[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / Porting / pumpkin.pod

=head1 NAME

Pumpkin - Notes on handling the Perl Patch Pumpkin

=head1 SYNOPSIS

There is no simple synopsis, yet.

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document attempts to begin to describe some of the
considerations involved in patching and maintaining perl.

This document is still under construction, and still subject to
significant changes.  Still, I hope parts of it will be useful,
so I'm releasing it even though it's not done.

For the most part, it's a collection of anecdotal information that
already assumes some familiarity with the Perl sources.  I really need
an introductory section that describes the organization of the sources
and all the various auxiliary files that are part of the distribution.

=head1 Where Do I Get Perl Sources and Related Material?

The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (or CPAN) is the place to go.
There are many mirrors, but the easiest thing to use is probably
http://www.perl.com/CPAN, which automatically points you to a
mirror site "close" to you.

=head2 Perl5-porters mailing list

The mailing list perl5-porters@perl.org
is the main group working with the development of perl.  If you're
interested in all the latest developments, you should definitely
subscribe.  The list is high volume, but generally has a
fairly low noise level.

Subscribe by sending the message (in the body of your letter)

        subscribe perl5-porters

to perl5-porters-request@perl.org .

=head1 How are Perl Releases Numbered?

Perl version numbers are floating point numbers, such as 5.004.  The
major version number is 5, the minor version is '0', and '03' is the
patchlevel.  The version number is available as the magic variable $],
and can be used in comparisons, e.g.

        print "You've got an old perl\n" if $] < 5.002;

(Observations about the imprecision of floating point numbers for
representing reality probably have more relevance than you might
imagine :-)

You can also require particular version (or later) with

        use 5.002;

=head2 Subversions

In addition, there may be "developer" sub-versions available.  These
are not official releases.  They may contain unstable experimental
features, and are subject to rapid change.  Such developer
sub-versions are numbered with sub-version numbers.  For example,
version 5.004_04 is the 4'th developer version built on top of
5.004.  It might include the _01, _02, and _03 changes, but it
also might not.  Sub-versions are allowed to be subversive.

These sub-versions can also be used as floating point numbers, so
you can do things such as

        print "You've got an unstable perl\n" if $] == 5.00403;

You can also require particular version (or later) with

        use 5.004_03;    # the "_" is optional

Sub-versions produced by the members of perl5-porters are usually
available on CPAN in the F<src/5.0/unsupported> directory.

=head2 Why such a complicated scheme?

Two reasons, really.  At least.

First, we need some way to identify releases that are known to
have new features that need testing and exploration.  The
subversion scheme does that nicely while fitting into the
C<use 5.004;> mold.

Second, since most of the folks who help maintain perl do so on a
free-time voluntary basis, perl development does not proceed at a
precise pace, though it always seems to be moving ahead quickly.
We needed some way to pass around the "patch pumpkin" to allow
different people chances to work on different aspects of the
distribution without getting in each other's way.  It wouldn't be
constructive to have multiple people working on incompatible
implementations of the same idea.  Instead what was needed was
some kind of "baton" or "token" to pass around so everyone knew
whose turn was next.

=head2 Why is it called the patch pumpkin?

Chip Salzenberg gets credit for that, with a nod to his cow orker,
David Croy.  We had passed around various names (baton, token, hot
potato) but none caught on.  Then, Chip asked:

[begin quote]

   Who has the patch pumpkin?

To explain:  David Croy once told me once that at a previous job,
there was one tape drive and multiple systems that used it for backups.
But instead of some high-tech exclusion software, they used a low-tech
method to prevent multiple simultaneous backups: a stuffed pumpkin.
No one was allowed to make backups unless they had the "backup pumpkin".

[end quote]

The name has stuck.

=head1 Philosophical Issues in Patching Perl

There are no absolute rules, but there are some general guidelines I
have tried to follow as I apply patches to the perl sources.
(This section is still under construction.)

=head2 Solve problems as generally as possible

(I still have to think of a good example here.)

=head2 Seek consensus on major changes

If you are making big changes, don't do it in secret.  Discuss the
ideas in advance on perl5-porters.

=head2 Keep the documentation up-to-date

If your changes may affect how users use perl, then check to be sure
that the documentation is in sync with your changes.  Be sure to
check all the files F<pod/*.pod> and also the F<INSTALL> document.

Consider writing the appropriate documentation first and then
implementing it to correspond to the documentation.

