Re: meson/msys2 fails with plperl/Strawberry

Hi,

On 2023-03-25 08:46:42 -0400, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
> config/perl.m4 contains this:
>
>
> AC_MSG_CHECKING(for flags to link embedded Perl)
> if test "$PORTNAME" = "win32" ; then
> perl_lib=`basename $perl_archlibexp/CORE/perl[[5-9]]*.lib .lib`
> if test -e "$perl_archlibexp/CORE/$perl_lib.lib"; then
> perl_embed_ldflags="-L$perl_archlibexp/CORE -l$perl_lib"
> else
> perl_lib=`basename $perl_archlibexp/CORE/libperl[[5-9]]*.a .a | sed 's/^lib//'`
> if test -e "$perl_archlibexp/CORE/lib$perl_lib.a"; then
> perl_embed_ldflags="-L$perl_archlibexp/CORE -l$perl_lib"
> fi
> fi
> else
> pgac_tmp1=`$PERL -MExtUtils::Embed -e ldopts`
> pgac_tmp2=`$PERL -MConfig -e 'print "$Config{ccdlflags} $Config{ldflags}"'`
> perl_embed_ldflags=`echo X"$pgac_tmp1" | sed -e "s/^X//" -e "s%$pgac_tmp2%%"`
> fi
> AC_SUBST(perl_embed_ldflags)dnl
>
> I don't see any equivalent in meson.build of the win32 logic, and thus I am
> getting a setup failure on fairywren when trying to move it to meson, while
> it will happily build with autoconf.

I did not try to build with strawberry perl using mingw - it doesn't seem like
a very interesting thing, given that mingw has a much more reasonable perl
than strawberry - but with the mingw perl it works well.

The above logic actually did *not* work well with mingw for me, because the
names are not actually what configure expects, and it seems like a seriously
bad idea to encode that much knowledge about library naming and locations.

https://cirrus-ci.com/task/6421536551206912

[16:32:28.997] Has header "perl.h" : YES
[16:32:28.997] Message: CCFLAGS recommended by perl: -DWIN32 -DWIN64 -DPERL_TEXTMODE_SCRIPTS -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -D__USE_MINGW_ANSI_STDIO -fno-strict-aliasing -mms-bitfields
[16:32:28.997] Message: CCFLAGS for embedding perl: -IC:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\perl5\core_perl/CORE -DWIN32 -DWIN64 -DPERL_TEXTMODE_SCRIPTS -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DUSE_PERLIO -DPLPERL_HAVE_UID_GID
[16:32:28.997] Message: LDFLAGS recommended by perl: "-s -L"C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\perl5\core_perl\CORE" -L"C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\perl5\core_perl\CORE\libperl532.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libmoldname.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libkernel32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libuser32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libgdi32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libwinspool.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libcomdlg32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libadvapi32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libshell32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libole32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\liboleaut32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libnetapi32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libuuid.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libws2_32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libmpr.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libwinmm.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libversion.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libodbc32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libodbccp32.a" "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libcomctl32.a""
[16:32:28.997] Message: LDFLAGS for embedding perl: "C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\perl5\core_perl\CORE\libperl532.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libmoldname.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libkernel32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libuser32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libgdi32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libwinspool.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libcomdlg32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libadvapi32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libshell32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libole32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\liboleaut32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libnetapi32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libuuid.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libws2_32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libmpr.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libwinmm.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libversion.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libodbc32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libodbccp32.a C:\msys64\ucrt64\lib\libcomctl32.a"
[16:32:28.997] Checking if "libperl" : links: YES

> I would expect the ld flags to be "-LC:/STRAWB~1/perl/lib/CORE -lperl532"

You didn't say what they ended up as?

> (Off topic peeve - one of the things I dislike about meson is that the
> meson.build files are written in YA bespoke language).

I don't really disagree. However, all the general purpose language using build
etools I found were awful. And meson's language is a heck of a lot nicer than
e.g. cmake's...

Greetings,

Andres Freund