm>
		  (Universal Naming Convention) path, ie. represents a file on a
		  remote share.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  <filename>\\.\device</filename> denotes a physical device
		  installed in the system (as seen from the Win32 subsystem).  A
		  standard NT system will map it to the
		  <filename>\??\device</filename> NT path.  Then, as a standard
		  configuration, <filename>\??\device</filename> is likely to be
		  a link to in a physical device described and hooked into the
		  <filename>\Device\</filename> tree.  For example,
		  <filename>COM1</filename> is a link to
		  <filename>\Device\Serial0</filename>.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  On some versions of Windows, paths were limited to
		  <constant>MAX_PATH</constant> characters.  To circumvent this,
		  Microsoft allowed paths to be <constant>32,767</constant>
		  characters long, under the conditions that the path is
		  expressed in Unicode (no Ansi version), and that the path is
		  prefixed with <filename>\\?\</filename>.  This convention is
		  applicable to any of the cases described above.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    To summarize, what we've discussed so, let's put everything into a
	    single table...
	    <table>
	      <title>DOS, Win32 and NT paths equivalences</title>
	      <tgroup cols="3" align="left">
		<thead>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Type of path</entry>
		    <entry>Win32 example</entry>
		    <entry>NT equivalent</entry>
		    <entry>Rule to construct</entry>
		  </row>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Full path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>c:\foo\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\C:\foo\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry>Simple concatenation</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Absolute path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>\foo\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\J:\foo\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      Simple concatenation using the drive of the default
		      directory (here J:)
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Relative path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>gee\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>
			\Global??\J:\mydir\mysubdir\gee\bar.txt
		      </filename>
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Simple concatenation using the default directory
		      (here <filename>J:\mydir\mysubdir</filename>)
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Drive relative path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>j:gee\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <msgtext>
			<para>
			  <itemizedlist>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows 9x (and DOS),
				<filename>J:\toto\gee\bar.txt</filename>.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows NT,
				<filename>J:\gee\bar.txt</filename>.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows NT,
				<filename>J:\tata\titi\bar.txt</filename>.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			  </itemizedlist>
			</para>
		      </msgtext>
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		    <msgtext>
			<para>
			  <itemizedlist>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows NT (and DOS),
				<filename>\toto</filename> is the default
				directory on drive <filename>J:</filename>.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows NT, if <envar>=J:</envar> isn't set.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			    <listitem>
			      <para>
				On Windows NT, if <envar>=J:</envar> is set to
				<filename>J:\tata\titi</filename>.
			      </para>
			    </listitem>
			  </itemizedlist>
			</para>
		      </msgtext>
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>UNC (Uniform Naming Convention) path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>\\host\share\foo\bar.txt</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>\Global??\UNC\host\share\foo\bar.txt</filename>
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Simple concatenation.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Device path</entry>
		    <entry><filename>\\.\device</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\device</filename></entry>
		    <entry>Simple concatenation</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Long paths</entry>
		    <entry><filename>\\?\...</filename></entry>
		    <entry></entry>
		    <entry>
		      With this prefix, paths can take up to
		      <constant>32,767</constant> characters, instead of
		      <constant>MAX_PATH</constant> for all the others).  Once
		      the prefix stripped, to be handled like one of the
		      previous ones, just providing internal buffers large
		      enough).
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		</tbody>
	      </tgroup>
	    </table>
	  </para>
	</sect3>
      </sect2>
      
      <sect2>
	<title>Wine implementation</title>
	<para>
	  We'll mainly cover in this section the way Wine opens a file (in the
	  Unix sense) when given a Windows file name.  This will include mapping
	  the Windows path onto a Unix path (including the devices case),
	  handling the access rights, the sharing attribute if any...  
	</para>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Mapping a Windows path into an absolute Windows path</title>
	  <para>
	    First of all, we described in previous section the way to convert
	    any path in an absolute path.  Wine implements all the previous algorithms
	    in order to achieve this.  Note also, that this transformation is
	    done with information local to the process (default directory,
	    environment variables...).  We'll assume in the rest of this section
	    that all paths have now been transformed into absolute from.
	  </para>
	</sect3>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Mapping a Windows (absolute) path onto a Unix path</title>
	  <para>
	    When Wine is requested to map a path name (in DOS form, with a drive
	    letter, e.g. <filename>c:\foo\bar\myfile.txt</filename>), Wine
	    converts this into the following Unix path
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/c:/foo/bar/myfile.txt</filename>.
	    The Wine configuration process is responsible for setting
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/c:</filename> to be a symbolic
	    link pointing to the directory in Unix hierarchy the user wants to
	    expose as the <filename>C:</filename> drive in the DOS forest of
	    drives.  