=head2 Avoid machine-specific #ifdef's

To the extent reasonable, try to avoid machine-specific #ifdef's in
the sources.  Instead, use feature-specific #ifdef's.  The reason is
that the machine-specific #ifdef's may not be valid across major
releases of the operating system.  Further, the feature-specific tests
may help out folks on another platform who have the same problem.

=head2 Allow for lots of testing

We should never release a main version without testing it as a
subversion first.

=head2 Automate generatation of derivative files

The F<embed.h>, F<keywords.h>, F<opcode.h>, and F<perltoc.pod> files
are all automatically generated by perl scripts.  In general, don't
patch these directly; patch the data files instead.

F<Configure> and F<config_h.SH> are also automatically generated by
B<metaconfig>.  In general, you should patch the metaconfig units
instead of patching these files directly.  However, minor changes to
F<Configure> may be made in between major sync-ups with the metaconfig
units, which tends to be complicated operations.

=head1 How to Make a Distribution

There really ought to be a 'make dist' target, but there isn't.
The 'dist' suite of tools also contains a number of tools that I haven't
learned how to use yet.  Some of them may make this all a bit easier.

Here are the steps I go through to prepare a patch & distribution.

Lots of it could doubtless be automated but isn't.

=head2 Announce your intentions

First, you should volunteer out loud to take the patch pumpkin.  It's
generally counter-productive to have multiple people working in secret
on the same thing.

At the same time, announce what you plan to do with the patch pumpkin,
to allow folks a chance to object or suggest alternatives, or do it for
you.  Naturally, the patch pumpkin holder ought to incorporate various
bug fixes and documentation improvements that are posted while he or
she has the pumpkin, but there might also be larger issues at stake.

One of the precepts of the subversion idea is that we shouldn't give
it to anyone unless we have some idea what you're going to do with
it.

=head2 refresh pod/perltoc.pod

Presumably, you have done a full C<make> in your working source
directory.  Before you C<make spotless> (if you do), and if you have
changed any documentation in any module or pod file, change to the
F<pod> directory and run C<make toc>.

=head2 update patchlevel.h

Don't be shy about using the subversion number, even for a relatively
modest patch.  We've never even come close to using all 99 subversions,
and it's better to have a distinctive number for your patch.  If you
need feedback on your patch, go ahead and issue it and promise to
incorporate that feedback quickly (e.g. within 1 week) and send out a
second patch.

=head2 run metaconfig

If you need to make changes to Configure or config_h.SH, it may be best to
change the appropriate metaconfig units instead, and regenerate Configure.

        metaconfig -m

will regenerate Configure and config_h.SH.  More information on
obtaining and running metaconfig is in the F<U/README> file that comes
with Perl's metaconfig units.  Perl's metaconfig units should be
available the same place you found this file.  On CPAN, look under my
directory F<id/ANDYD/> for a file such as F<5.003_07-02.U.tar.gz>.
That file should be unpacked in your main perl source directory.  It
contains the files needed to run B<metaconfig> to reproduce Perl's
Configure script.

Alternatively, do consider if the F<*ish.h> files might be a better
place for your changes.

=head2 MANIFEST

Make sure the MANIFEST is up-to-date.  You can use dist's B<manicheck>
program for this.  You can also use

    perl -MExtUtils::Manifest -e fullcheck

to do half the job.  This will make sure everything listed in MANIFEST
is included in the distribution.  dist's B<manicheck> command will
also list extra files in the directory that are not listed in
MANIFEST.

The MANIFEST is normally sorted, with one exception.  Perl includes
both a F<Configure> script and a F<configure> script.  The
F<configure> script is a front-end to the main F<Configure>, but
is there to aid folks who use autoconf-generated F<configure> files
for other software.  The problem is that F<Configure> and F<configure>
are the same on case-insensitive file systems, so I deliberately put
F<configure> first in the MANIFEST so that the extraction of
F<Configure> will overwrite F<configure> and leave you with the
correct script.  (The F<configure> script must also have write
permission for this to work, so it's the only file in the distribution
I normally have with write permission.)

If you are using metaconfig to regenerate Configure, then you should note
that metaconfig actually uses MANIFEST.new, so you want to be sure
MANIFEST.new is up-to-date too.  I haven't found the MANIFEST/MANIFEST.new
distinction particularly useful, but that's probably because I still haven't
learned how to use the full suite of tools in the dist distribution.

=head2 Check permissions

All the tests in the t/ directory ought to be executable.  The
main makefile used to do a 'chmod t/*/*.t', but that resulted in
a self-modifying distribution--something some users would strongly
prefer to avoid.  Probably, the F<t/TEST> script should check for this
and do the chmod if needed, but it doesn't currently.

