responsible for gathering patches, deciding on a patch-by-patch
feature-by-feature basis what will and will not go into the release.
For instance, Gurusamy Sarathy was the pumpking for the 5.6 release of
-Perl, and Jarkko Hietaniemi is the pumpking for the 5.8 release, and
-Hugo van der Sanden will be the pumpking for the 5.10 release.
+Perl, and Jarkko Hietaniemi was the pumpking for the 5.8 release, and
+Hugo van der Sanden and Rafael Garcia-Suarez share the pumpking for
+the 5.10 release.
In addition, various people are pumpkings for different things. For
-instance, Andy Dougherty and Jarkko Hietaniemi share the I<Configure>
-pumpkin.
+instance, Andy Dougherty and Jarkko Hietaniemi did a grand job as the
+I<Configure> pumpkin up till the 5.8 release. For the 5.10 release
+H.Merijn Brand took over.
Larry sees Perl development along the lines of the US government:
there's the Legislature (the porters), the Executive branch (the
=back
+=head2 Working with the source
+
+Because you cannot use the Perforce client, you cannot easily generate
+diffs against the repository, nor will merges occur when you update
+via rsync. If you edit a file locally and then rsync against the
+latest source, changes made in the remote copy will I<overwrite> your
+local versions!
+
+The best way to deal with this is to maintain a tree of symlinks to
+the rsync'd source. Then, when you want to edit a file, you remove
+the symlink, copy the real file into the other tree, and edit it. You
+can then diff your edited file against the original to generate a
+patch, and you can safely update the original tree.
+
+Perl's F<Configure> script can generate this tree of symlinks for you.
+The following example assumes that you have used rsync to pull a copy
+of the Perl source into the F<perl-rsync> directory. In the directory
+above that one, you can execute the following commands:
+
+ mkdir perl-dev
+ cd perl-dev
+ ../perl-rsync/Configure -Dmksymlinks -Dusedevel -D"optimize=-g"
+
+This will start the Perl configuration process. After a few prompts,
+you should see something like this:
+
+ Symbolic links are supported.
+
+ Checking how to test for symbolic links...
+ Your builtin 'test -h' may be broken.
+ Trying external '/usr/bin/test -h'.
+ You can test for symbolic links with '/usr/bin/test -h'.
+
+ Creating the symbolic links...
+ (First creating the subdirectories...)
+ (Then creating the symlinks...)
+
+The specifics may vary based on your operating system, of course.
+After you see this, you can abort the F<Configure> script, and you
+will see that the directory you are in has a tree of symlinks to the
+F<perl-rsync> directories and files.
+
+If you plan to do a lot of work with the Perl source, here are some
+Bourne shell script functions that can make your life easier:
+
+ function edit {
+ if [ -L $1 ]; then
+ mv $1 $1.orig
+ cp $1.orig $1
+ vi $1
+ else
+ /bin/vi $1
+ fi
+ }
-=head2 Perlbug remote interface
-
-There are three (3) remote administrative interfaces for modifying bug
-status, category, etc. In all cases an admin must be first registered
-with the Perlbug database by sending an email request to
-richard@perl.org or bugmongers@perl.org.
-
-The main requirement is the willingness to classify, (with the
-emphasis on closing where possible :), outstanding bugs. Further
-explanation can be garnered from the web at http://bugs.perl.org/ , or
-by asking on the admin mailing list at: bugmongers@perl.org
-
-For more info on the web see
-
- http://bugs.perl.org/perlbug.cgi?req=spec
-
-=over 4
-
-=item 1 http://bugs.perl.org
-
-Login via the web, (remove B<admin/> if only browsing), where interested
-Cc's, tests, patches and change-ids, etc. may be assigned.
-
- http://bugs.perl.org/admin/index.html
-
-
-=item 2 bugdb@perl.org
-
-Where the subject line is used for commands:
-
- To: bugdb@perl.org
- Subject: -a close bugid1 bugid2 aix install
+ function unedit {
+ if [ -L $1.orig ]; then
+ rm $1
+ mv $1.orig $1
+ fi
+ }
- To: bugdb@perl.org
- Subject: -h
+Replace "vi" with your favorite flavor of editor.