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    This scheme allows:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  a very simple algorithm to map a DOS path name into a Unix one
		  (no need of Wine server calls) 
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  a very configurable implementation: it's very easy to change a
		  drive mapping 
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  a rather readable configuration: no need of sophisticated
		  tools to read a drive mapping, a <command>ls -l
		   $(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices</command> 
		  says it all.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    This scheme is also used to implement UNC path names.  For example,
	    Wine maps <filename>\\host\share\foo\bar\MyRemoteFile.txt</filename>
	    into 
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/unc/host/share/foo/bar/MyRemoteFile.txt</filename>.
	    It's then up to the user to decide where
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/unc/host/share</filename> shall
	    point to (or be).  For example, it can either be a symbolic link to a
	    directory inside the local machine (just for emulation purpose), or
	    a symbolic link to the mount point of a remote disk (done through
	    Samba or NFS), or even the real mount point.  Wine will not do any
	    checking here, nor will help in actually mounting the remote drive.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    We've seen how Wine maps a drive letter or a UNC path onto the Unix
	    hierarchy, we now have to look on a the filename is searched within
	    this hierarchy.  The main issue is about case sensivity.  Here's a
	    reminder of the various properties for the file systems in the
	    field.
	    <table>
	      <title>File systems' properties</title>
	      <tgroup cols="4" align="left">
		<thead>
		  <row>
		    <entry>FS Name</entry>
		    <entry>Length of elements</entry>
		    <entry>Case sensitivity (on disk)</entry>
		    <entry>Case sensitivity for lookup</entry>
		  </row>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
		  <row>
		    <entry>FAT, FAT16 or FAT32</entry>
		    <entry>Short name (8+3)</entry>
		    <entry>Names are always stored in upper-case</entry> 
		    <entry>Case insensitive</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>VFAT</entry>
		    <entry>Short name (8+3) + alias on long name</entry> 
		    <entry>
		      Short names are always stored in upper-case.  Long names
		      are stored with case preservation.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>Case insensitive</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>NTFS</entry>
		    <entry>Long name + alias on short name (8+3).</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Long names are stored with case preservation.  Short names
		      are always stored in upper-case.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>Case insentivite</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Linux FS (ext2fs, ext3fs, reiserfs...)</entry>
		    <entry>Long name</entry>
		    <entry>Case preserving</entry>
		    <entry>Case sensitive</entry>
		  </row>
		</tbody>
	      </tgroup>
	    </table>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    <note>
	      <para>
		When we say that most systems in NT are case insensitive, this
		has to be understood for looking up for a file, where the
		matches are made in a case insensitive mode.  This is different
		from VFAT or NTFS "case preservation" mechanism, which stores
		the file names as they are given when creating the file, while
		doing case insensitive matches.
	      </para>
	    </note>
	    Since most file systems used in NT are case insensitive and since
	    most Unix file systems are case sensitive, Wine undergo a case
	    insensitive search when it has found the Unix path is has to look
	    for.  This means, for example, that for opening the
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/c:/foo/bar/myfile.txt</filename>,
	    Wine will recursively open all directories in the path, and check,
	    in this order, for the existence of the directory entry in the form
	    given in the file name (ie. case sensitive), and if it's not found,
	    in a case insensitive form.  This allows to also pass, in most Win32
	    file API also a Unix path (instead of a DOS or NT path), but we'll
	    come back to this later.  This also means that the algorithm
	    described doesn't correctly handle the case of two files in the same
	    directory, which names only differ on the case of the letters.  This
	    means, that if, in the same directory, two files (which names match
	    in a case sensitive comparison), Wine will pick-up the right one if
	    the filename given matches on of the name (in a case sensitive way),
	    but will pickup one of the two (without defining the one it's going
	    to pickup) if the filename given matches none of the two names in a
	    case sensitive way (but in a case insensitive way).  For example, if
	    the two filenames are <filename>my_neat_file.txt</filename> and
	    <filename>My_Neat_File.txt</filename>, Wine's behavior when opening
	    <filename>MY_neat_FILE.txt</filename> is undefined.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    As Windows, at the early days, didn't support the notion of symbolic
	    links on directories, lots of applications (and some old native
	    DLLs) are not ready for this feature.  Mainly, they imply that the
	    directory structure is a tree, which has lots of consequences on
	    navigating in the forest of directories (ie: there cannot be two
	    ways for going from directory to another, there cannot be
	    cycles...).  In order to prevent some bad behavior for such
	    applications, Wine sets up an option.  By default, symbolic links on
	    directories are not followed by Wine.  There's an options to follow
	    them (see the Wine User Guide), but this could be harmful.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Wine considers that Unix file names <emphasis>are</emphasis> long
	    filename.  This seems a reasonable approach; this is also the
	    approach followed by most of the Unix OSes while mounting Windows
	    partitions (with filesystems like FAT, FAT32 or NTFS).  Therefore,
	    Wine tries to support short names the best it can.  Basically, they
	    are two options:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  The filesystem on which the inspected directory lies in a real
		  Windows FS (like FAT, or FAT32, or NTFS) and the OS has
		  support to access the short filename (for example, Linux does
		  this on FAT, FAT32 or VFAT).  In this case, Wine makes full use
		  of this information and really mimics the Windows behavior:
		  the short filename used for any file is the same than on
		  Windows.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  If conditions listed above are not met (either, FS has no
		  physical short name support, or OS doesn't provide the access
		  access to the short name), Wine decides and computes on its
		  own the short filename for a given long filename.  We cannot
		  ensure that the generated short name is the same than on
		  Windows (because the algorithm on Windows takes into account
		  the order of creation of files, which cannot be implemented in
		  Wine: Wine would have to cache the short names of every
		  directory it uses!).  The short name is made up of part of the
		  long name (first characters) and the rest with a hashed
		  value.  This has several advantages:
		  <itemizedlist>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			The algorithm is rather simple and low cost.