In all, the following files should probably be executable:

    Configure
    configpm
    configure
    embed.pl
    installperl
    installman
    keywords.pl
    lib/splain
    myconfig
    opcode.pl
    perly.fixer
    t/TEST
    t/*/*.t
    *.SH
    vms/ext/Stdio/test.pl
    vms/ext/filespec.t
    vms/fndvers.com
    x2p/*.SH

Other things ought to be readable, at least :-).

Probably, the permissions for the files could be encoded in MANIFEST
somehow, but I'm reluctant to change MANIFEST itself because that
could break old scripts that use MANIFEST.

I seem to recall that some SVR3 systems kept some sort of file that listed
permissions for system files; something like that might be appropriate.

=head2 Run Configure

This will build a config.sh and config.h.  You can skip this if you haven't
changed Configure or config_h.SH at all.

=head2 Update config_H

The config_H file is provided to help those folks who can't run Configure.
It is important to keep it up-to-date.  If you have changed config_h.SH,
those changes must be reflected in config_H as well.  (The name config_H was
chosen to distinguish the file from config.h even on case-insensitive file
systems.)  Simply edit the existing config_H file; keep the first few
explanatory lines and then copy your new config.h below.

It may also be necessary to update vms/config.vms and
plan9/config.plan9, though you should be quite careful in doing so if
you are not familiar with those systems.  You might want to issue your
patch with a promise to quickly issue a follow-up that handles those
directories.

=head2 make run_byacc

If you have byacc-1.8.2 (available from CPAN), and if there have been
changes to F<perly.y>, you can regenerate the F<perly.c> file.  The
run_byacc makefile target does this by running byacc and then applying
some patches so that byacc dynamically allocates space, rather than
having fixed limits.  This patch is handled by the F<perly.fixer>
script.  Depending on the nature of the changes to F<perly.y>, you may
or may not have to hand-edit the patch to apply correctly.  If you do,
you should include the edited patch in the new distribution.  If you
have byacc-1.9, the patch won't apply cleanly.  Changes to the printf
output statements mean the patch won't apply cleanly.  Long ago I
started to fix F<perly.fixer> to detect this, but I never completed the
task.

Some additional notes from Larry on this:

Don't forget to regenerate perly.c.diff.

    byacc perly.y
    mv y.tab.c perly.c
    patch perly.c <perly.c.diff
    # manually apply any failed hunks
    diff -c2 perly.c.orig perly.c >perly.c.diff

One chunk of lines that often fails begins with

    #line 29 "perly.y"

and ends one line before

    #define YYERRCODE 256

This only happens when you add or remove a token type.  I suppose this
could be automated, but it doesn't happen very often nowadays.

Larry

=head2 make regen_headers

The F<embed.h>, F<keywords.h>, and F<opcode.h> files are all automatically
generated by perl scripts.  Since the user isn't guaranteed to have a
working perl, we can't require the user to generate them.  Hence you have
to, if you're making a distribution.

I used to include rules like the following in the makefile:

    # The following three header files are generated automatically
    # The correct versions should be already supplied with the perl kit,
    # in case you don't have perl or 'sh' available.
    # The - is to ignore error return codes in case you have the source
    # installed read-only or you don't have perl yet.
    keywords.h: keywords.pl
            @echo "Don't worry if this fails."
            - perl keywords.pl


However, I got lots of mail consisting of people worrying because the
command failed.  I eventually decided that I would save myself time
and effort by manually running C<make regen_headers> myself rather
than answering all the questions and complaints about the failing
command.

=head2 global.sym and interp.sym

Make sure these files are up-to-date.  Read the comments in these
files and in perl_exp.SH to see what to do.

=head2 Binary compatibility

If you do change F<global.sym> or F<interp.sym>, think carefully about
what you are doing.  To the extent reasonable, we'd like to maintain
souce and binary compatibility with older releases of perl.  That way,
extensions built under one version of perl will continue to work with
new versions of perl.

Of course, some incompatible changes may well be necessary.  I'm just
suggesting that we not make any such changes without thinking carefully
about them first.  If possible, we should provide
backwards-compatibility stubs.  There's a lot of XS code out there.
Let's not force people to keep changing it.

=head2 Changes

Be sure to update the F<Changes> file.  Try to include both an overall
summary as well as detailed descriptions of the changes.  Your
audience will include bother developers and users, so describe
user-visible changes (if any) in terms they will understand, not in
code like "initialize foo variable in bar function".

