Why does 5.8.0 use -flat_namespace?

[Tom Mornini]

Hello there!

David Wheeler suggest I ask you this question:

Why does hints/darwin.sh compile with -flat_namespace on 10.2?

It looks as though Apple has changed to two level namespaces by default in an effort to avoid dynamic linking collisions. This would appear to be a good thing, so I'm not clear why you've chosen to go with the non-default behavior.

If I comment out the case statement that enables it, all goes well. In particular, I've been working on getting DBD::Oracle compiled against Oracle 9iR2 DP and Tim Bunce's Makefile.PL runs flawlessly without -flat_namespace where it fails miserably with -flat_namespace.

One reason I ask is that it would appear to me that Oracle has also compiled their dynamic libaries with -flat_namespace, so I have a feeling that I'm missing something important. :-)

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