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			The algorithm is stateless (doesn't depend of the other
			files in the directory).
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		  </itemizedlist>
		  But, it also has the drawbacks (of the advantages):
		  <itemizedlist>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			The algorithm isn't the same as on Windows, which means
			a program cannot use short names generated on
			Windows.  This could happen when copying an existing
			installed program from Windows (for example, on a dual
			boot machine).
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		    <listitem>
		      <para>
			Two long file names can end up with the same short name
			(Windows handles the collision in this case, while Wine
			doesn't).  We rely on our hash algorithm to lower at most
			this possibility (even if it exists).
		      </para>
		    </listitem>
		  </itemizedlist>
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Wine also allows in most file API to give as a parameter a full Unix
	    path name.  This is handy when running a Wine (or Winelib) program
	    from the command line, and one doesn't need to convert the path into
	    the Windows form.  However, Wine checks that the Unix path given can
	    be accessed from one of the defined drives, insuring that only part
	    of the Unix <filename>/</filename> hierarchy can be accessed.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    As a side note, as Unix doesn't widely provide a Unicode interface
	    to the filenames, and that Windows implements filenames as Unicode
	    strings (even on the physical layer with NTFS, the FATs variant are
	    ANSI), we need to properly map between the two.  At startup, Wine
	    defines what's called the Unix Code Page, that's is the code page
	    the Unix kernel uses as a reference for the strings.  Then Wine uses
	    this code page for all the mappings it has to do between a Unicode
	    path (on the Windows side) and a Ansi path to be used in a Unix path
	    API.  Note, that this will work as long as a disk isn't mounted with
	    a different code page than the one the kernel uses as a default.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    We describe below how Windows devices are mapped to Unix devices.  
	    Before that, let's finish the pure file round-up with some basic
	    operations.
	  </para>
	</sect3>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Access rights and file attributes</title>
	  <para>
	    Now that we have looked how Wine converts a Windows pathname into a
	    Unix one, we need to cover the various meta-data attached to a file
	    or a directory.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    In Windows, access rights are simplistic: a file can be read-only or
	    read-write.  Wine sets the read-only flag if the file doesn't have
	    the Unix user-write flag set.  As a matter of fact, there's no way
	    Wine can return that a file cannot be read (that doesn't exist under
	    Windows).  The file will be seen, but trying to open it will return
	    an error.  The Unix exec-flag is never reported.  Wine doesn't use
	    this information to allow/forbid running a new process (as Unix does
	    with the exec-flag).  Last but not least: hidden files.  This exists
	    on Windows but not really on Unix! To be exact, in Windows, the
	    hidden flag is a metadata associated to any file or directoy; in
	    Unix, it's a convention based on the syntax of the file name
	    (whether it starts with a '.' or not).  Wine implements two behaviors
	    (chosen by configuration).  This impacts file names and directory
	    names starting by a '.'.  In first mode
	    (<option>ShowDotFile</option> is <constant>FALSE</constant>), every 
	    file or directory starting by '.' is returned with the hidden flag
	    turned on.  This is the natural behavior on Unix (for
	    <command>ls</command> or even file explorer).  In the second mode
	    (<option>ShowDotFile</option> is <constant>TRUE</constant>), Wine
	    never sets the hidden flag, hence every file will be seen.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Last but not least, before opening a file, Windows makes use of
	    sharing attributes in order to check whether the file can be opened;
	    for example, a process, being the first in the system to open a
	    given file, could forbid, while it maintains the file opened, that
	    another process opens it for write access, whereas open for read
	    access would be granted.  This is fully supported in Wine by moving
	    all those checks in the Wine server for a global view on the system.
	    Note also that what's moved in the Wine server is the check, when
	    the file is opened, to implement the Windows sharing semantics.
