Re: [MacPerl] Re: Help for new Oracle port???

[Matthias Ulrich Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>]

Tim Bunce writes:
>> From: campbell@informatics.com (Keith E. Campbell)
>> I'm trying to port the Oracle DBD to the Macintosh.
>
>> With the PowerPC's out, I'm trying to combine MacPerl 5.07
>
>What on earth is MacPerl 5.07? Perl is only at 5.002. (I've had this
>debate with the Win32 people at HIP. It's just not helpful to use a different
>versioning scheme. It would be better to use, for example, MacPerl5.002v1
>5.002v2 etc.)

In fact, the distribution is called 5.0.7r1m, to be pronounced as "MacPerl 
5.0.7, corresponding to Unix patchlevel 1m". 5.1.0r2 is currently under
development. This numbering scheme is similar to the one you propose, except
that Mac and Unix version numbers are switched in the distribution name
(which does not influence $[). We could probably bicker endlessly which order
is correct; I believe that, since MacPerl is primarily downloaded in binary
form (as opposed to most other platforms), a change in the patchlevel always
implies a change in the Mac version number, but not vice versa (MacPerl 4,
e.g., existed for roughly 4 years, during which time there were only two
different Unix patchlevels: 19 and 36). I thus think that the Mac version 
number more accurately reflects the progress of MacPerl versions than the
patchlevel.

>> With the PowerPC's out, I'm trying to combine MacPerl 5.07  with the DBI
>> and the Oracle DBD driver to use with Personal Oracle 7 for Macintosh. I've
>> successfully collected all the sources, and compiled and linked the files
>> without error. However, I believe that is not sufficient. In my brief
>> readings, I'm under the impression that "plugin modules" are dynamically
>> linked in Perl 5... Something not easy on the Mac.

In fact, dynamically linked modules work very well on PowerMacs.

>You should be able to build them for static linking and then build a new
>perl binary which contains them already linked in.
>
>> I've compiled and linked the dbdimp.c file with the MacPerl libraries, and
>> generated a running application, 

Just "linking" won't do. You'll have to run writemain or modify xs_init()
in runperl.c by hand.

On that occasion, I should also mention that the build system of the 5.1.0r2 
prerelease is vastly improved (Makemaker support, among other goodies), so I'd 
recommend switching to 5.1.0r2 for building. 

Besides, Tim mentions that you need 5.002, so you have no choice but 5.1.0r2.

Matthias

-----
Matthias Neeracher   <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>   http://www.iis.ee.ethz.ch/~neeri
   "One fine day in my odd past..." -- Pixies, _Planet of Sound_