1) A way to portably build a shared library 2) A way to portably probe libraries for functions 3) A way to portably probe for function parameter lists 4) A way to portably probe for type sizes
The first is pretty straightforward--it's about time we were able to build and load shared PMC classes, amongst other things. We can load 'em, but we can't build 'em, and we should fix that.
#s 2-4 are for building extensions, and are prompted by some stuff that I ran across upgrading to perl 5.8.0 and reinstalling what seems like half of CPAN. Curses and Time::Hires are the two biggies here, but there are a number of modules that feel the need to probe the environment for the existence of functions in libraries, their signatures, and the size of various types. There are good reasons for it, but no general mechanism to do it, and doing it portably in module code is both difficult and error-prone, so having one standard way makes more sense.
--
Dan
--------------------------------------"it's like this"-------------------
Dan Sugalski even samurai
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