	    Further operation on the file (like reading and writing) will not
	    require heavy support from the server.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    The other good reason for putting the code for actually opening a
	    file in the server is that an opened files in Windows is managed
	    through a handle, and handles can only be created in Wine server!
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Just a note about attributes on directories: while we can easily map
	    the meaning of Windows' <constant>FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY</constant>
	    on a file, we cannot do it for a directory.  Windows' semantic (when
	    this flag is set) means do not delete the directory, while the
	    <constant>w</constant> attribute in Unix means don't write nor
	    delete it.  Therefore, Wine uses an asymetric mapping here: if the
	    directory (in Unix) isn't writable, then Wine reports the
	    <constant>FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY</constant> attribute; on the other
	    way around, when asked to set a directory with
	    <constant>FILE_ATTRIBUTE_READONLY</constant> attribute, Wine simply
	    does nothing.
	  </para>
	</sect3>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Operations on file</title>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>Reading and writing</title>
	    <para>
	      Reading and writing are the basic operations on files.  Wine of
	      course implements this, and bases the implementation on client
	      side calls to Unix equivalents (like <function>read()</function>
	      or <function>write()</function>).  Note, that the Wine server is
	      involved in any read or write operation, as Wine needs to
	      transform the Windows-handle to the file into a Unix file
	      descriptor it can pass to any Unix file function.
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>Getting a Unix fd</title>
	    <para>
	      This is major operation in any file related operation.  Basically,
	      each file opened (at the Windows level), is first opened in the
	      Wine server, where the fd is stored.  Then, Wine (on client side)
	      uses <function>recvmsg()</function> to pass the fd from the wine
	      server process to the client process.  Since this operation could
	      be lengthy, Wine implement some kind of cache mechanism to send it
	      only once, but getting a fd from a handle on a file (or any other
	      Unix object which can be manipulated through a file descriptor)
	      still requires a round trip to the Wine server.
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>Locking</title>
	    <para>
	      Windows provides file locking capabilities.  When a lock is set
	      (and a lock can be set on any contiguous range in a file), it
	      controls how other processes in the system will have access to the
	      range in the file.  Since locking range on a file are defined on a
	      system wide manner, its implementation resides in
	      <command>wineserver</command>.  It tries to make use Unix file
	      locking (if the underlying OS and the mounted disk where the file
	      sits support this feature) with <function>fcntl()</function> and
	      the <constant>F_SETLK</constant> command.  If this isn't
	      supported, then <command>wineserver</command> just pretends it
	      works. 
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>I/O control</title>
	    <para>
	      There's no need (so far) to implement support (for files and
	      directories) for <function>DeviceIoControl()</function>, even if
	      this is supported by Windows, but for very specific needs
	      (like compression management, or file system related information).
	      This isn't the case for devices (including disks), but we'll cover
	      this in the hereafter section related to devices.
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>Buffering</title>
	    <para>
	      Wine doesn't do any buffering on file accesses but rely on the
	      underlying Unix kernel for that (when possible). This scheme is
	      needed because it's easier to implement multiple accesses on the
	      same file at the kernel level, rather than at Wine levels.  Doing
	      lots of small reads on the same file can turn into a performance
	      hog, because each read operation needs a round trip to the server
	      in order to get a file descriptor (see above).
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	  <sect4>
	    <title>Overlapped I/O</title>
	    <para>
	      Windows introduced the notion of overlapped I/O.  Basically, it
	      just means that an I/O operation (think read / write to start
	      with) will not wait until it's completed, but rather return to the
	      caller as soon as possible, and let the caller handle the wait
	      operation and determine when the data is ready (for a read
	      operation) or has been sent (for a write operation).  Note that the
	      overlapped operation is linked to a specific thread.
	    </para>
	    <para>
	      There are several interests to this: a server can handle several
	      clients without requiring multi-threading techniques; you can
	      handle an event driven model more easily (ie how to kill properly
	      a server while waiting in the lengthy <function>read()</function>
	      operation).
	    </para>
	    <para>
	      Note that Microsoft's support for this feature evolved along the
	      various versions of Windows.  For example, Windows 95 or 98 only
	      supports overlapped I/O for serial and parallel ports, while NT
	      supports also files, disks, sockets, pipes, or mailslots.
	    </para>
	    <para>
	      Wine implements overlapped I/O operations.  This is mainly done by
	      queueing in the server a request that will be triggered when
	      something the current state changes (like data available for a
	      read operation).  This readiness is signaled to the calling
	      processing by queueing a specific APC, which will be called within
	      the next waiting operation the thread will have.  This specific
	      APC will then do the hard work of the I/O operation.  This scheme
	      allows to put in place a wait mechanism, to attach a routine to be
	      called (on the thread context) when the state changes, and to be
	      done is a rather transparent manner (embedded any the generic wait
	      operation).  However, it isn't 100% perfect.  As the heavy
	      operations are done in the context of the calling threads, if
	      those operations are lengthy, there will be an impact on the
	      calling thread, especially its latency.  In order to provide an
	      effective support for this overlapped I/O operations, we would
	      need to rely on Unix kernel features (AIO is a good example).
