TCONNECT

Syntax

TCONNECT #pipechan TO #anychan

Location

TinyToolkit

Pipes are serial devices for buffered data transfer, they have two sides:

  • The input pipe which puts any data into the buffer until it’s full and;

  • the output pipe which reads the data from the buffer:

    input pipe ---> buffer ---> output pipe
    

There are two kinds of pipes on the QL:

  • Standard pipes are part of the original QL ROM, the input pipe device name is pipe_<buffer> where <buffer> is the buffer size in bytes (1..32767). It is necessary to know the CHANID of the input pipe to open the output pipe, see FILE_OPEN.

  • The second type are named pipes which have the same concept except that the output pipe can be identified by name: The input pipe is pipe_<name>_<buffer> and the output pipe pipe_<name>. See the Appendix on Device Drivers regarding Pipes for more information.

TCONNECT makes standard pipes useable: the command expects two opened channels where the first, #pipechan, must be an input pipe and the second, #anychan can be anything. TCONNECT changes the internal meaning of #anychan so that it becomes an output pipe connected to the input pipe #pipechan:

Before TCONNECT:

#pipechan -> input pipe -> buffer scr_2x2 <- #anychan

After TCONNECT:

#pipechan -> input pipe -> buffer -> output pipe -> #anychan

Example

DEVLIST$ returns the devices listed by DEVLIST in a string, separated by spaces. ISDEVICE takes a device and checks with the help of DEVLIST$ if it is a legal device:

100 DEFine FuNction DEVLIST$
110   LOCal list$,dev$: list$=""
120   OPEN#3,pipe_80
130   OPEN#4,scr_
140   TCONNECT #3 TO #4
150   DEVLIST#3
160   INPUT#4,dev$\dev$
170   REPeat read_devs
180     IF NOT PEND(#4) THEN EXIT read_devs
190     INPUT#4,dev$
200     list$=list$&" "&dev$
210   END REPeat read_devs
220   CLOSE#3: CLOSE#4
230   RETurn list$
240 END DEFine DEVLIST$

A legal drive device consists of three letters (the device name), a drive number (1..8) and an underscore:

250 :
260 DEFine FuNction ISDEVICE(dev$)
270   IF LEN(dev$)<>5 THEN RETurn 0
280   IF dev$(5)<>"_" THEN RETurn 0
290   IF dev$(4)<"1" OR dev$(4)>"8" THEN RETurn 0
300   IF NOT (dev$(1 TO 3) INSTR DEVLIST$) THEN RETurn 0
310   RETurn 1
320 END DEFine ISDEVICE

CROSS-REFERENCE

See FILE_OPEN, CHANID, pipes and especially PEND. Some more examples appear at FILE_LEN and FUPDT. QLINK is the same. Qliberator gives the QCONNECT command which is the same.