There are differing opinions on whether the detailed descriptions
ought to go in the Changes file or whether they ought to be available
separately in the patch file (or both).  There is no disagreement that
detailed descriptions ought to be easily available somewhere.

=head2 OS/2-specific updates

In the os2 directory is F<diff.configure>, a set of OS/2-specific
diffs against B<Configure>.  If you make changes to Configure, you may
want to consider regenerating this diff file to save trouble for the
OS/2 maintainer.

=head2 VMS-specific updates

If you have changed F<perly.y>, then you may want to update
F<vms/perly_{h,c}.vms> by running C<perl vms/vms_yfix.pl>.

The Perl version number appears in several places under F<vms>.
It is courteous to update these versions.  For example, if you are
making 5.004_42, replace "5.00441" with "5.00442".

=head2 Making the new distribution

Suppose, for example, that you want to make version 5.004_08.  Then you can
do something like the following

        mkdir ../perl5.004_08
        awk '{print $1}' MANIFEST | cpio -pdm ../perl5.004_08
        cd ../
        tar cf perl5.004_08.tar perl5.004_08
        gzip --best perl5.004_08.tar

=head2 Making a new patch

I find the F<makepatch> utility quite handy for making patches.
You can obtain it from any CPAN archive under
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/Johan_Vromans/.  The only
difference between my version and the standard one is that I have mine
do a

        # Print a reassuring "End of Patch" note so people won't
        # wonder if their mailer truncated patches.
        print "\n\nEnd of Patch.\n";

at the end.  That's because I used to get questions from people asking if
their mail was truncated.

Here's how I generate a new patch.  I'll use the hypothetical
5.004_07 to 5.004_08 patch as an example.

        # unpack perl5.004_07/
        gzip -d -c perl5.004_07.tar.gz | tar -xof -
        # unpack perl5.004_08/
        gzip -d -c perl5.004_08.tar.gz | tar -xof -
        makepatch perl5.004_07 perl5.004_08 > perl5.004_08.pat

Makepatch will automatically generate appropriate B<rm> commands to remove
deleted files.  Unfortunately, it will not correctly set permissions
for newly created files, so you may have to do so manually.  For example,
patch 5.003_04 created a new test F<t/op/gv.t> which needs to be executable,
so at the top of the patch, I inserted the following lines:

        # Make a new test
        touch t/op/gv.t
        chmod +x t/opt/gv.t

Now, of course, my patch is now wrong because makepatch didn't know I
was going to do that command, and it patched against /dev/null.

So, what I do is sort out all such shell commands that need to be in the
patch (including possible mv-ing of files, if needed) and put that in the
shell commands at the top of the patch.  Next, I delete all the patch parts
of perl5.004_08.pat, leaving just the shell commands.  Then, I do the
following:

        cd perl5.003_07
        sh ../perl5.003_08.pat
        cd ..
        makepatch perl5.003_07 perl5.003_08 >> perl5.003_08.pat

(Note the append to preserve my shell commands.)
Now, my patch will line up with what the end users are going to do.

=head2 Testing your patch

It seems obvious, but be sure to test your patch.  That is, verify that
it produces exactly the same thing as your full distribution.

        rm -rf perl5.003_07
        gzip -d -c perl5.003_07.tar.gz | tar -xf -
        cd perl5.003_07
        sh ../perl5.003_08.pat
        patch -p1 -N < ../perl5.003_08.pat
        cd ..
        gdiff -r perl5.003_07 perl5.003_08

where B<gdiff> is GNU diff.  Other diff's may also do recursive checking.

=head2 More testing

Again, it's obvious, but you should test your new version as widely as you
can.  You can be sure you'll hear about it quickly if your version doesn't
work on both ANSI and pre-ANSI compilers, and on common systems such as
SunOS 4.1.[34], Solaris, and Linux.

If your changes include conditional code, try to test the different
branches as thoroughly as you can.  For example, if your system
supports dynamic loading, you can also test static loading with

        sh Configure -Uusedl

You can also hand-tweak your config.h to try out different #ifdef
branches.