	    </para>
	  </sect4>
	</sect3>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Devices & volume management</title>
	  <para>
	    We've covered so far the ways file names are mapped into Unix
	    pathes.  There's still need to cover it for devices.  As a regular
	    file, devices are manipulated in Windows with both read / write
	    operations, but also control mechanisms (speed or parity of a serial
	    line; volume name of a hard disk...).  Since, this is also supported
	    in Linux, there's also a need to open (in a Unix sense) a device
	    when given a Windows device name.  This section applies to DOS device
	    names, which are seen in NT as nicknames to other devices.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Firstly, Wine implements the Win32 to NT mapping as described above,
	    hence every device path (in NT sense) is of the following form:
	    <filename>/??/devicename</filename> (or
	    <filename>/DosDevices/devicename</filename>).  As Windows device
	    names are case insensitive, Wine also converts them to lower case
	    before any operation.  Then, the first operation Wine tries is to
	    check whether
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/devicename</filename> exists.  If
	    so, it's used as the final Unix path for the device.  The
	    configuration process is in charge of creating for example, a
	    symbolic link between
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/PhysicalDrive0</filename> and
	    <filename>/dev/hda0</filename>.  If such a link cannot be found, and
	    the device name looks like a DOS disk name (like
	    <filename>C:</filename>), Wine first tries to get the Unix device
	    from the path <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/c:</filename>
	    (i.e. the device which is mounted on the target of the symbol link);
	    if this doesn't give a Unix device, Wine tries whether
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/c::</filename> exists.  If so,
	    it's assumed to be a link to the actual Unix device.  For example,
	    for a CD Rom, <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/e::</filename>
	    would be a symbolic link to <filename>/dev/cdrom</filename>.  If
	    this doesn't exist (we're still handling the a device name of the
	    <filename>C:</filename> form), Wine tries to get the Unix device
	    from the system information (<filename>/etc/mtab</filename> and
	    <filename>/etc/fstab</filename> on Linux).  We cannot apply this
	    method in all the cases, because we have no insurance that the
	    directory can actually be found.  One could have, for example, a CD
	    Rom which he/she want only to use as audio CD player (ie never
	    mounted), thus not having any information of the device itself.  If
	    all of this doesn't work either, some basic operations are checked:
	    if the devicename is <filename>NUL</filename>, then
	    <filename>/dev/null</filename> is returned.  If the device name is a
	    default serial name (<filename>COM1</filename> up to
	    <filename>COM9</filename>) (resp.  printer name
	    <filename>LPT1</filename> up to <filename>LPT9</filename>), then
	    Wine tries to open the Nth serial (resp. printer) in the system.
	    Otherwise, some basic old DOS name support is done
	    <filename>AUX</filename> is transformed into
	    <filename>COM1</filename> and <filename>PRN</filename> into
	    <filename>LPT1</filename>), and the whole process is retried with
	    those new names.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    To sum up:
	    <table>
	      <title>
		Mapping of Windows device names into Unix device names
	      </title>
	      <tgroup cols="3" align="left">
		<thead>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Windows device name</entry>
		    <entry>NT device name</entry>
		    <entry>Mapping to Unix device name</entry>
		  </row>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>&lt;any_path&gt;AUX</filename></entry>
		    <entry<filename>>\Global??\AUX</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      Treated as an alias to <filename>COM1</filename>
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>&lt;any_path&gt;PRN</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\PRN</filename></entry>
		    <entry>Treated as an alias to <filename>LPT1</filename></entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>&lt;any_path&gt;COM1</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\COM1</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/com1</filename>
		      (if the symbol link exists) or the Nth serial
		      line in the system (on Linux,
		      <filename>/dev/ttyS0</filename>).
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>&lt;any_path&gt;LPT1</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\LPT1</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/lpt1</filename>
		      (if the symbol link exists) or the Nth printer
		      in the system (on Linux,
		      <filename>/dev/lp0</filename>).
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>&lt;any_path&gt;NUL</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\NUL</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>/dev/null</filename></entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>\\.\E:</filename></entry>
		    <entry><filename>\Global??\E:</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/e::</filename> (if the
		      symbolic link exists) or guessing the device from
		      <filename>/etc/mtab</filename> or
		      <filename>/etc/fstab</filename>.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry><filename>\\.\&lt;device_name&gt;</filename></entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>\Global??\&lt;device_name&gt;</filename>
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/&lt;device_name&gt;</filename>
		      (if the symbol link exists).
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		</tbody>
	      </tgroup>
	    </table>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Now that we know which Unix device to open for a given Windows
	    device, let's cover the operation on it.  Those operations can either
	    be read / write, io control (and even others).