+
+Here is another function which will quickly generate a patch for the
+files which have been edited in your symlink tree:
+
+ mkpatchorig() {
+ local diffopts
+ for f in `find . -name '*.orig' | sed s,^\./,,`
+ do
+ case `echo $f | sed 's,.orig$,,;s,.*\.,,'` in
+ c) diffopts=-p ;;
+ pod) diffopts='-F^=' ;;
+ *) diffopts= ;;
+ esac
+ diff -du $diffopts $f `echo $f | sed 's,.orig$,,'`
+ done
+ }
+This function produces patches which include enough context to make
+your changes obvious. This makes it easier for the Perl pumpking(s)
+to review them when you send them to the perl5-porters list, and that
+means they're more likely to get applied.
-=item 3 commands_and_bugdids@bugs.perl.org
+This function assumed a GNU diff, and may require some tweaking for
+other diff variants.
-Where the address itself is the source for the commands:
+=head2 Perlbug administration
- To: close_bugid1_bugid2_aix@bugs.perl.org
+There is a single remote administrative interface for modifying bug status,
+category, open issues etc. using the B<RT> I<bugtracker> system, maintained
+by I<Robert Spier>. Become an administrator, and close any bugs you can get
+your sticky mitts on:
- To: help@bugs.perl.org
+ http://rt.perl.org
+The bugtracker mechanism for B<perl5> bugs in particular is at:
-=item notes, patches, tests
+ http://bugs6.perl.org/perlbug
-For patches and tests, the message body is assigned to the appropriate
-bugs and forwarded to p5p for their attention.
+To email the bug system administrators:
- To: test_<bugid1>_aix_close@bugs.perl.org
- Subject: this is a test for the (now closed) aix bug
+ "perlbug-admin" <perlbug-admin@perl.org>
- Test is the body of the mail
-
-=back
=head2 Submitting patches
Line 13 manipulates the flags; since we've changed the PV, any IV or NV
values will no longer be valid: if we have C<$a=10; $a.="6";> we don't
-want to use the old IV of 10. C<SvPOK_only_utf8> is a special UTF8-aware
+want to use the old IV of 10. C<SvPOK_only_utf8> is a special UTF-8-aware
version of C<SvPOK_only>, a macro which turns off the IOK and NOK flags
and turns on POK. The final C<SvTAINT> is a macro which launders tainted
data if taint mode is turned on.
to L<perlguts/Background and PERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT> for information on
the C<[pad]THX_?> macros.
+=head2 The .i Targets
+
+You can expand the macros in a F<foo.c> file by saying
+
+ make foo.i
+
+which will expand the macros using cpp. Don't be scared by the results.
+
=head2 Poking at Perl
To really poke around with Perl, you'll probably want to build Perl for
=item print
Execute the given C code and print its results. B<WARNING>: Perl makes
-heavy use of macros, and F<gdb> is not aware of macros. You'll have to
-substitute them yourself. So, for instance, you can't say
+heavy use of macros, and F<gdb> does not necessarily support macros
+(see later L</"gdb macro support">). You'll have to substitute them
+yourself, or to invoke cpp on the source code files
+(see L</"The .i Targets">)
+So, for instance, you can't say
print SvPV_nolen(sv)
print Perl_sv_2pv_nolen(sv)
+=back
+
You may find it helpful to have a "macro dictionary", which you can
produce by saying C<cpp -dM perl.c | sort>. Even then, F<cpp> won't
-recursively apply the macros for you.
+recursively apply those macros for you.
-=back
+=head2 gdb macro support
+
+Recent versions of F<gdb> have fairly good macro support, but
+in order to use it you'll need to compile perl with macro definitions
+included in the debugging information. Using F<gcc> version 3.1, this
+means configuring with C<-Doptimize=-g3>. Other compilers might use a
+different switch (if they support debugging macros at all).
=head2 Dumping Perl Data Structures
on and create a simple patch. Here's something Larry suggested: if a
C<U> is the first active format during a C<pack>, (for example,
C<pack "U3C8", @stuff>) then the resulting string should be treated as
-UTF8 encoded.
+UTF-8 encoded.
