[lmi] Urgent wx-related production problem

[Greg Chicares]

Problem: Spurious duplication of initial element when pasting
data from ms 'excel' into an lmi textcontrol: anomaly observed
with wx-2.8.6, but not with a 2006-12-04 wx snapshot.

To reproduce: Copy a column of data such as
 1
 2
 3
from 'excel' to the clipboard. Start lmi; do
  File | New | Illustration
Tab to the "Comments" textcontrol on the first tab; right-click
there and choose "Paste". The textcontrol now contains
  11;2;3
when it should contain
  1;2;3
without duplication of the first element, '1'. Even pasting a
single 'excel' cell containing
  abc
results in
  abcabc
However, no anomaly is observed when pasting plain text, e.g.
  echo "1789" >/dev/clipboard
(in which case lmi's Skeleton::UponPaste() is not called).

Software versions: The defective behavior is observed with
  lmi HEAD, wxWidgets-2.8.6
and also with what we released yesterday:
  lmi-20080125T1921Z [non-branch tag], wxWidgets-2.8.6
whereas correct behavior (no duplication) is observed with
  lmi HEAD, 'wxWidgets-2006-12-04' historical snapshot
Other software is identical:
  MinGW gcc-3.4.4
  libxml, libxslt: no change
  msw-xp, ms 'excel': no change
All behaviors reported here were observed in production builds
created by Wendy at one site, and confirmed in separate builds
created by me at a different site; and with very different
versions of ms 'excel' (probably 2003 and 1997 vintages).

Analysis: Apply diagnostic patch [1] to lmi HEAD and rebuild
with wxWidgets-2.8.6; repeat steps to reproduce (above).
Result for a column of data:

*** Original string:
1

2

3


*** Redelimited string:
1;2;3
*** GetValue() after WriteText():
11;2;3
[file /lmi/src/lmi/main_wx.cpp, line 808]

That output was copied to the msw clipboard with Ctrl-C
and pasted, removing superfluous leading and trailing
lines. Here's the relevant part through an 'od' lens:

/tmp[0]$</dev/clipboard od -t a
[...]
0000120   i   g   i   n   a   l  sp   s   t   r   i   n   g   :  cr  nl
0000140   1  cr  cr  nl   2  cr  cr  nl   3  cr  cr  nl  cr  nl   *   *

Results for a single cell:

*** Original string:
abc


*** Redelimited string:
abc
*** GetValue() after WriteText():
abcabc
[file /lmi/src/lmi/main_wx.cpp, line 808]

and relevant 'od' output:

0000120   i   g   i   n   a   l  sp   s   t   r   i   n   g   :  cr  nl
0000140   a   b   c  cr  cr  nl  cr  nl   *   *   *  sp   R   e   d   e

---------

[1] Non-production patch for analysis only:

Index: main_wx.cpp
===================================================================
RCS file: /sources/lmi/lmi/main_wx.cpp,v
retrieving revision 1.91
diff -r1.91 main_wx.cpp
800a801,809
> warning()
>   << "*** Original string:\n"
>   << original_string
>   << "\n*** Redelimited string: \n"
>   << redelimit_with_semicolons(original_string)
>   << "\n*** GetValue() after WriteText(): \n"
>   << target->GetValue()
>   << LMI_FLUSH
>   ;