=head1 Common Gotcha's

=over 4

=item #elif

The '#elif' preprocessor directive is not understood on all systems.
Specifically, I know that Pyramids don't understand it.  Thus instead of the
simple

        #if defined(I_FOO)
        #  include <foo.h>
        #elif defined(I_BAR)
        #  include <bar.h>
        #else
        #  include <fubar.h>
        #endif

You have to do the more Byzantine

        #if defined(I_FOO)
        #  include <foo.h>
        #else
        #  if defined(I_BAR)
        #    include <bar.h>
        #  else
        #    include <fubar.h>
        #  endif
        #endif

Incidentally, whitespace between the leading '#' and the preprocessor
command is not guaranteed, but is very portable and you may use it freely.
I think it makes things a bit more readable, especially once things get
rather deeply nested.  I also think that things should almost never get
too deeply nested,  so it ought to be a moot point :-)

=item Probably Prefer POSIX

It's often the case that you'll need to choose whether to do
something the BSD-ish way or the POSIX-ish way.  It's usually not
a big problem when the two systems use different names for similar
functions, such as memcmp() and bcmp().  The perl.h header file
handles these by appropriate #defines, selecting the POSIX mem*()
functions if available, but falling back on the b*() functions, if
need be.

More serious is the case where some brilliant person decided to
use the same function name but give it a different meaning or
calling sequence :-).  getpgrp() and setpgrp() come to mind.
These are a real problem on systems that aim for conformance to
one standard (e.g. POSIX), but still try to support the other way
of doing things (e.g. BSD).  My general advice (still not really
implemented in the source) is to do something like the following.
Suppose there are two alternative versions, fooPOSIX() and
fooBSD().

    #ifdef HAS_FOOPOSIX
        /* use fooPOSIX(); */
    #else
    #  ifdef HAS_FOOBSD
        /* try to emulate fooPOSIX() with fooBSD();
           perhaps with the following:  */
    #    define fooPOSIX fooBSD
    #  else
    #  /* Uh, oh.  We have to supply our own. */
    #    define fooPOSIX Perl_fooPOSIX
    #  endif
    #endif

=item Think positively

If you need to add an #ifdef test, it is usually easier to follow if you
think positively, e.g.

        #ifdef HAS_NEATO_FEATURE
            /* use neato feature */
        #else
            /* use some fallback mechanism */
        #endif

rather than the more impenetrable

        #ifndef MISSING_NEATO_FEATURE
            /* Not missing it, so we must have it, so use it */
        #else
            /* Are missing it, so fall back on something else. */
        #endif

Of course for this toy example, there's not much difference.  But when
the #ifdef's start spanning a couple of screen fulls, and the #else's
are marked something like

        #else /* !MISSING_NEATO_FEATURE */

I find it easy to get lost.

=item Providing Missing Functions -- Problem

Not all systems have all the neat functions you might want or need, so
you might decide to be helpful and provide an emulation.  This is
sound in theory and very kind of you, but please be careful about what
you name the function.  Let me use the C<pause()> function as an
illustration.

Perl5.003 has the following in F<perl.h>

    #ifndef HAS_PAUSE
    #define pause() sleep((32767<<16)+32767)
    #endif

Configure sets HAS_PAUSE if the system has the pause() function, so
this #define only kicks in if the pause() function is missing.
Nice idea, right?

Unfortunately, some systems apparently have a prototype for pause()
in F<unistd.h>, but don't actually have the function in the library.
(Or maybe they do have it in a library we're not using.)

Thus, the compiler sees something like

    extern int pause(void);
    /* . . . */
    #define pause() sleep((32767<<16)+32767)

and dies with an error message.  (Some compilers don't mind this;
others apparently do.)

To work around this, 5.003_03 and later have the following in perl.h:

    /* Some unistd.h's give a prototype for pause() even though
       HAS_PAUSE ends up undefined.  This causes the #define
       below to be rejected by the compiler.  Sigh.
    */
    #ifdef HAS_PAUSE
    #  define Pause     pause
    #else
    #  define Pause() sleep((32767<<16)+32767)
    #endif

This works.

The curious reader may wonder why I didn't do the following in
F<util.c> instead:

    #ifndef HAS_PAUSE
    void pause()
    {
    sleep((32767<<16)+32767);
    }
    #endif

That is, since the function is missing, just provide it.
Then things would probably be been alright, it would seem.

Well, almost.  It could be made to work.  The problem arises from the
conflicting needs of dynamic loading and namespace protection.

For dynamic loading to work on AIX (and VMS) we need to provide a list
of symbols to be exported.  This is done by the script F<perl_exp.SH>,
which reads F<global.sym> and F<interp.sym>.  Thus, the C<pause>
symbol would have to be added to F<global.sym>  So far, so good.

On the other hand, one of the goals of Perl5 is to make it easy to
either extend or embed perl and link it with other libraries.  This
means we have to be careful to keep the visible namespace "clean".
That is, we don't want perl's global variables to conflict with
those in the other application library.  Although this work is still
in progress, the way it is currently done is via the F<embed.h> file.
This file is built from the F<global.sym> and F<interp.sym> files,
since those files already list the globally visible symbols.  If we
had added C<pause> to global.sym, then F<embed.h> would contain the
line

    #define pause       Perl_pause

and calls to C<pause> in the perl sources would now point to
C<Perl_pause>.  Now, when B<ld> is run to build the F<perl> executable,
it will go looking for C<perl_pause>, which probably won't exist in any
of the standard libraries.  Thus the build of perl will fail.

Those systems where C<HAS_PAUSE> is not defined would be ok, however,
since they would get a C<Perl_pause> function in util.c.  The rest of
the world would be in trouble.

And yes, this scenario has happened.  On SCO, the function C<chsize>
is available.  (I think it's in F<-lx>, the Xenix compatibility
library.)  Since the perl4 days (and possibly before), Perl has
included a C<chsize> function that gets called something akin to

    #ifndef HAS_CHSIZE
    I32 chsize(fd, length)
    /*  . . . */
    #endif

When 5.003 added

    #define chsize      Perl_chsize

to F<embed.h>, the compile started failing on SCO systems.

The "fix" is to give the function a different name.  The one
implemented in 5.003_05 isn't optimal, but here's what was done:

    #ifdef HAS_CHSIZE
    # ifdef my_chsize  /* Probably #defined to Perl_my_chsize in embed.h */
    #   undef my_chsize
    # endif
    # define my_chsize chsize
    #endif

My explanatory comment in patch 5.003_05 said:

     Undef and then re-define my_chsize from Perl_my_chsize to
     just plain chsize if this system HAS_CHSIZE.  This probably only
     applies to SCO.  This shows the perils of having internal
     functions with the same name as external library functions :-).

Now, we can safely put C<my_chsize> in F<global.sym>, export it, and
hide it with F<embed.h>.

To be consistent with what I did for C<pause>, I probably should have
called the new function C<Chsize>, rather than C<my_chsize>.
However, the perl sources are quite inconsistent on this (Consider
New, Mymalloc, and Myremalloc, to name just a few.)

There is a problem with this fix, however, in that C<Perl_chsize>
was available as a F<libperl.a> library function in 5.003, but it
isn't available any more (as of 5.003_07).  This means that we've
broken binary compatibility.  This is not good.

=item Providing missing functions -- some ideas

We currently don't have a standard way of handling such missing
function names.  Right now, I'm effectively thinking aloud about a
solution.  Some day, I'll try to formally propose a solution.

Part of the problem is that we want to have some functions listed as
exported but not have their names mangled by embed.h or possibly
conflict with names in standard system headers.  We actually already
have such a list at the end of F<perl_exp.SH> (though that list is
out-of-date):

    # extra globals not included above.
    cat <<END >> perl.exp
    perl_init_ext
    perl_init_fold
    perl_init_i18nl14n
    perl_alloc
    perl_construct
    perl_destruct
    perl_free
    perl_parse
    perl_run
    perl_get_sv
    perl_get_av
    perl_get_hv
    perl_get_cv
    perl_call_argv
    perl_call_pv
    perl_call_method
    perl_call_sv
    perl_requirepv
    safecalloc
    safemalloc
    saferealloc
    safefree

This still needs much thought, but I'm inclined to think that one
possible solution is to prefix all such functions with C<perl_> in the
source and list them along with the other C<perl_*> functions in
F<perl_exp.SH>.

Thus, for C<chsize>, we'd do something like the following:

    /* in perl.h */
    #ifdef HAS_CHSIZE
    #  define perl_chsize chsize
    #endif

then in some file (e.g. F<util.c> or F<doio.c>) do

    #ifndef HAS_CHSIZE
    I32 perl_chsize(fd, length)
    /* implement the function here . . . */
    #endif

Alternatively, we could just always use C<chsize> everywhere and move
C<chsize> from F<global.sym> to the end of F<perl_exp.SH>.  That would
probably be fine as long as our C<chsize> function agreed with all the
C<chsize> function prototypes in the various systems we'll be using.
As long as the prototypes in actual use don't vary that much, this is
probably a good alternative.  (As a counter-example, note how Configure
and perl have to go through hoops to find and use get Malloc_t and
Free_t for C<malloc> and C<free>.)

At the moment, this latter option is what I tend to prefer.

=item All the world's a VAX

Sorry, showing my age:-).  Still, all the world is not BSD 4.[34],
SVR4, or POSIX.  Be aware that SVR3-derived systems are still quite
common (do you have any idea how many systems run SCO?)  If you don't
have a bunch of v7 manuals handy, the metaconfig units (by default
installed in F</usr/local/lib/dist/U>) are a good resource to look at
for portability.

