Re: Inline::F2003 - New ILSM proposed

From: Ron Grunwald via inline
Sent: Saturday, June 10, 2017 8:53 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Inline::F2003 - New ILSM proposed
Hello all,

> The example code below illustrates how Inline::F2003 could be configured 
> to build a shared library from the Fortran source files listed in 
> "SRCLIST". Also, I propose to add a new parameter called "MAKEFILE", and 
> this leads me into an area that I'm unsure about.
>
> use Inline F2003 => Config => (
>                       SRCLIST   => "ModMatrixOps.f03",
>                       LIBNAME   => "libMatrixOps.so",
>                       LIBTYPE   => ".so",
>                       MAKEFILE  => "AUTOMAKE",
>                       BUILDDIR  => "BLD_Linux.AMD64_gfortran",
>                       FOR       => "gfortran",
>                       FORFLG    => "-v -g -c -std=f2003 -fpic -cpp"
>                    );
>
> This new parameter "MAKEFILE" is intended to allow programmers to specify 
> their own makefile. However, the special value "AUTOMAKE" can also be 
> specified (as shown above), which means that Inline::F2003 would generate 
> a suitable makefile, and this is where I need some advice.
>
> Inline::C uses ExtUtils::MakeMaker to generate the makefile. I would like 
> to use ExtUtils::MakeMaker, but I don't think it would be possible since 
> it generates makefiles for C compilation, not Fortran compilation.

Both PDL and PGPLOT modules use ExtUtils::MakeMaker && perform fortran 
compilations.
They make use of the  ExtUtils::F77 module.
FAIK it might simply be that EU::F77's job is simply to determine the name 
of the fortran compiler, and the flags that it should take ... or perhaps 
there's more to it than just that.

The fortran compilations in the PDL build occur during the building of 
PDL::Slatec and PDL::Minuit - there might be other places, too.
With EU::F77 installed you should be able to build PDL (such that both 
PDL::Slatec and PDL::Minuit are built) with 'cpan -i PDL'.

Hopefully there's something in there that will help.

Any questions about how the fortran stuff is managed by PDL or EU::MM could 
also be sent to the PDL devel mailing list. It's an active list that's 
fairly well attended by informed and helpful folk.

> Unless there is some clever way to configure ExtUtils::MakeMaker to output 
> Fortran makefiles?
>
> Another option is to use the GNU autotools.

PDL::Audio (http://search.cpan.org/~mlehmann/PDL-Audio-1.2/) is the only 
module I've ever built that makes use of autotools (in the sndlib folder in 
the source distro).
It works well, though I haven't studied it.
Maybe there's something useful to be gleaned from it, too.

> In this scenario, Inline::F2003 would read an existing "Makefile.in", then 
> use the parameters specified in the above example, and write out the final 
> Makefile. Sounds simple, but I've never done this before.
>
> If anyone is able to provide advice, suggestions or opinions, I would be 
> really grateful.

My only other advice would be to also sound this out on perlmonks. (But that 
might pay off ... or it might not :-)

Cheers,
Rob