Re: Installing curl extension for perl on OpenVMS Alpha

On Jan 30, 2010, at 12:03 PM, Craig A. Berry wrote:

> Finding and fixing Module::Install's ability to locate the [.inc] or  
> inc/ directory is probably the best way forward.

FWIW, the general problem is pretty obvious.  If you look at the  
Module::Install code at:

<http://cpansearch.perl.org/src/ADAMK/Module-Install-0.92/lib/Module/Install.pm 
 >

there's simply no attempt to treat path names portably.  For example,  
in the new() method, they do:

my $base_path = Cwd::abs_path($FindBin::Bin);
...
	$args{base}     ||= $base_path;
...
	$args{file}     ||= "$args{base}/$args{prefix}/$args{path}.pm";

which is going to end up pasting together a VMS-native base onto other  
components joined with a slash, so you'll get something like:

DISK$I64SYS:[mydir]/inc/Foo.pm

which is obviously invalid.  It probably works on Windows because you  
get

C:\mydir/inc/Foo.pm

which is also invalid, but the Windows CRT converts the forward  
slashes to backward slashes.  The mongrel nature of the path is  
straightforwardly and automatically corrected, but that's not really  
feasible with the more complex bracket syntax on VMS.

Probably the best thing to do would be to audit the code in  
Module::Install for anything that would return a native path and  
unixify it immediately afterward; offhand I see calls to Cwd and  
File::Find methods that would likely need this treatment.   
Alternatively, if running Perl 5.10.1 or later try enabling DECC 
$FILENAME_UNIX_REPORT and see if you get any farther than without it.

________________________________________
Craig A. Berry
mailto:[email protected]

"... getting out of a sonnet is much more
  difficult than getting in."
                  Brad Leithauser