=back

=head1 Miscellaneous Topics

=head2 Autoconf

Why does perl use a metaconfig-generated Configure script instead of an
autoconf-generated configure script?

Metaconfig and autoconf are two tools with very similar purposes.
Metaconfig is actually the older of the two, and was originally written
by Larry Wall, while autoconf is probably now used in a wider variety of
packages.  The autoconf info file discusses the history of autoconf and
how it came to be.  The curious reader is referred there for further
information.

Overall, both tools are quite good, I think, and the choice of which one
to use could be argued either way.  In March, 1994, when I was just
starting to work on Configure support for Perl5, I considered both
autoconf and metaconfig, and eventually decided to use metaconfig for the
following reasons:

=over 4

=item Compatibility with Perl4

Perl4 used metaconfig, so many of the #ifdef's were already set up for
metaconfig.  Of course metaconfig had evolved some since Perl4's days,
but not so much that it posed any serious problems.

=item Metaconfig worked for me

My system at the time was Interactive 2.2, a SVR3.2/386 derivative that
also had some POSIX support.  Metaconfig-generated Configure scripts
worked fine for me on that system.  On the other hand, autoconf-generated
scripts usually didn't.  (They did come quite close, though, in some
cases.)  At the time, I actually fetched a large number of GNU packages
and checked.  Not a single one configured and compiled correctly
out-of-the-box with the system's cc compiler.

=item Configure can be interactive

With both autoconf and metaconfig, if the script works, everything is
fine.  However, one of my main problems with autoconf-generated scripts
was that if it guessed wrong about something, it could be B<very> hard to
go back and fix it.  For example, autoconf always insisted on passing the
-Xp flag to cc (to turn on POSIX behavior), even when that wasn't what I
wanted or needed for that package.  There was no way short of editing the
configure script to turn this off.  You couldn't just edit the resulting
Makefile at the end because the -Xp flag influenced a number of other
configure tests.

Metaconfig's Configure scripts, on the other hand, can be interactive.
Thus if Configure is guessing things incorrectly, you can go back and fix
them.  This isn't as important now as it was when we were actively
developing Configure support for new features such as dynamic loading,
but it's still useful occasionally.

=item GPL

At the time, autoconf-generated scripts were covered under the GNU Public
License, and hence weren't suitable for inclusion with Perl, which has a
different licensing policy.  (Autoconf's licensing has since changed.)

=item Modularity

Metaconfig builds up Configure from a collection of discrete pieces
called "units".  You can override the standard behavior by supplying your
own unit.  With autoconf, you have to patch the standard files instead.
I find the metaconfig "unit" method easier to work with.  Others
may find metaconfig's units clumsy to work with.

=back

=head2 @INC search order

By default, the list of perl library directories in @INC is the
following:

    $archlib
    $privlib
    $sitearch
    $sitelib

Specifically, on my Solaris/x86 system, I run
B<sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl> and I have the following
directories:

    /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.00307
    /opt/perl/lib
    /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/i86pc-solaris
    /opt/perl/lib/site_perl

That is, perl's directories come first, followed by the site-specific
directories.

The site libraries come second to support the usage of extensions
across perl versions.  Read the relevant section in F<INSTALL> for
more information.  If we ever make $sitearch version-specific, this
topic could be revisited.

=head2 Why isn't there a directory to override Perl's library?

Mainly because no one's gotten around to making one.  Note that
"making one"  involves changing perl.c, Configure, config_h.SH (and
associated files, see above), and I<documenting> it all in the
INSTALL file.

Apparently, most folks who want to override one of the standard library
files simply do it by overwriting the standard library files.

=head2 APPLLIB

In the perl.c sources, you'll find an undocumented APPLLIB_EXP
variable, sort of like PRIVLIB_EXP and ARCHLIB_EXP (which are
documented in config_h.SH).  Here's what APPLLIB_EXP is for, from
a mail message from Larry:

    The main intent of APPLLIB_EXP is for folks who want to send out a
    version of Perl embedded in their product.  They would set the symbol
    to be the name of the library containing the files needed to run or to
    support their particular application.  This works at the "override"
    level to make sure they get their own versions of any library code that
    they absolutely must have configuration control over.

    As such, I don't see any conflict with a sysadmin using it for a
    override-ish sort of thing, when installing a generic Perl.  It should
    probably have been named something to do with overriding though.  Since
    it's undocumented we could still change it...  :-)

Given that it's already there, you can use it to override
distribution modules.  If you do

        sh Configure -Dccflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=/my/override'

then perl.c will put /my/override ahead of ARCHLIB and PRIVLIB.

