I know this has been asked before in a post on 29th September 2003, but
with nearly a year having passed I was wondering if there was any update
on this.

Can DBD::Informix be made to work with Perl 5.8.1? The following
illustrates the problem:

linux:/usr/src/DBD-Informix-2003.04 # make
INFORMIXC="/usr/bin/perl esqlcc" ESQLCC="cc" esql -c -shared
-I/opt/informix/incl/esql
-I/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
-I/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
-I/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
-I/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
-D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DTHREADS_HAVE_PIDS -fno-strict-aliasing
-D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -O2 -march=i586 -mcpu=i686
-fmessage-length=0 -Wall -pipe -DVERSION=\"2003.04\"
-DXS_VERSION=\"2003.04\" -fPIC
-I/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE -DESQLC_VERSION=953
-DNDEBUG dbdimp.ec
dbdimp.ec: In function `decgen':
dbdimp.ec:1918: warning: unused variable `sf'
dbdimp.ec: In function `dbd_ix_st_fetch':
dbdimp.ec:2064: error: parse error before '}' token
make: *** [dbdimp.o] Error 1

My system specs are as follows:
OS: SuSE Linux 9.0, DBI 1.43, DBD::Informix 2003.04, Perl 5.81, IDS
9.40.UC3, Client SDK 2.81.TC3.

In the past I resolved this by sticking to SuSE 8.2 which comes with
Perl 5.8.0 (which works) but I have a specific hardware device that
works much better with SuSE 9.0.

Ben.

Ben Thompson wrote:
> Can DBD::Informix be made to work with Perl 5.8.1? The following
> illustrates the problem:

I can't really answer that, but the error message makes me think the C
compiler can't cope with a bit of syntax - are you using a recent enough
version of gcc perhaps?

However, I want to ask - why 5.8.1 specifically? I'm using 5.8.5 and it's a
piece of cake. Any new release of 5.8 will be a maintenance release and can
be moved to quite freely. 5.10.0 *might* require a bit of caution ....

Anyway, if you are 1/2 decent with C then dive into the source files as
indicated by that error and try to nutt out what's going on. Often it's a
matter of having the correct gcc, appropriate include files, a correct
plat-form specific version of CSDK etc. When there's something breaking
during a build, it's generally a simple matter of doing a little tweak or
applying a more appropreate set of command line flags to gcc; you'll find
these flags written into Makefiles and the esqlc script amongst other
places.

Andrew Hamm wrote:

> However, I want to ask - why 5.8.1 specifically? I'm using 5.8.5 and it's a
> piece of cake. Any new release of 5.8 will be a maintenance release and can
> be moved to quite freely. 5.10.0 *might* require a bit of caution ....

I am only using 5.8.1 because this is what comes with SuSE 9.0. I was
trying to avoid having to remove all the RPMs and rebuild from source.
If the answer is "forget 5.8.1, use 5.8.5" then that's what I shall have
to do.

And no, I am hopeless with C so hacking the source isn't an option for me.

Ben.

Ben Thompson wrote:

> I am only using 5.8.1 because this is what comes with SuSE 9.0. I was
> trying to avoid having to remove all the RPMs and rebuild from source.
> If the answer is "forget 5.8.1, use 5.8.5" then that's what I shall have
> to do.

Following up to my own post, it works with SuSE 9.1 and Perl 5.8.3 on
another box, which is great. I take it Perl 5.8.1 is a dead loss then as
far as DBD::Informix is concerned.

Ben.

Ben Thompson wrote:

> I know this has been asked before in a post on 29th September 2003, but
> with nearly a year having passed I was wondering if there was any update
> on this.
>
> Can DBD::Informix be made to work with Perl 5.8.1? The following
> illustrates the problem:
>
> linux:/usr/src/DBD-Informix-2003.04 # make
> INFORMIXC="/usr/bin/perl esqlcc" ESQLCC="cc" esql -c -shared
> -I/opt/informix/incl/esql
> -I/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
> -I/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
> -I/usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
> -I/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/auto/DBI
> -D_REENTRANT -D_GNU_SOURCE -DTHREADS_HAVE_PIDS -fno-strict-aliasing
> -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -O2 -march=i586 -mcpu=i686
> -fmessage-length=0 -Wall -pipe -DVERSION=\"2003.04\"
> -DXS_VERSION=\"2003.04\" -fPIC
> -I/usr/lib/perl5/5.8.1/i586-linux-thread-multi/CORE -DESQLC_VERSION=953
> -DNDEBUG dbdimp.ec
> dbdimp.ec: In function `decgen':
> dbdimp.ec:1918: warning: unused variable `sf'
> dbdimp.ec: In function `dbd_ix_st_fetch':
> dbdimp.ec:2064: error: parse error before '}' token
> make: *** [dbdimp.o] Error 1
>
> My system specs are as follows:
> OS: SuSE Linux 9.0, DBI 1.43, DBD::Informix 2003.04, Perl 5.81, IDS
> 9.40.UC3, Client SDK 2.81.TC3.
>
> In the past I resolved this by sticking to SuSE 8.2 which comes with
> Perl 5.8.0 (which works) but I have a specific hardware device that
> works much better with SuSE 9.0.


Unused variables aren't too much of a problem.

The parse error is due to the presence of this at line 2064 in dbdimp.ec:
(void)SvOK_off(sv);
This is a known defect - fixed by changing the line to read:
sv_setsv(sv, &PL_sv_undef);

Answering some later questions - no, Perl 5.8.1 isn't a dead loss,
though it is no longer recommended.

Personally, I don't use the system supplied Perl on any machine - but
then I'm not working in production environments. I'd be very leery of
installing extra modules into the system version of Perl, so I'd have
to mess around with a private Perl library directory and appropriate
environment variables or wrappers.

--
Jonathan Leffler #include <disclaimer.h>
Email: jleffler@earthlink.net, jleffler@us.ibm.com
Guardian of DBD::Informix v2003.04 -- http://dbi.perl.org/