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+The collector has only been compiled under Windows NT, with the
+original Microsoft SDK, with Visual C++ 2.0 and later, with
+the GNU win32 environment, with Borland 4.5, and recently with
+Watcom C.
+
+It runs under both win32s and win32, but with different semantics.
+Under win32, all writable pages outside of the heaps and stack are
+scanned for roots. Thus the collector sees pointers in DLL data
+segments. Under win32s, only the main data segment is scanned.
+(The main data segment should always be scanned. Under some
+versions of win32s, other regions may also be scanned.)
+Thus all accessible objects should be accessible from local variables
+or variables in the main data segment. Alternatively, other data
+segments (e.g. in DLLs) may be registered with the collector by
+calling GC_init() and then GC_register_root_section(a), where
+a is the address of some variable inside the data segment. (Duplicate
+registrations are ignored, but not terribly quickly.)
+
+(There are two reasons for this. We didn't want to see many 16:16
+pointers. And the VirtualQuery call has different semantics under
+the two systems, and under different versions of win32s.)
+
+The collector test program "gctest" is linked as a GUI application,
+but does not open any windows. Its output appears in the file
+"gc.log". It may be started from the file manager. The hour glass
+cursor will appear as long as it's running.
+
+The cord test program has not been ported (but should port
+easily). A toy editor (cord/de.exe) based on cords (heavyweight
+strings represented as trees) has been ported and is included.
+It runs fine under either win32 or win32S. It serves as an example
+of a true Windows application, except that it was written by a
+nonexpert Windows programmer. (There are some peculiarities
+in the way files are displayed. The <cr> is displayed explicitly
+for standard DOS text files. As in the UNIX version, control
+characters are displayed explicitly, but in this case as red text.
+This may be suboptimal for some tastes and/or sets of default
+window colors.)
+
+For Microsoft development tools, rename NT_MAKEFILE as
+MAKEFILE. (Make sure that the CPU environment variable is defined
+to be i386.)
+
+For GNU-win32, use the regular makefile, possibly after uncommenting
+the line "include Makefile.DLLs". The latter should be necessary only
+if you want to package the collector as a DLL. The GNU-win32 port is
+believed to work only for b18, not b19, probably dues to linker changes
+in b19. This is probably fixable with a different definition of
+DATASTART and DATAEND in config.h.
+
+For Borland tools, use BCC_MAKEFILE. Note that
+Borland's compiler defaults to 1 byte alignment in structures (-a1),
+whereas Visual C++ appears to default to 8 byte alignment (/Zp8).
+The garbage collector in its default configuration EXPECTS AT
+LEAST 4 BYTE ALIGNMENT. Thus the BORLAND DEFAULT MUST
+BE OVERRIDDEN. (In my opinion, it should usually be anyway.
+I expect that -a1 introduces major performance penalties on a
+486 or Pentium.) Note that this changes structure layouts. (As a last
+resort, config.h can be changed to allow 1 byte alignment. But
+this has significant negative performance implications.)
+The Makefile is set up to assume Borland 4.5. If you have another
+version, change the line near the top. By default, it does not
+require the assembler. If you do have the assembler, I recommend
+removing the -DUSE_GENERIC.
+
+Incremental collection support was recently added. This is
+currently pretty simpleminded. Pages are protected. Protection
+faults are caught by a handler installed at the bottom of the handler
+stack. This is both slow and interacts poorly with a debugger.
+Whenever possible, I recommend adding a call to
+GC_enable_incremental at the last possible moment, after most
+debugging is complete. Unlike the UNIX versions, no system
+calls are wrapped by the collector itself. It may be necessary
+to wrap ReadFile calls that use a buffer in the heap, so that the
+call does not encounter a protection fault while it's running.
+(As usual, none of this is an issue unless GC_enable_incremental
+is called.)
+
+Note that incremental collection is disabled with -DSMALL_CONFIG,
+which is the default for win32. If you need incremental collection,
+undefine SMALL_CONFIG.
+
+Incremental collection is not supported under win32s, and it may not
+be possible to do so. However, win32 applications that attempt to use
+incremental collection should continue to run, since the
+collector detects if it's running under win32s and turns calls to
+GC_enable_incremental() into noops.
+
+James Clark has contributed the necessary code to support win32 threads.
+This code is known to exhibit some problems with incremental collection
+enabled. Use NT_THREADS_MAKEFILE (a.k.a gc.mak) instead of NT_MAKEFILE
+to build this version. Note that this requires some files whose names
+are more than 8 + 3 characters long. Thus you should unpack the tar file
+so that long file names are preserved. To build the garbage collector
+test with VC++ from the command line, use
+
+nmake /F ".\gc.mak" CFG="gctest - Win32 Release"
+
+This requires that the subdirectory gctest\Release exist.
+
+This version relies on the collector residing in a dll.
+
+This version currently supports incremental collection only if it is
+enabled before any additional threads are created.
+It is known to not be completely solid. At a minimum it can deadlock
+if a thread starts in the middle of an allocation. There may be
+other problems. If you need solid support for win32 threads, you
+check with Geodesic Systems. I haven't tried it, but they claim
+to support it.
+
+Hans
+
+Ivan V. Demakov's README for the Watcom port:
+
+[ He points out in a later message that there may be a problem compiling
+ under Windows-3.11 for Windows NT. ]
+
+Watcom C/C++ 10.5, 10.6, 11.0 tested.
+
+The collector runs on WIN32 and DOS4GW dos-extender with both
+stack and register based calling conventions (options -5r and -5s).
+Incremental collection not supported.
+
+OS/2 not tested, but should work (only some #ifdef's added for OS/2 port).
+
+cord not ported. Watcom C fails to compile it, from first attempt.
+Since I don't use it, I don't try to fix it.
+
+cpp_test succeeds, but not compiled automaticaly with WCC_MAKEFILE.
+
+
+My changes:
+
+ * config.h Added definitions for Watcom C/C++.
+ Undefined MPROTECT_VDB for Watcom C/C++ MSWIN32,
+ I don't have idea why it not work.
+
+ * gc.h Explicitly declared GC_noop. This prevents
+ program crash, compiled with -5r option.
+
+ * gc_priv.h Changed declaration for GC_push_one to make
+ compiler happy.
+ Added GC_dos4gw_get_mem declaration and
+ GET_MEM uses it in DOS4GW environment.
+
+ * os_dep.c Added __WATCOMC__ and DOS4GW #ifdef's.
+ Added GC_dos4gw_get_mem.
+
+ * mach_dep.c For Watcom used setjmp method of marking registers.
+
+ * WCC_MAKEFILE New file. Makefile for Watcom C/C++.
+
+ * gc_watcom.asm New file. Some functions for DOS4GW.
+ This functions may (probably) be done in C,
+ but I can't figure out how do this for all
+ possible options of compiler.
+
+ * README.watcom This file.
+
+
+ Ivan Demakov (email: dem@tgrad.nsk.su)
+
+