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Read and write operations are supported on Real disks & CDROM
	    devices, under several conditions:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  Foremost, as the <function>ReadFile()</function> and
		  <function>WriteFile()</function> calls are mapped onto the
		  Unix <function>read()</function> and
		  <function>write()</function> calls, the user (from the Unix
		  perspective of the one running the Wine executable) must have
		  read (resp.  write) access to the device.  It wouldn't be wise
		  to let a user write directly to a hard disk!!!
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  Blocks' size for read and write but be of the size of a
		  physical block (generally 512 for a hard disk, depends on the
		  type of CD used), and offsets must also be a multiple of the
		  block size.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Wine also reads (if the first condition above about access rights is
	    met) the volume information from a hard disk or a CD ROM to be
	    displayed to a user.
	  </para>
	  <!--
	  <para>
	    Handling of old DOS devices (<filename>COMx</filename>,
	    <filename>LPTx</filename>, <filename>NUL</filename>...)
	  </para>
	  -->
	  <para>
	    Wine also recognizes VxD as devices.  But those VxD must be the
	    Wine builtin ones (Wine will never allow to load native VxD).  Those
	    are configured with symbolic links in the
	    <filename>$(WINEPREFIX)/dosdevices/</filename> directory, and point
	    to the actual builtin DLL.  This DLL exports a single entry point,
	    that Wine will use when a call to
	    <function>DeviceIoControl</function> is made, with a handle opened
	    to this VxD.  This allows to provide some kind of compatibility for
	    old Win9x apps, still talking directly to VxD.  This is no longer
	    supported on Windows NT, newest programs are less likely to make use
	    of this feature, so we don't expect lots of development in this
	    area, eventhough the framework is there and working.  Note also that
	    Wine doesn't provide support for native VxDs (as a game, report how
	    many times this information is written in the documentation;  as an
	    advanced exercice, find how many more occurences we need in order to
	    stop questions whether it's possible or not).
	  </para>
	</sect3>
      </sect2>
    </sect1>
    <sect1 id="ntdll">
      <title><filename>NTDLL</filename> module</title>
      <para>
	<filename>NTDLL</filename> provides most of the services you'd expect
	from a kernel. In lots of cases, <filename>KERNEL32</filename> APIs are
	just wrappers to <filename>NTDLL</filename> APIs. There are however,
	some difference in the APIs (the <filename>NTDLL</filename> ones have
	quite often a bit wider semantics than their
	<filename>KERNEL32</filename> counterparts). All the detailed functions
	we've described since the beginning of this chapter are in fact
	implemented in <filename>NTDLL</filename>, plus a great numbers of
	others we haven's written about yet.
      </para>
    </sect1>

    <sect1>
      <title><filename>KERNEL32</filename> Module</title>
      
      <para>
	As already explained, <filename>KERNEL32</filename> maps quite a few of
	its APIs to <filename>NTDLL</filename>. There are however a couple of
	things which are handled directly in
	<filename>KERNEL32</filename>. Let's cover a few of them...
      </para>
      <sect2 id="consoles">
	<title>Console</title>
	<sect3>
	  <title>NT implementation</title>
	  <para>
	    Windows implements console solely in the Win32 subsystem.  Under NT,
	    the real implementation uses a dedicated subsystem
	    <filename>csrss.exe</filename> Client/Server Run-time SubSystem)
	    which is in charge, amont other things, of animating the consoles.
	    Animating includes for example handling several processes on the
	    same console (write operations must be atomic, but also a character
	    keyed on the console must be read by a single process), or sending
	    some information back to the processes (changing the size or
	    attributes of the console, closing the console).  Windows NT uses a
	    dedicated (RPC based) protocol between each process being attached
	    to a console and the <command>csrss.exe</command> subsystem, which
	    is in charge of the UI of every console in the system.
	  </para>
	</sect3>
	<sect3>
	  <title>Wine implementation</title>
	  <para>
	    Wine tries to integrate as much as possible into the Unix consoles,
	    but the overall situation isn't perfect yet.  Basically, Wine
	    implements three kinds of consoles:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  the first one is a direct mapping of the Unix console into the
		  Windows environment.  From the windows program point of view,
		  it won't run in a Windows console, but it will see its
		  standard input and output streams redirected to files; thoses
		  files are hooked into the Unix console's output and input
		  streams respectively.  This is handy for running programs from
		  a Unix command line (and use the result of the program as it
		  was a Unix programs), but it lacks all the semantics of the
		  Windows consoles.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  the second and third ones are closer to the NT scheme, albeit
		  different to what NT does.  The <command>wineserver</command>
		  plays the role of the <filename>csrss.exe</filename> subsystem
		  (all requests are sent to it), and are then dispatched to a
		  dedicated wine process, called (surprise!)
