use Perl

I'd like to share with you that I found this website about interesting math-related lessons (or should I say lectures):

http://www.mathlectures.net

I received a mail from the author of the site. At first I thought it was something like spam, but then I looked at it, and it seems pretty good!

I always wanted something like that, even if there's the Wikipedia... :-)

Probably you already know that I took the mantainership of Win32::API module and I'm working to make it build and test painlessly under the many platforms, compilers, makes under Win32.

But, wait...

Wouldn't it be cool to install and use Win32::API and all Windows dynamic libraries on, say, Linux ?

I started experimenting with wine and its winegcc wrapper.
The fun thing is that I actually managed to successfully build Win32::API's API.so on my Linux box with some not so dirty hacks.

However, there's something wrong when running the tests, as it segfaults badly.
I should try and build a debugging perl, so as to take stack traces and/or debug what is happening...

Isn't it cool?
Do you think it's doable? :-)

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!

After taking the maintainership of Win32::API, I have been busy trying to build several useful environments to be able to test the module. These test envs include combinations of:

1. Flavour: Vanilla, Strawberry, bleadperl
2. Compiler: Gcc/MinGW, msvc6, msvc2003, borland?
3. Make: nmake, dmake, GNU make

If we also consider that cygwin is entirely another story, this is definitely a great mess, at least for me: I'm not a Win32 development genius... :-)

Latest version distributed on CPAN, marked v0.45, should build and install (but not test) cleanly on at least VC6 and gcc/MinGW. Test suite is not yet ready to be enough "cross-platform" as we all want.

I'm now working on that, and on cygwin environment integration. I already applied some cygwin-related patches dated 2002 or so, but there are problems with msvc2003 Makefiles compatibility and API_test.dll building in the test suite...

I'm in the process of taking over the maintainance of Win32::API module from Aldo Calpini, the original author.

I'm collecting patches, related web pages and information as I'd like to make Win32::API work with the current VanillaPerl/Mingw environment.

I also updated win32.perl.org Wiki to announce this.

So, anyone interested in getting your patches, suggestions, rants, ... please get onboard now and communicate with me. If you already have your bug reports filed on http://rt.cpan.org/, be sure I'm working on those (if I ever get to manage all of these bugs;-D )...

Thanks for your attention.