=head1 Upload Your Work to CPAN

You can upload your work to CPAN if you have a CPAN id.  Check out
http://www.perl.com/CPAN/modules/04pause.html for information on
_PAUSE_, the Perl Author's Upload Server.

I typically upload both the patch file, e.g. F<perl5.004_08.pat.gz>
and the full tar file, e.g. F<perl5.004_08.tar.gz>.

If you want your patch to appear in the F<src/5.0/unsupported>
directory on CPAN, send e-mail to the CPAN master librarian.  (Check
out http://www.perl.com/CPAN/CPAN.html).

=head1 Help Save the World

You should definitely announce your patch on the perl5-porters list.
You should also consider announcing your patch on
comp.lang.perl.announce, though you should make it quite clear that a
subversion is not a production release, and be prepared to deal with
people who will not read your disclaimer.

=head1 Todo

Here, in no particular order, are some Configure and build-related
items that merit consideration.  This list isn't exhaustive, it's just
what I came up with off the top of my head.

=head2 Good ideas waiting for round tuits

=over 4

=item installprefix

I think we ought to support

    Configure -Dinstallprefix=/blah/blah

Currently, we support B<-Dprefix=/blah/blah>, but the changing the install
location has to be handled by something like the F<config.over> trick
described in F<INSTALL>.  AFS users also are treated specially.
We should probably duplicate the metaconfig prefix stuff for an
install prefix.

=item Configure -Dsrcdir=/blah/blah

We should be able to emulate B<configure --srcdir>.  Tom Tromey
tromey@creche.cygnus.com has submitted some patches to
the dist-users mailing list along these lines.  Eventually, they ought
to get folded back into the main distribution.

=item Hint file fixes

Various hint files work around Configure problems.  We ought to fix
Configure so that most of them aren't needed.

=item Hint file information

Some of the hint file information (particularly dynamic loading stuff)
ought to be fed back into the main metaconfig distribution.

=back

=head2 Probably good ideas waiting for round tuits

=over 4

=item GNU configure --options

I've received sensible suggestions for --exec_prefix and other
GNU configure --options.  It's not always obvious exactly what is
intended, but this merits investigation.

=item make clean

Currently, B<make clean> isn't all that useful, though
B<make realclean> and B<make distclean> are.  This needs a bit of
thought and documentation before it gets cleaned up.

=item Try gcc if cc fails

Currently, we just give up.

=item bypassing safe*alloc wrappers

On some systems, it may be safe to call the system malloc directly
without going through the util.c safe* layers.  (Such systems would
accept free(0), for example.)  This might be a time-saver for systems
that already have a good malloc.  (Recent Linux libc's apparently have
a nice malloc that is well-tuned for the system.)

=back

=head2 Vague possibilities

=over 4

=item Win95, WinNT, and Win32 support

We need to get something into the distribution for 32-bit Windows.
I'm tired of all the private e-mail questions I get, and I'm saddened
that so many folks keep trying to reinvent the same wheel.

=item MacPerl

Get some of the Macintosh stuff folded back into the main
distribution.

=item gconvert replacement

Maybe include a replacement function that doesn't lose data in rare
cases of coercion between string and numerical values.

=item long long

Can we support C<long long> on systems where C<long long> is larger
than what we've been using for C<IV>?  What if you can't C<sprintf>
a C<long long>?

=item Improve makedepend

The current makedepend process is clunky and annoyingly slow, but it
works for most folks.  Alas, it assumes that there is a filename
$firstmakefile that the B<make> command will try to use before it uses
F<Makefile>.  Such may not be the case for all B<make> commands,
particularly those on non-Unix systems.

Probably some variant of the BSD F<.depend> file will be useful.
We ought to check how other packages do this, if they do it at all.
We could probably pre-generate the dependencies (with the exception of
malloc.o, which could probably be determined at F<Makefile.SH>
extraction time.

=item GNU Makefile standard targets

GNU software generally has standardized Makefile targets.  Unless we
have good reason to do otherwise, I see no reason not to support them.

=item File locking

Somehow, straighten out, document, and implement lockf(), flock(),
and/or fcntl() file locking.  It's a mess.

=back

=head1 AUTHOR

Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>.

Additions by Chip Salzenberg <chip@atlantic.net>.

All opinions expressed herein are those of the authorZ<>(s).

=head1 LAST MODIFIED

$Id: pumpkin.pod,v 1.8 1997/02/18 18:19:20 chip Released $