		  <command>wineconsole</command> which manages the UI of the
		  console.  There is a running instance of
		  <command>wineconsole</command> for every console in the
		  system.  Two  flavors of this scheme are actually implemented:
		  they vary on the backend for the
		  <command>wineconsole</command>.  The first one,  dubbed
		  <constant>user</constant>, creates a real GUI window
		  (hence the USER name) and renders the console in this window.
		  The second one uses the <filename>(n)curses</filename> library
		  to take full control of an existing Unix console; of course,
		  interaction with other Unix programs will not be as smooth as
		  the first solution.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    The following table describes the main implementation differences
	    between the three approaches.
	    <table>
	      <title>Function consoles implementation comparison</title>
	      <tgroup cols="4" align="left">
		<thead>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Function</entry>
		    <entry>Bare streams</entry>
		    <entry>
		      <command>Wineconsole</command> &amp; user backend
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      <command>Wineconsole</command> &amp; curses backend
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      Console as a Win32 Object (and associated handles)
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      No specific Win32 object is used in this case.  The
		      handles manipulated for the standard Win32 streams are in
		      fact "bare handles" to their corresponding Unix streams.
		      The mode manipulation functions
		      (<function>GetConsoleMode()</function> /
		      <function>SetConsoleMode()</function>) are not supported.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Implemented in server, and a specific Winelib program
		      (<command>wineconsole</command>) is in charge of the
		      rendering and user input.  The mode manipulation functions
		      behave as expected.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Implemented in server, and a specific Winelib program
		      (<command>wineconsole</command>) is in charge of the
		      rendering and user input.  The mode manipulation functions
		      behave as expected.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      Inheritance (including handling in
		      <function>CreateProcess()</function> of
		      <constant>CREATE_DETACHED</constant>,
		      <constant>CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE</constant> flags).
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Not supported.  Every process child of a process will
		      inherit the Unix streams, so will also inherit the Win32
		      standard streams.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Fully supported (each new console creation will be handled
		      by the creation of a new <filename>USER32</filename> window)
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Fully supported, except for the creation of a new console,
		      which will be rendered on the same Unix terminal as the
		      previous one, leading to unpredictable results.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      <function>ReadFile()</function> / 
		      <function>WriteFile()</function> operations
		    </entry> 
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      Screen-buffer manipulation (creation, deletion, resizing...)
		    </entry>
		    <entry>Not supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Partly supported (this won't work too well as we don't
		      control (so far) the size of underlying Unix terminal
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      APIs for reading/writing screen-buffer content, cursor position
		    </entry>
		    <entry>Not supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>APIs for manipulating the rendering window size</entry>
		    <entry>Not supported</entry>
		    <entry>Fully supported</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Partly supported (this won't work too well as we don't
		      control (so far) the size of underlying Unix terminal
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>
		      Signaling (in particular, Ctrl-C handling)
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Nothing is done, which means that Ctrl-C will generate (as
		      usual) a <constant>SIGINT</constant> which will terminate
		      the program.
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Partly supported (Ctrl-C behaves as expected, however the
		      other Win32 CUI signaling isn't properly implemented).
		    </entry>
		    <entry>
		      Partly supported (Ctrl-C behaves as expected, however the
		      other Win32 CUI signaling isn't properly implemented).
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		</tbody>
	      </tgroup>
	    </table>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    The Win32 objects behind a console can be created in several
	    occasions:
	    <itemizedlist>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  When the program is started from
		  <command>wineconsole</command>, a new console object is
		  created and will be used (inherited) by the process launched
		  from <command>wineconsole</command>.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	      <listitem>
		<para>
		  When a program, which isn't attached to a console, calls
		  <function>AllocConsole()</function>, Wine then launches
		  <command>wineconsole</command>, and attaches the current
		  program to this console.  In this mode, the
		  <filename>USER32</filename> mode is always selected as Wine
		  cannot tell the current state of the Unix console.
		</para>
	      </listitem>
	    </itemizedlist>
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Please also note, that starting a child process with the
	    <constant>CREATE_NEW_CONSOLE</constant> flag, will end-up calling
	    <function>AllocConsole()</function> in the child process, hence
	    creating a <command>wineconsole</command> with the
	    <filename>USER32</filename> backend.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Another interesting point to note is that Windows implements handles
	    to console objects (input and screen buffers) only in the
	    <filename>KERNEL32</filename> DLL, and those are not sent nor seen
	    from the <filename>NTDLL</filename> level, albeit, for example,
	    console are waitable on input.  How is this possible?  Well, Windows
	    NT is a bit tricky here.  Regular handles have an interesting
	    property: their integral value is always a multiple of four (they
	    are likely to be offsets from the beginning of a table).  Console
	    handles, on the other hand, are not multiple of four, but have the
	    two lower bit set (being a multiple of four means having the two
	    lower bits reset).  When <filename>KERNEL32</filename> sees a handle
	    with the two lower bits set, it then knows it's a console handle and
	    takes appropriate decisions.  For example, in the various
	    <function>kernel32!WaitFor*()</function> functions, it transforms
	    any console handle (input and <emphasis>output</emphasis> -
	    strangely enough handles to console's screen buffers are waitable)
	    into a dedicated wait event for the targetted console.  There's an
	    (undocumented) <filename>KERNEL32</filename> function
	    <function>GetConsoleInputWaitHandle()</function> which returns the
	    handle to this event in case you need it.  Another interesting
	    handling of those console's handles is in
	    <function>ReadFile()</function>
	    (resp. <function>WriteFile()</function>), which behavior, for
	    console's handles, is transferred to
	    <function>ReadConsole()</function> (resp.
