Computers: April 2001 Archives
Matthias is very cool. Without him helping me out, I'd never get a reasonable MacPerl release done. 
Peter Prymmer reminded me that in a discussion on p5p last year, Matthias Neeracher proposed some support of using "../lib" 'properly' in MacPerl's @INC, specifically because of problems with porting tests. I was privy to the discussion and took part in it. Thankfully, his memory is far better than mine.
Well, testing is good. I have been uncovering a few subtle bugs. One was some weirdness in config.h where BYTEORDER was not getting defined, so MacPerl 5.6.1a1 thinks it is little-endian. Oops. That's all fixed.
Then we find that perl does not completely implement sprintf, and that it leaves the e/f/g formats for the local sprintf to handle. And there is at least one bug in SFIO's sprintf implementation, and maybe two (that is, it rounds 0.9 down to 0 for %0.f, and it pads %010g with spaces to the left, instead of 0s). One or both of these may have been fixed in more recent SFIOs.
I also added some Makefile instructions to install the libs in :lib:macos: into :lib:, simplifying a few things. Yay.
I am going to start the tests over from scratch, as I found out some interesting things. First, "@INC = '../lib'" works fine in MacPerl 5.6.1. Is this good or bad? I dunno, but for now I'll keep it, as it means far fewer patches to the test suite. Now that (as noted in the previous paragraph) Config.pm is in ::lib, we won't need to include ::macos:lib. Nifty.
I also found out that $ENV{MACPERL} and $ENV{PERL5LIB} were sometimes interfering with my test paths. Ack. So part of the test procedure would be to un-set those (under MPW).
Really, most of these tests need to be done under MPW. Oh well.
Then we find that perl does not completely implement sprintf, and that it leaves the e/f/g formats for the local sprintf to handle. And there is at least one bug in SFIO's sprintf implementation, and maybe two (that is, it rounds 0.9 down to 0 for %0.f, and it pads %010g with spaces to the left, instead of 0s). One or both of these may have been fixed in more recent SFIOs.
I also added some Makefile instructions to install the libs in :lib:macos: into :lib:, simplifying a few things. Yay.
I am going to start the tests over from scratch, as I found out some interesting things. First, "@INC = '../lib'" works fine in MacPerl 5.6.1. Is this good or bad? I dunno, but for now I'll keep it, as it means far fewer patches to the test suite. Now that (as noted in the previous paragraph) Config.pm is in ::lib, we won't need to include ::macos:lib. Nifty.
I also found out that $ENV{MACPERL} and $ENV{PERL5LIB} were sometimes interfering with my test paths. Ack. So part of the test procedure would be to un-set those (under MPW).
Really, most of these tests need to be done under MPW. Oh well.
So I wrote this web app for MacPerl testing. I think it will be quite useful. You go in and register your name, and then register your machine configuration(s), noting what processor, RAM, etc., along with what version of MacPerl. Then, you start running tests from perl/t/, and you report the results.
We then end up with a big ol' pretty color-coded page of test results, so we can easily see where the problems are. Most of the problems with the tests will be with the tests themselves, but some will certainly help us find brokenness in MacPerl.
I want to get a lot of testing done in the next few weeks, and then I will have a much better idea of how close we are. I know there are some significant problems with the app, and there are surely lots of little problems with the Mac:: modules. But we are moving forward.
MacPerl 5.6.1 is now in alpha. There is a binary release in addition to the source release. It is not ready for production use, there are a lot of bugs, but it is usable. Please download it and try it out, and join the macperl-porters list for discussion.
See http://macperl.sourceforge.net/ for more information about MacPerl development and for reporting test results.
See http://macperl.sourceforge.net/ for more information about MacPerl development and for reporting test results.
We made some journal changes. They look like they are working. I still have a few minor changes to make over the next week or so.
Last night I looked a lot at the File::Find patch from Thomas Wegner and it looks good. I also went in and fixed a few small bugs, and added VERSION_FROM to the all the Mac extension Makefile.PLs, and $VERSION to the modules.
Maybe today we'll be able to release an alpha. Nifty.
Maybe today we'll be able to release an alpha. Nifty.
I've moved over my journal entries from SourceForge to use Perl;. I have more control over formatting it and I like my site better. ;-) We'll see how it goes.
If you care, I posted the code I used to grab the journal entries, in the journal entry previous to this one. I copied over 31 entries, mostly a journal of MacPerl development since I took over the project in January 2001. I will continue to keep the development journal, but will do it over here, instead.
#!perl -w
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Slash::DB;
use Slash::Utility;
createEnvironment('useperl');
my $url = 'http://sourceforge.net/developer/diary.php?diary_user=3660&diary_id=';
my @ids = qw(2477 2418 2356 2312 2261 2244 2152 2126 2082 1952 1936
1857 1848 1777 1753 1738 1724 1643 1637 1542 1536 1527 1488
1461 1427 1394 1384 1318 1297 1282 1272);
my $slashdb = getCurrentDB();
for (@ids) {
my($date, $subj, $body);
$_ = get($url . $_);
s/\015//g;
m|<TD colspan=2><TR><TD COLSPAN=2><B>Date:</B> (.+?)<BR>|s;
$date = $1;
m|<B>Subject:</B> (.+?)<P>|s;
$subj = $1;
m|<B>Body:</B><BR>(.+?)</TD></TR>|s;
($body = $1) =~ s/<br>\n<br>\n/\n\n/g;
$body =~ s/<br>\n//g;
for ($date, $subj, $body) {
s/^\s+//;
s/\s+$//;
}
$slashdb->sqlInsert('journals', {
uid => 1,
description => $subj,
date => $date,
posttype => 1,
});
my($id) = $slashdb->sqlSelect('LAST_INSERT_ID()');
$slashdb->sqlInsert('journals_text', {
id => $id,
article => strip_plaintext($body),
});
print "Inserted $id\n";
}
__END__
use strict;
use LWP::Simple;
use Slash::DB;
use Slash::Utility;
createEnvironment('useperl');
my $url = 'http://sourceforge.net/developer/diary.php?diary_user=3660&diary_id=';
my @ids = qw(2477 2418 2356 2312 2261 2244 2152 2126 2082 1952 1936
1857 1848 1777 1753 1738 1724 1643 1637 1542 1536 1527 1488
1461 1427 1394 1384 1318 1297 1282 1272);
my $slashdb = getCurrentDB();
for (@ids) {
my($date, $subj, $body);
$_ = get($url . $_);
s/\015//g;
m|<TD colspan=2><TR><TD COLSPAN=2><B>Date:</B> (.+?)<BR>|s;
$date = $1;
m|<B>Subject:</B> (.+?)<P>|s;
$subj = $1;
m|<B>Body:</B><BR>(.+?)</TD></TR>|s;
($body = $1) =~ s/<br>\n<br>\n/\n\n/g;
$body =~ s/<br>\n//g;
for ($date, $subj, $body) {
s/^\s+//;
s/\s+$//;
}
$slashdb->sqlInsert('journals', {
uid => 1,
description => $subj,
date => $date,
posttype => 1,
});
my($id) = $slashdb->sqlSelect('LAST_INSERT_ID()');
$slashdb->sqlInsert('journals_text', {
id => $id,
article => strip_plaintext($body),
});
print "Inserted $id\n";
}
__END__
GUSI 2.1.7 was released, which fixed a few bugs, and Matthias also went in and fixed a bunch of little bugs in MacPerl. I added an MPVersion.r file to have a central place to udpate the version information for resource files, and is read in by Perl.r and MacPerl.r.
I also added a $MacPerl::Compiler variable, which is figured out dynamically in the source. I wanted to just add it to Config.pm, but am not sure how I can. I suppose one way might be to store it in a resource, but that would be a pain. I also want GUSI_VERSION stored somewhere (once Matthias adds it to GUSI), but that will be easier, since you can just set it at build time somewhere; with the Compiler variable, you have to be somewhat dynamic, since it can change for 68K/PPC. I'll have to think on it some more; ideas welcome, as always.
I am thankful for everyone's work, including Alan and Paul and Peter and more, but the last couple of weeks Thomas Wegner has contributed a lot, including ports of File::Glob and File::Find. Outstanding.
I also added a $MacPerl::Compiler variable, which is figured out dynamically in the source. I wanted to just add it to Config.pm, but am not sure how I can. I suppose one way might be to store it in a resource, but that would be a pain. I also want GUSI_VERSION stored somewhere (once Matthias adds it to GUSI), but that will be easier, since you can just set it at build time somewhere; with the Compiler variable, you have to be somewhat dynamic, since it can change for 68K/PPC. I'll have to think on it some more; ideas welcome, as always.
I am thankful for everyone's work, including Alan and Paul and Peter and more, but the last couple of weeks Thomas Wegner has contributed a lot, including ports of File::Glob and File::Find. Outstanding.
Not a lot of work done this week; I cleaned up the bug reports a little (fixed a few), and did some work on the MacPerl README. I hope to fix some more bugs tomorrow, and do some more work on preparations for the 5.6.1 alpha release.
This morning, in the course of an hour, I built, tested, and installed perl 5.6.1 (over perl 5.6.0), mysql 3.23.36 (over 3.22), a bunch of modules, and rebuilt apache and mod_perl with perl 5.6.1. All in about an hour. With no glitches. Wow.
I've not gotten much coding on MacPerl done this week, but I have done some preparations for release. As noted previously, I did some test releases, and am awaiting word from MindVision on a license. I did some work on an online program for people to announce test results. I am going to be doing an alpha release soon, I think, so people can start playing and reporting bugs. I'll wait until 5.6.1 is released, which will be soon, and as soon as I get a license and can package it up, I'll release it.
OK, the latest perl-5.6.1 source is now in the MacPerl CVS. I've deleted old files, added new files, and set everything in perl/ (except for perl/macos/) to be mode -ko so that CVS won't change the RCS keywords. Everything should be fine with it, unless there are some binary files that are messed up (again, this is just with everything EXCEPT for perl/macos/).
I've also tagged it all (except for perl/macos/) as "foolperl", as the code I used is all in a release by Sarathy on Sunday.
My plan moving forward is to keep CVS synched with the "maint-5.6/perl" branch in the main Perl perforce repository, and then to tag it when there are actual releases. So you should be able to rely on the CVS perl/ stuff as being fairly recent. I'll probably synch it with the most recent stuff later tonight.
When we go to perl 5.[78].0, I may branch, or I may just redo this all again, deleting old files, adding new, and updating others. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I've also tagged it all (except for perl/macos/) as "foolperl", as the code I used is all in a release by Sarathy on Sunday.
My plan moving forward is to keep CVS synched with the "maint-5.6/perl" branch in the main Perl perforce repository, and then to tag it when there are actual releases. So you should be able to rely on the CVS perl/ stuff as being fairly recent. I'll probably synch it with the most recent stuff later tonight.
When we go to perl 5.[78].0, I may branch, or I may just redo this all again, deleting old files, adding new, and updating others. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
"It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence of his crime and the punishment of his guilt."