How do we prepare to fix this up? First we locate the code in question -
the C<pack> happens at runtime, so it's going to be in one of the F<pp>
while (pat < patend) {
Now if we see a C<U> which was at the start of the string, we turn on
-the UTF8 flag for the output SV, C<cat>:
+the C<UTF8> flag for the output SV, C<cat>:
+ if (datumtype == 'U' && pat==patcopy+1)
+ SvUTF8_on(cat);
=item *
If the pattern begins with a C<U>, the resulting string will be treated
- as Unicode-encoded. You can force UTF8 encoding on in a string with an
- initial C<U0>, and the bytes that follow will be interpreted as Unicode
- characters. If you don't want this to happen, you can begin your pattern
- with C<C0> (or anything else) to force Perl not to UTF8 encode your
+ as UTF-8-encoded Unicode. You can force UTF-8 encoding on in a string
+ with an initial C<U0>, and the bytes that follow will be interpreted as
+ Unicode characters. If you don't want this to happen, you can begin your
+ pattern with C<C0> (or anything else) to force Perl not to UTF-8 encode your
string, and then follow this with a C<U*> somewhere in your pattern.
All done. Now let's create the patch. F<Porting/patching.pod> tells us
Testing features of how perl actually runs, including exit codes and
handling of PERL* environment variables.
+=item F<t/uni/>
+
+Tests for the core support of Unicode.
+
+=item F<t/win32/>
+
+Windows-specific tests.
+
+=item F<t/x2p>
+
+A test suite for the s2p converter.
+
=back
The core uses the same testing style as the rest of Perl, a simple
=item test.deparse
-Run all the tests through the B::Deparse. Not all tests will succeed.
+Run all the tests through B::Deparse. Not all tests will succeed.
+
+=item test.taintwarn
+
+Run all tests with the B<-t> command-line switch. Not all tests
+are expected to succeed (until they're specifically fixed, of course).
=item minitest
Run F<miniperl> on F<t/base>, F<t/comp>, F<t/cmd>, F<t/run>, F<t/io>,
F<t/op>, and F<t/uni> tests.
+=item test.valgrind check.valgrind utest.valgrind ucheck.valgrind
+
+(Only in Linux) Run all the tests using the memory leak + naughty
+memory access tool "valgrind". The log files will be named
+F<testname.valgrind>.
+
=item test.third check.third utest.third ucheck.third
(Only in Tru64) Run all the tests using the memory leak + naughty
=item test.torture torturetest
Run all the usual tests and some extra tests. As of Perl 5.8.0 the
-only extra tests are Abigail's JAPHs, t/japh/abigail.t.
+only extra tests are Abigail's JAPHs, F<t/japh/abigail.t>.
You can also run the torture test with F<t/harness> by giving
C<-torture> argument to F<t/harness>.
Run all the tests with -Mutf8. Not all tests will succeed.
+=item minitest.utf16 test.utf16
+
+Runs the tests with UTF-16 encoded scripts, encoded with different
+versions of this encoding.
+
+C<make utest.utf16> runs the test suite with a combination of C<-utf8> and
+C<-utf16> arguments to F<t/TEST>.
+
+=item test_harness
+
+Run the test suite with the F<t/harness> controlling program, instead of
+F<t/TEST>. F<t/harness> is more sophisticated, and uses the
+L<Test::Harness> module, thus using this test target supposes that perl
+mostly works. The main advantage for our purposes is that it prints a
+detailed summary of failed tests at the end. Also, unlike F<t/TEST>, it
+doesn't redirect stderr to stdout.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Running tests by hand
+
+You can run part of the test suite by hand by using one the following
+commands from the F<t/> directory :
+
+ ./perl -I../lib TEST list-of-.t-files
+
+or
+
+ ./perl -I../lib harness list-of-.t-files
+
+(if you don't specify test scripts, the whole test suite will be run.)
+
+You can run an individual test by a command similar to
+
+ ./perl -I../lib patho/to/foo.t
+
+except that the harnesses set up some environment variables that may
+affect the execution of the test :
+
+=over 4
+
+=item PERL_CORE=1
+
+indicates that we're running this test part of the perl core test suite.
+This is useful for modules that have a dual life on CPAN.
+
+=item PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL=2
+
+is set to 2 if it isn't set already (see L</PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL>)
+
+=item PERL
+
+(used only by F<t/TEST>) if set, overrides the path to the perl executable
+that should be used to run the tests (the default being F<./perl>).
+
+=item PERL_SKIP_TTY_TEST
+
+if set, tells to skip the tests that need a terminal. It's actually set
+automatically by the Makefile, but can also be forced artificially by
+running 'make test_notty'.
+
=back
=head1 EXTERNAL TOOLS FOR DEBUGGING PERL
meant as a guide to interfacing these tools with Perl, not
as any kind of guide to the use of the tools themselves.
+B<NOTE 1>: Running under memory debuggers such as Purify, valgrind, or
+Third Degree greatly slows down the execution: seconds become minutes,
+minutes become hours. For example as of Perl 5.8.1, the
+ext/Encode/t/Unicode.t takes extraordinarily long to complete under
+e.g. Purify, Third Degree, and valgrind. Under valgrind it takes more
+than six hours, even on a snappy computer-- the said test must be
+doing something that is quite unfriendly for memory debuggers. If you
+don't feel like waiting, that you can simply kill away the perl
+process.
+
+B<NOTE 2>: To minimize the number of memory leak false alarms (see
+L</PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL> for more information), you have to have
+environment variable PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL set to 2. The F<TEST>
+and harness scripts do that automatically. But if you are running
+some of the tests manually-- for csh-like shells:
+
+ setenv PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL 2
+
+and for Bourne-type shells:
+
+ PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL=2
+ export PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
+
+or in UNIXy environments you can also use the C<env> command:
+
+ env PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL=2 valgrind ./perl -Ilib ...
+
+B<NOTE 3>: There are known memory leaks when there are compile-time
+errors within eval or require, seeing C<S_doeval> in the call stack
+is a good sign of these. Fixing these leaks is non-trivial,
+unfortunately, but they must be fixed eventually.
+
=head2 Rational Software's Purify
Purify is a commercial tool that is helpful in identifying
optimal testing with Purify. Purify is available under
Windows NT, Solaris, HP-UX, SGI, and Siemens Unix.
-The only currently known leaks happen when there are
-compile-time errors within eval or require. (Fixing these
-is non-trivial, unfortunately, but they must be fixed
-eventually.)
-
=head2 Purify on Unix
On Unix, Purify creates a new Perl binary. To get the most
This binary is used in place of the standard 'perl' binary
when you want to debug Perl memory problems.
-To minimize the number of memory leak false alarms
-(see L</PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL>), set environment variable
-PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL to 2.
-
- setenv PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL 2
-
-In Bourne-type shells:
-
- PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL=2
- export PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
-
As an example, to show any memory leaks produced during the
standard Perl testset you would create and run the Purify'ed
perl as:
which would instrument Perl in memory, run Perl on test.pl,
then finally report any memory problems.
-B<NOTE>: as of Perl 5.8.0, the ext/Encode/t/Unicode.t takes
-extraordinarily long (hours?) to complete under Purify. It has been
-theorized that it would eventually finish, but nobody has so far been
-patient enough :-) (This same extreme slowdown has been seen also with
-the Third Degree tool, so the said test must be doing something that
-is quite unfriendly for memory debuggers.) It is suggested that you
-simply kill away that testing process.
+=head2 valgrind
+
+The excellent valgrind tool can be used to find out both memory leaks
+and illegal memory accesses. As of August 2003 it unfortunately works
+only on x86 (ELF) Linux. The special "test.valgrind" target can be used
+to run the tests under valgrind. Found errors and memory leaks are
+logged in files named F<test.valgrind>.
+
+As system libraries (most notably glibc) are also triggering errors,
+valgrind allows to suppress such errors using suppression files. The
+default suppression file that comes with valgrind already catches a lot
+of them. Some additional suppressions are defined in F<t/perl.supp>.
+
+To get valgrind and for more information see
+
+ http://developer.kde.org/~sewardj/
=head2 Compaq's/Digital's/HP's Third Degree
=head2 PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL
-If you want to run any of the tests yourself manually using the
-pureperl or perl.third executables, please note that by default
-perl B<does not> explicitly cleanup all the memory it has allocated
-(such as global memory arenas) but instead lets the exit() of
-the whole program "take care" of such allocations, also known
-as "global destruction of objects".
+If you want to run any of the tests yourself manually using e.g.
+valgrind, or the pureperl or perl.third executables, please note that
+by default perl B<does not> explicitly cleanup all the memory it has
+allocated (such as global memory arenas) but instead lets the exit()
+of the whole program "take care" of such allocations, also known as
+"global destruction of objects".
There is a way to tell perl to do complete cleanup: set the
environment variable PERL_DESTRUCT_LEVEL to a non-zero value.
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff