Digest::MD5 dependency

Inline::CPP claims to support Perl 5.6.0, and it ought to.  Nothing
exists within Inline::CPP, or even Inline and Inline::C that would
hamper this backward compatibility.  But there's one problem:
Digest::MD5 got added to the Perl core with Perl v5.8.0.  It looks
like Digest::MD5 version 2.40 was the last version that remained
backward-compatible with Perl 5.8.0 and earlier.  The current version
of Digest::MD5 (2.51) seems ok back to Perl 5.8.1, but not before.

What does this have to do with Inline?

Digest::MD5 is a dependency for Inline.

If a user installs Inline, or Inline::CPP, or any other Inline::* on a
Perl 5.6.0 through 5.8.0 system that doesn't already have some old
version of Digest::MD5 installed, the latest version of Digest::MD5
will be pulled in by the cpan installer.  That latest version will
fail to build, and cause Inline::* to fail as well.

So if we're claiming backward compatibility with Perls earlier than
5.8.1, we would have to qualify that with  "If you specifically
install Digest::MD5 version 2.40 or lower first."

There are two patches sitting in the RT for Digest::MD5 that claim to
overcome the issue.  One user I've been corresponding with mentioned
the following:

    "With 5.8.0 (64-bit), Digest::MD5 fails testing because it is using
     utf8::is_utf8 without checking the version (this was added in 5.8.1)."


I'm not on the p5p list.  Is there a p5p list-member here who would
like to raise the issue there?


Dave

-- 

David Oswald
[email protected]