	    <function>WriteConsole()</function>).  Note that's always the ANSI
	    version of
	    <function>ReadConsole()</function> /
	    <function>WriteConsole()</function>
	    which is called, hence using the default console's code page.  There
	    are some other spots affected, but you can look in
	    <filename>dlls/kernel</filename> to find them all.  All of this is
	    implemented in Wine.
	  </para>
	  <para>
	    Wine also implements the same layout of the registry for storing the
	    preferences of the console as Windows does.  Those settings can
	    either be defined globally, or on a per process name basis.
	    <command>wineconsole</command> provides the choice to the user to
	    pick you which registry part (global, current running program) it
	    wishes to modify the settings for.
	    <table>
	      <title>Console registry settings</title>
	      <tgroup cols="3" align="left">
		<thead>
		  <row>
		    <entry>Name</entry>
		    <entry>Default value</entry>
		    <entry>Purpose</entry>
		  </row>
		</thead>
		<tbody>
		  <row>
		    <entry>CursorSize</entry>
		    <entry>25</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Percentage of cell height to which the cursor extents
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>CursorVisible</entry>
		    <entry>1</entry>
		    <entry>Whether the cursor is visible or not</entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>EditionMode</entry>
		    <entry>0</entry>
		    <entry>
		      The way the edition takes place in the console: 0 is
		      insertion mode, 1 is overwrite mode.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>ExitOnDie</entry>
		    <entry>1</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Whether the console should close itself when last running
		      program attached to it dies
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>FaceName</entry>
		    <entry>No default</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Name of the font to be used for display.  When none is
		      given, <command>wineconsole</command> tries its best to
		      pick up a decent font
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>FontSize</entry>
		    <entry>0x0C08</entry>
		    <entry>
		      The high word in the font's cell height, and the low word
		      is the font cell's width.  The default value is 12 pixels
		      in height and 8 pixels in width.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>FontWeight</entry>
		    <entry>0</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Weigth of the font.  If none is given (or 0)
		      <command>wineconsole</command> picks up a decent font size
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>HistoryBufferSize</entry>
		    <entry>50</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Number of entries in history buffer (not actually used)
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>HistoryNoDup</entry>
		    <entry>0</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Whether the history should store twice the same entry
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>MenuMask</entry>
		    <entry>0</entry>
		    <entry>
		      This mask only exists for Wine console handling.  It
		      allows to know which combination of extra keys are need to
		      open the configuration window on right click.  The mask
		      can include <constant>MK_CONTROL</constant> or
		      <constant>MK_SHIFT</constant> bits.  This can be needed
		      when programs actually need the right click to be passed
		      to them instead of being intercepted by
		      <command>wineconsole</command>.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>QuickEdit</entry>
		    <entry>0</entry>
		    <entry>
		      If null, mouse events are sent to the application.  If non
		      null, mouse events are used to select text on the window.
		      This setting must really be set on a application per
		      application basis, because it deals with the fact the CUI
		      application will use or not the mouse events.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>ScreenBufferSize</entry>
		    <entry>0x1950</entry>
		    <entry>
		      The high word is the number of font cells in the height of
		      the screen buffer, while the low word is the number of
		      font cells in the width of the screen buffer.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>ScreenColors</entry>
		    <entry>0x000F</entry>
		    <entry>
		      Default color attribute for the screen buffer (low char is
		      the foreground color, and high char is the background
		      color)
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		  <row>
		    <entry>WindowSize</entry>
		    <entry>0x1950</entry>
		    <entry>
		      The high word is the number of font cells in the height of
		      the window, while the low word is the number of font cells
		      in the width of the window.  This window is the visible
		      part of the screen buffer: this implies that a screen
		      buffer must always be bigger than its window, and that the
		      screen buffer can be scrolled so that every cell of the
		      screen buffer can be seen in the window.
		    </entry>
		  </row>
		</tbody>
	      </tgroup>
	    </table>
	  </para>
	</sect3>
      </sect2>
    </sect1>
    
  </chapter>

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