Re: PL/Perl and Perl 5.8

Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com> writes:
> > As of current CVS, PL/Perl doesn't seem to compile against Perl 5.8.
>
> Builds fine on HPUX 10.20 with Perl 5.8.0 and gcc 2.95.3.

It may also depend on the way Perl is configured. I've attached the
output of 'perl -V' on my system (using Debian's default Perl
packages).

> > The thread suggests a trivial fix: adding -D_GNU_SOURCE to the CFLAGS
> > for the affected files. I checked, and this gets PL/Perl to compile
> > correctly. That doesn't seem like the right fix, though.
>
> In view of opposing comments like
> http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl5-porters/2002-03/msg01452.html
> I think we should stay out of this.

Well, I'd read that thread as saying that "Apache breaks when compiled
with -D_GNU_SOURCE", not claiming that there is something inherently
wrong with defining _GNU_SOURCE as a fix for the Perl problem.

> It is not our business to get random Perl code to compile on random
> OS installations, and certainly not our business to interject random
> symbol definitions that might well break whatever solution the Perl
> guys themselves decide on.

Well, I'm not happy with defining _GNU_SOURCE, but I don't agree that
just saying "it's a Perl problem" is a good answer. That may well be
the case, but it doesn't change the fact that a lot of people are
running 5.8.0, and will probably continue to do so during the 7.3
lifecycle[1]. We work around braindamage on other systems -- strictely
speaking, we could say "the snprintf() bug with 64-bit Solaris is a
Sun libc problem", for example.

Perhaps we can include a test for this in configure? (i.e. if
--with-perl is specified, try compiling a simple XS file that exhibits
the problem; if it fails, try it with -D_GNU_SOURCE).

Cheers,

Neil

[1] Note that I'm assuming that PL/Perl is broken with 5.8.0 on
systems other than mine, and another person's on IRC who reported the
problem to begin with. Can other people confirm the problem?

--
Neil Conway <neilc(at)samurai(dot)com> || PGP Key ID: DB3C29FC

Summary of my perl5 (revision 5.0 version 8 subversion 0) configuration:
Platform:
osname=linux, osvers=2.4.19, archname=i386-linux-thread-multi
uname='linux cyberhq 2.4.19 #1 smp sun aug 4 11:30:45 pdt 2002 i686 unknown unknown gnulinux '
config_args='-Dusethreads -Duselargefiles -Dccflags=-DDEBIAN -Dcccdlflags=-f PIC -Darchname=i386-linux -Dprefix=/usr -Dprivlib=/usr/share/perl/5.8.0 -Darchli b=/usr/lib/perl/5.8.0 -Dvendorprefix=/usr -Dvendorlib=/usr/share/perl5 -Dvendora rch=/usr/lib/perl5 -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dsitelib=/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.0 -Dsitearch=/usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.0 -Dman1dir=/usr/share/man/man1 -Dman3dir=/u
sr/share/man/man3 -Dman1ext=1 -Dman3ext=3perl -Dpager=/usr/bin/sensible-pager -U afs -Ud_csh -Uusesfio -Uusenm -Duseshrplib -Dlibperl=libperl.so.5.8.0 -Dd_dosuid -des'
hint=recommended, useposix=true, d_sigaction=define
usethreads=define use5005threads=undef useithreads=define usemultiplicity=de fine
useperlio=define d_sfio=undef uselargefiles=define usesocks=undef
use64bitint=undef use64bitall=undef uselongdouble=undef
usemymalloc=n, bincompat5005=undef
Compiler:
cc='cc', ccflags ='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DDEBIAN -fno-strict-aliasing -I/usr/local/include -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64',
optimize='-O3',
cppflags='-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DDEBIAN -fno-strict-aliasing -I/usr/lo cal/include'
ccversion='', gccversion='2.95.4 20011002 (Debian prerelease)', gccosandvers =''
intsize=4, longsize=4, ptrsize=4, doublesize=8, byteorder=1234
d_longlong=define, longlongsize=8, d_longdbl=define, longdblsize=12
ivtype='long', ivsize=4, nvtype='double', nvsize=8, Off_t='off_t', lseeksize =8
alignbytes=4, prototype=define
Linker and Libraries:
ld='cc', ldflags =' -L/usr/local/lib'
libpth=/usr/local/lib /lib /usr/lib
libs=-lgdbm -ldb -ldl -lm -lpthread -lc -lcrypt
perllibs=-ldl -lm -lpthread -lc -lcrypt
libc=/lib/libc-2.2.5.so, so=so, useshrplib=true, libperl=libperl.so.5.8.0
gnulibc_version='2.2.5'
Dynamic Linking:
dlsrc=dl_dlopen.xs, dlext=so, d_dlsymun=undef, ccdlflags='-rdynamic'
cccdlflags='-fPIC', lddlflags='-shared -L/usr/local/lib'

Characteristics of this binary (from libperl):
Compile-time options: MULTIPLICITY USE_ITHREADS USE_LARGE_FILES PERL_IMPLICIT_ CONTEXT
Built under linux
Compiled at Sep 14 2002 17:36:21
@INC:
/etc/perl
/usr/local/lib/perl/5.8.0
/usr/local/share/perl/5.8.0
/usr/lib/perl5
/usr/share/perl5
/usr/lib/perl/5.8.0
/usr/share/perl/5.8.0
/usr/local/lib/site_perl