Inline-FAQ - The Inline FAQ |
Inline-FAQ - The Inline FAQ
Welcome to the official Inline FAQ. In this case, FAQ means: Formerly Answered Questions
This is a collection of old, long-winded emails that myself and others have sent to the Inline mailing list. (inline@perl.org) They have been reviewed and edited for general Inline edification. Some of them may be related to a specific language. They are presented here in a traditional FAQ layout.
Since there is only a handful of content so far, all FAQs are currently under this heading.
.Inline
or _Inline
directory?I probably need to be more emphatic about the role of _Inline/
cache
directories. Since they are created automatically, they are completely
disposable. I delete them all the time. And it is fine to have a different one
for each project. In fact as long as you don't have ~/.Inline/
defined,
Inline will create a new ./_Inline
directory (unless, you've done something
to override this automatic process - such as using the DIRECTORY config
option, or using the PERL_INLINE_DIRECTORY
environment variable). You can
move that to ./.Inline
and it will continue to work if you want togive it
more longevity and hide it from view. There is a long complicated list of
rules about how [_.]Inline/
directories are used/created. But it was
designed to give you the most flexibility/ease-of-use. Never be afraid to nuke
'em. They'll just pop right back next time they're needed. :)
SITE_INSTALL
option?SITE_INSTALL
is gone. I was going to leave it in and change the semantics,
but thought it better to remove it, so people wouldn't try to use it the old
way. There is now _INSTALL_
(but you're not supposed to know that :). It
works magically through the use of Inline::MakeMaker. I explained this earlier
but it's worth going through again because it's the biggest change for 0.40.
Here's how to 'permanently' install an Inline extension (Inline based module)
with 0.40:
_Inline/
cache.
Create a Makefile.PL (like the one produced by h2xs)
Change 'use ExtUtils::MakeMaker' to 'use Inline::MakeMaker'
In the Makefile.PL's WriteMakefile()
insert:
CONFIGURE_REQUIRES => { 'Inline::MakeMaker' => 0.45, 'ExtUtils::MakeMaker' => 6.52, },
(See the ``Writing Modules with Inline'' section of Inline.pod for an explanation / elaboration.)
Change your 'use Inline C => DATA' to 'use Inline C => DATA => NAME => FooWith Inline 0.41 (or thereabouts) you can skip steps 3 & 4, and just say
perl -MInline=INSTALL ./Foo.pm
. This will work for non-Inline modules too.
It will become the defacto standard (since there is no easy standard) way of
installing a Perl module. It will allow Makefile.PL parameters perl -
MInline=INSTALL ./Foo.pm - PREFIX=/home/ingy/perl
and things like that. It
will also make use of a MANIFEST if you provide one.
I've figured out how to create and install a PPM binary distribution; with or without distributing the C code! And I've decided to share it with all of you :)
NOTE: Future versions of Inline will make this process a one line command. But for now just use this simple recipe.
The Inline 0.40 distribution comes with a sample extension module called
Math::Simple. Theoretically you could distribute this module on CPAN. It has
all the necessary support for installation. You can find it in Inline-
0.40/modules/Math/Simple/
. Here are the steps for converting this into a
binary distribution without C source code.
NOTE: The recipient of this binary distribution will need to have the PPM.pm module installed. This module requires a lot of other CPAN modules. ActivePerl (available for Win32, Linux, and Solaris) has all of these bundled. While ActivePerl isn't required, it makes things (a lot) easier.
Inline-0.40/Math/Simple/
Divide Simple.pm into two files:
---8<--- (Simple.pm) package Math::Simple; use strict; require Exporter; @Math::Simple::ISA = qw(Exporter); @Math::Simple::EXPORT = qw(add subtract); $Math::Simple::VERSION = '1.23';
use Inline (C => 'src/Simple.c' => NAME => 'Math::Simple', VERSION => '1.23', ); 1; ---8<--- ---8<--- (src/Simple.c) int add (int x, int y) { return x + y; }
int subtract (int x, int y) { return x - y; } ---8<---now you have the Perl in one file and the C in the other. The C code must be
in a subdirectory. + Note that I also changed the term 'DATA' to the name of
the C file. This will work just as if the C were still inline. + Run 'perl
Makefile.PL' + Run 'make test' + Get the MD5 key from
blib/arch/auto/Math/Simple/Simple.inl
+ Edit blib/lib/Math/Simple.pm
.
Change src/Simple.c
to 02c61710cab5b659efc343a9a830aa73
(the MD5 key)
change:
<CODEBASE HREF="" />
to
<CODEBASE HREF="Math-Simple.tar.gz" />
tar cvf Math-Simple.tar blib gzip --best Math-Simple.tarRun:
tar cvf Math-Simple-1.23.tar Math-Simple.ppd Math-Simple.tar.gz gzip --best Math-Simple-1.23.tarDistribute Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz with the following instructions:
gzip -d Math-Simple-1.23.tar.gz tar xvzf Math-Simple-1.23.tar
Run 'ppm install Math-Simple.ppd' Delete Math-Simple.tar and Math-Simple.ppd. Test with:perl -MMath::Simple -le 'print add(37, 42)'
That's it. The process should also work with zip instead of tar, but I haven't tried it.
The recipient of the binary must have Perl built with a matching architecture. Luckily, ppm will catch this.
For a binary dist with C source code, simply omit steps 2, 3, 6, and 7.
If this seems too hard, then in a future version you should be able to just type:
make ppm
C/t/09parser.t
fail on Cygwin ?It doesn't always fail on Cygwin, but if you find that it produces ``unable to remap .... to same address as parent'' errors during the build phase, then it's time for you to run rebaseall.
See http://cygwin.com/faq/faq-nochunks.html#faq.using.fixing-fork-failures and, if needed, seek further help from the Cygwin mailing list.
Inline-FAQ - The Inline FAQ |