annotate PROGRAMMING_NOTES @ 15786:b25acae693cd

Change connection.c:gaim_connection_error() to still work even if the message parameter is NULL. There's no reason to error-out of that function just because some yuppie didn't pass us an error message. But we still log a critical message, so those of you at home running with fatal_criticals will still crash. I noticed this because Jabber isn't handling <stream:error/> correctly right now. Anyone else notice this? The code is written to look for "stream:error", but our xmlnode stuff just sees "error" (even though the "stream:error" format is sent over the wire). I think it's because of the libxml change. To reproduce the problem, sign onto the same resource twice and note that the error message that Gaim gives you sucks.

Notes on keeping GAIM OS independant
------------------------------------

General
-------
- Use G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S and G_DIR_SEPARATOR for paths

- Use g_getenv, g_snprintf, g_vsnprintf

- Use gaim_home_dir instead of g_get_home_dir or g_getenv("HOME")

- Make sure when including win32dep.h that it is the last header to
  be included.

- Open binary files when reading or writing with 'b' mode.

  e.g: fopen("somefile", "wb");

  Not doing so will open files in windows using defaut translation mode. 
  i.e. newline -> <CR><LF>

Paths
-----

- DATADIR, LOCALEDIR & LIBDIR are defined in wingaim as functions.
  Doing the following will therefore break the windows build:

  printf("File in DATADIR is: %s\n", DATADIR G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S "pic.png");

  it should be:

  printf("File in DATADIR is: %s%s%s\n", DATADIR, G_DIR_SEPARATOR_S, "pic.png");

PLUGINS & PROTOS
----------------

- G_MODULE_EXPORT all functions which are to be accessed from outside the
  scope of its "dll" or "so". (E.G. gaim_plugin_init)

- G_MODULE_IMPORT all global variables which are located outside your
  dynamic library. (E.G. connections)

  (Not doing this will cause "Memory Access Violations" in Win32)