Re: [mh] CPAN modules in MH

Thank you for the guidance, Lieven.  I updated all the standalone 
modules that referenced lib/site to include lib/fallback also, and now 
Travis reports that all is well.

          -Brian M.

On 6/4/19 11:48 PM, Lieven Hollevoet wrote:
> Hello Brian,
>
> thanks for taking action on this. I also agree with your idea.
>
> The Travis CI tests are something I added, so I think I should be able 
> to help you out.
>
> The test routines are defined in the file code/test/test_mh.pl. They 
> are called by executing all code that is in that folder.
> You can see that in the config for the Travis tests here: 
> https://github.com/hollie/misterhouse/blob/stable/.travis.yml
>
> What I suspect is the issue is that the @INC path for the main 
> MisterHouse perl file is adapted in your pull request. This does in 
> effect ensure that all code in that file is using the system installed 
> modules first before trying to fallback to the code-supplied ones.
>
> However: when MisterHouse was written, it was decided implement some 
> of the functionality in separate scripts. One of those functionalities 
> is ‘get_url'. Those ‘external’ scripts don’t inherit the @INC path of 
> the mh script according to me. They will also need to be adapted to 
> ensure everything is working as expected.
>
> I encountered the same issue when I had to update the shebang line of 
> the scripts to use '/usr/bin/env perl' instead of ‘/usr/bin/perl’ to 
> ensure that MisterHouse can use the user-defined perl and not the 
> system-installed perl. I think the same goes for @INC.
>
> Best regards,
>  Lieven.
>
>
>
>> Op 5 jun. 2019, om 08:02 heeft Brian M 
>> <[email protected] 
>> <mailto:[email protected]>> het volgende geschreven:
>>
>> No one seems to be object to moving those CPAN modules to a 
>> lower-priority directory (below the system directories), so I 
>> submitted that pull request.
>>
>> I now see that the Travis CI test failed. Apparently there are some 
>> test routines that also manually build @INC, and they need to be 
>> updated too..  Here's the relevant part of the log:
>>
>> 06/05/19 05:21:29 AM Starting the test routines...
>> Process start: cmd_path=./get_url cmd=./get_url -post 
>> 'testparameter=1' http://httpbin.org/post /tmp/get_url_post.txt
>> Process start: parent pid=3916 type=external cmd=./get_url -post 
>> 'testparameter=1' http://httpbin.org/post /tmp/get_url_post.txt
>> Process start: child type=external cmd=./get_url -post 
>> 'testparameter=1' http://httpbin.org/post /tmp/get_url_post.txt
>> Can't locate LWP/UserAgent.pm in @INC (you may need to install the 
>> LWP::UserAgent module) (@INC contains: ./../lib ./../lib/site 
>> /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.18.2 /usr/local/share/perl/5.18.2 
>> /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.18 
>> /usr/share/perl/5.18 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at ./get_url line 103.
>>
>> LWP::UserAgent was moved to the new lib/fallback directory, but 
>> "lib/fallback isn't listed in @INC for the test routines.  I can't 
>> find where this test code is. Does anyone have ideas where I should 
>> look for it?
>>
>> -Brian M.
>>
>> On 5/30/19 8:15 PM, H Plato wrote:
>>> That makes sense to me. I think modernizing some of those modules is 
>>> a good idea with all the new functionality in v5+. I’d be willing to 
>>> test out your idea on my setup.
>>>
>>>> On May 30, 2019, at 7:51 PM, Brian M 
>>>> <[email protected] 
>>>> <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I have a change I'd like to submit to the MH development team, but 
>>>> it might have implications I'm not aware of or be controversial.  I 
>>>> thought I'd start a discussion here first, so I could get the input 
>>>> of the development team and others before simply submitting a pull 
>>>> request.
>>>>
>>>> MisterHouse comes with some CPAN modules prepackaged into it.  The 
>>>> reasons for this have been discussed before, and I don't really 
>>>> want to reopen that topic here.  We can open a separate thread for 
>>>> that if we want to reconsider that decision.  Sufficient for now to 
>>>> say that there are CPAN modules embedded in the code tree, and that 
>>>> in some cases they're quite behind the current versions available 
>>>> via CPAN or what the O/S distros offer.
>>>>
>>>> The problem is that as MisterHouse is currently structured, the 
>>>> system administrator or system owner is unable to cleanly updating 
>>>> the CPAN modules with newer versions, assuming the individual even 
>>>> knows they're there.  The modules live in the lib/site directory 
>>>> tree, and on start-up MisterHouse inserts that and other 
>>>> directories at the front of @INC, so that any system-supplied 
>>>> versions are ignored. MisterHouse is saying in effect if not 
>>>> intent: "I know better than you do what versions you should run."  
>>>> The individual can certainly go into the folder and replace the 
>>>> modules by hand, but at this point they're modifying the 
>>>> distributed code, creating a permanent maintenance hassle for 
>>>> themselves whenever they update MisterHouse.
>>>>
>>>> In my case, I spent many hours trying to figure out why my code to 
>>>> talk to my new thermostat would work outside of MisterHouse, but 
>>>> not inside it.  I eventually discovered that MH has a copy of 
>>>> LWP::UserAgent that is too old to support SSL connections.
>>>>
>>>> My proposed solution is pretty simple:
>>>>
>>>>  1. We create a new directory under lib, as a peer to lib/site. 
>>>>     I'm open to suggestions for the names, but for now I'll call it
>>>>     lib/fallback.
>>>>  2. We move the MH-supplied versions of the CPAN modules into
>>>>     lib/fallback.
>>>>  3. We add one line of code to the mh main program that adds
>>>>     lib/fallback to the *end* of @INC.
>>>>
>>>> The result would be that if the system owner/administrator provided 
>>>> a version of a module elsewhere in the normal PERL search path, MH 
>>>> would use it.  If no such module exists, MH will use the version in 
>>>> fallback.  That way, MH would be assured to find a copy of the 
>>>> module, and if the local administrator wanted a newer version they 
>>>> could install one without changing MisterHouse's distributed code.
>>>>
>>>> I've tried it on my own installation and it seems to be working 
>>>> well.  I'd be willing to code up the change and submit it, if the 
>>>> community doesn't have any objections.
>>>>
>>>> I look forward to people's thoughts about this.
>>>>
>>>>  -Brian M
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>>>
>>
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