Getting ready for Gambas3¶

Getting ready for Gambas3

Gambas3 is the experimental development version of Gambas.
Big changes are done in this version, Gambas2 the stable version gets only bug fixes.

Since I'm trying to get DomotiGa/Gambas running on a new architecture, namely PowerPC which is the OS my Synology DS410 uses, I started to convert DomotiGa to run with Gambas3.
There are however some (big) changes in syntax, and some Gambas3 bugs I run into, and so I created this page to document them.

Some advantages compared to Gambas2 version:

Runs faster (10-20%)
Compiles twice as fast

Install¶

If you want to install Gambas3 to try out, here are the steps for Ubuntu

Gambas3 has different requirements than Gambas2.

For Natty 11.04:

$ sudo apt-get install subversion build-essential autoconf libbz2-dev libfbclient2 libmysqlclient-dev unixodbc-dev libpq-dev libsqlite0-dev libsqlite3-dev libgtk2.0-dev libldap2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libgtkglext1-dev libpcre3-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsage-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libbonobo2-dev libcos4-dev libomniorb4-dev librsvg2-dev libpoppler-dev libpoppler-glib-dev libasound2-dev libesd0-dev libdirectfb-dev libaa1-dev libxtst-dev libffi-dev kdelibs4-dev firebird2.1-dev libqt4-dev libglew1.5-dev libimlib2-dev libv4l-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev linux-libc-dev

For Precise 12.04:

$ sudo apt-get install subversion build-essential autoconf libbz2-dev libfbclient2 libmysqlclient-dev unixodbc-dev libpq-dev libsqlite0-dev libsqlite3-dev libgtk2.0-dev libldap2-dev libcurl4-gnutls-dev libgtkglext1-dev libpcre3-dev libsdl-sound1.2-dev libsdl-mixer1.2-dev libsdl-image1.2-dev libsage-dev libxml2-dev libxslt1-dev libbonobo2-dev libcos4-dev libomniorb4-dev librsvg2-dev libpoppler-dev libpoppler-glib-dev libasound2-dev libesd0-dev libdirectfb-dev libaa1-dev libxtst-dev libffi-dev kdelibs5-dev firebird2.1-dev libqt4-dev libglew1.5-dev libimlib2-dev libv4l-dev libsdl-ttf2.0-dev libgnome-keyring-dev libgdk-pixbuf2.0-dev linux-libc-dev libgsl0-dev

Download and compile Gambas3

$ cd ~install/gambas
$ svn checkout https://gambas.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/gambas/gambas/trunk
$ cd trunk
$ ./reconf-all && ./configure -C
$ make
$ sudo make install

Keep in mind that due to the syntax changes below, you cannot run DomotiGa on Gambas3 right away, DomotiGaServer3 runs, but DomotiGa has to be converted/party rewritten to be compatible, although the automatic conversion is getting better everytime.

Array Syntax Change¶

Symptom: Syntax error

When declaring an array you have to use the New keyword.

Gambas2:
DIM sCommand AS Stringr5

Gambas3:
Dim sCommand As New Stringr5

Open Syntax Change¶

Symptom: Unexpected Open

File Open has changed syntax, the As keyword is removed.

Gambas2:
Open sBaseDir &/ "logs" &/ sMainLogFile For Append As #hMainLogFile

Gambas3:
hMainLogFile = Open sBaseDir &/ "logs" &/ sMainLogFile For Append

gb.Text is Depricated¶

Symptom: Devices.?.0: gb.Text

gb.Text is depricated and replaced by gb.!IgnoreCase

INC Boolean¶

Symptom: warning: Main.!DisplaySensors.4080: ADD QUICK with Boolean

INC Boolean isn't allowed anymore, replace with Boolean = TRUE

SQL Exec¶

Symptom: SQL syntax errors

For DB.Exec and DB.Subst the arguments above 9 have to have {} around them.

  sSql = "UPDATE devices SET name = &1, module = &2, interface = &3, address = &4," 
  sSql &= "location = &5, label = &6, label2 = &7, label3 = &8, value = &9," 
  sSql &= "officon = &{10}, onicon = &{11}" 

  rResultUpdate = Main.hDB.Exec(sSql, ...)

Unknown symbol BackColor¶

Gambas2:
gvPhoneCalls.Data.BackColor = Color.Background

Gambas3:
gvPhoneCalls.Data.BackGround = Color.Background

Unknown symbol ForeColor¶

Symptom: Unknown symbol '!ForeColor' in class '!TextLabel'

Gambas2:
With hText
    .ForeColor = Color.Gray
End With

Gambas3:
With hText
    .ForeGround = Color.Gray
End With

Type mismatch: wanted Byte[], got Integer[] instead¶

Gambas2:
DIM b AS Byte[] = [CByte(&HF0), CByte(&H3E), &HF0, &H3E]

Gambas3:
Dim b As Byte[] = [&HF0, &H3E, &HF0, &H3E]

Formatting Issues¶

In Gambas 3 prefix characters are filled with spaces.
So 560 formatted with "####" becomes <SPACE>560, which is not always wanted behavior.

Gambas2:
Format(sText, "####")

Gambas3:
Format(sText, "#")

UdpSocket Syntax Change¶

Gambas2:
hBroadcastEvent.Bind(0)

Gambas3:
hBroadcastEvent.Port = 0
hBroadcastEvent.Bind()

Unknown symbol '!GridView' in class '!DataBrowser'¶

Gambas2:
[[DataBrowserLog]].GridView

Gambas3:
[[DataBrowserLog]].View

Related Resources¶

Comment¶

Updated by: rdnzl, Updated 24 days ago
Access count: 1092 since 2011-08-25

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