On 2004-12-29, at 15:37:07 -0500, Stas Bekman wrote: > > Because of the way the data is gathered. All the portability > > information in ppport.h is automatically generated by a set > > of scripts in a quite lengthy process (see HACKERS in D::P > > for details). The data isn't neccessarily reliable (yet) or > > complete. When it says "May not be supported" this just means > > that the compiler had some sort of trouble compiling the > > test code, for whatever reason. It could be because the > > interface changed, which doesn't mean that it's unsupported. > > So why giving information that it's not certain.
Because it is most probably correct. > IMHO, it's better to give none at all. > If you tell May not be supported, I still need to go and > check those perls below 5.7.3. Exactly. But if I'd say "Is not supported" (which is most probably the case), would that make it any better? I could of course rephrase it to "is most probably not supported, but there is a slight chance that only the interface changed". ;-) > Of course the good thing that I know for > sure that it's supported by perl 5.7.3+ Plus, you know that _something_ changed between 5.7.2 and 5.7.3. If it would tell you "supported down to 5.6.1", but the API call got an extra parameter with 5.7.3, I think that would be worse. > >>And the last question, why not installing ppport.h into the perl tree? I > >>know Devel::PPPort generates one, but why bother typing commands, when one > >>could just copy it from the tree? > > > > > > Do you think it's much easier to copy the file than writing > > > > perl -MDevel::PPPort -eDevel::PPPort::WriteFile > > > > ? > > I do, because one needs to figure out what to type. It's easy for you > since its your project so you remember it by heart. For me, I need to > perldoc it first. For me it's easier to: > > find /usr/lib/perl5 | grep ppport.h > > and copy just that. > > In any case TIMTOWTDI :) echo 'alias ppport="perl -MDevel::PPPort -eDevel::PPPort::WriteFile"' >>~/.alias ;-) > > And you'll usually have ppport.h lying around in your > > XS code anyway? > > but not the latest one. Ok. -- Bender: I need a calculator. Fry: You are a calculator. Bender: I need a good calculator.
