[Bristolbathpm] CPAN - as I understand it

[David Cantrell]

On Fri, Jun 13, 2008 at 02:42:34PM +0100, Lyle wrote:
> David Cantrell wrote:
> > My motivation is that it's a really easy way to give back to the
> > community.
> Good, I hoped as much. Now I'm wondering, as the CPAN testers (not 
> CPANTS) are building XS modules against the C libraries, in your 
> opinion, how hard would it be to get some of them to build a ppm package 
> afterward?

I don't really know what's involved in making a ppm, but if it can be
automated to make them build without requiring any user interaction,
then it should be possible.

Hop on over to the cpan-testers-discuss mailing list and see if anyone
there can help:
  http://lists.cpan.org/showlist.cgi?name=cpan-testers

> > Yes, it'll work, provided that you set any paths that need encoding into
> > the binaries correctly for the target system, and you build against the
> > right ABI.  The easiest way to ensure this is to replicate the target
> > environment on your own machine - build perl with all the same options
> > (ie the same Config.pm or perl -V), same compiler, same word length etc.
> I'm guessing that once the libraries are built it doesn't matter what 
> compiler was used? I.e. you could build some modules with Borland C and 
> install them on a Perl built with Visual C?

No.  In general, perl will only be able to load libraries that are
built with the same compiler and options that it is.

-- 
David Cantrell | A machine for turning tea into grumpiness

Please stop rolling your Jargon Dice and explain the problem
you are having to me in plain English, using small words.
  -- John Hardin, in the Monastery