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Win32::API now installs from the CPAN shell

Journal written by cosimo (4138) and posted by brian_d_foy on 2006.12.23 15:26   

The latest version of Win32::API, marked v0.46, should now correctly install even from the CPAN shell. Finally!

There is a fair amount of work behind, but now it should build, test and install cleanly on all major platform and compiler combinations.
In short, the build of API_test.dll is now gone. In the 0.46 package there's a pre-built library compiled with MSVC 6, that happens to work smoothly when loaded by any Win32::API flavour. The test suite is now simpler and takes compiler/environment differences into account.

I directly tested it on:

• Source-compiled perl 5.8.8 + MSVC 6 + nmake
• Source-compiled perl 5.8.8 + MSVC 2003 (Free toolkit) + nmake
• Strawberry perl + MinGW GCC + GNU make
• Strawberry perl + MinGW GCC + dmake
• Cygwin perl + gcc + GNU make

Obviously there are lots of problems and improvements possible:

• For example, it'd be great to investigate why gcc built the (now gone) test dll without all kernel32.lib imports...
• Also, why functions with double or float return values always segfault when called.
• And last but not least, callback interface works fully only under MSVC 6.

I don't know now when I'll find the time to go on with this work, but for now, have fun!

• I wish I could say all is well, but... (Score:2)

  by bart (450)

  I've tried test COSIMO/Win32-API-0.46.tar.gz in the CPAN shell on the two platforms I have available, and it kind of works... but both seem to fall over a secundary test somewhere. The same one.

  1. ActivePerl 5.8.8 build 817 (Mar 20 2006) + MinGW gcc 3.2.3. ActivePerl depends on ActivePerl::Config to dynamically override settings in Config.

     C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-e" "test_harness(0, '..
     \blib\lib', '..\blib\arch')" t/*.t
     t/02_Callback....ok 1/8# Compiler name:cl
     # Compiler version:12
     # $
  • Re: (Score:1)

    by cosimo (4138)

    Hi Bart, this is interesting. Thanks for your time.

    • ActivePerl 5.8.8 + Gcc

      AFAIK, ActivePerl comes compiled by MSVC6, which is cl.exe version 12, but you are using with gcc. Correct?

      In the Callback tests, which btw fail unless you have MSVC6, I needed a way to check the compiler and I used $Config{ccname} and $Config{ccversion} instead of only using $Config{cc}, because I only must distinguish between MSVC 6 and 7+.

      Can you report your cc, ccname and ccversion variables? Or better, file a bug on
• Thank you! (Score:1)

  by dagolden (6584)

  Works smoothly on Strawberry Perl. I've updated it on the Vanilla Perl Problem Modules page on win32.perl.org. Thank you very much for all your work on this!
• Works for me (Score:1)

  by Ron Savage (5224)

  All tests successful.
  This is perl, v5.8.7 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread