Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!shadooby!umich!don
From: don@zippy.eecs.umich.edu (Don Winsor)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Problem with Configure on Ultrix
Message-ID: <1170@zip.eecs.umich.edu>
Date: 3 Jan 90 00:30:56 GMT
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor
Lines: 44

I have found a couple of minor problems when configuring perl
release 3.0 patchlevel 8 on systems running Ultrix.  I have verified
these on a Vax-3600 running Ultrix 3.0 and on a DECstation-3100
running Ultrix 3.1, using the Ultrix C compiler on both systems.

The first problem is that Ultrix has a <utime.h> header file, but it
isn't what perl expects; it doesn't define the "acusec" or "modusec"
in it's utimbuf structure. The result is that config.sh ends up with:
    i_utime='define'
when it really should contain:
    i_utime='undef'
The workaround is easy; when running Configure, edit config.sh
when asked and make the change manually.  I'll leave it to
Larry to choose the best permanent fix to Configure; perhaps
if it finds /usr/include/utime.h it should examine it for
the necessary symbols before defining i_utime.

The second problem only applies to DEC machines with the
MIPS CPU, such as the DECstation-3100.  The interesting
structure declarations in <signal.h> are hidden inside
the following:
    #if defined(vax) || (defined(mips) && defined(LANGUAGE_C))
Configure runs <signal.h> through the C preprocessor before
searching for the declarations.  Since /lib/cpp doesn't
define LANGUAGE_C by default (normally, cc will define it
when calling cpp, but Configure invokes /lib/cpp directly on
these systems), the #if is not included, and the declarations
are never found.  The result is that Configure sets
    d_voidsig='undef'
when it should be
    d_voidsig='define'
Once again, an easy workaround is to manually edit config.sh
appropriately.  It is not clear to me what the cleanest fix
for Configure would be.  Having it use "cc -E" instead of
"/lib/cpp" is one possibility, but that is a bit messy since
"cc -E" can't read standard input, so it will be necessary to
use a temporary file as it seems to currently do with gcc.
Another possibility might be to stick a "-DLANGUAGE_C" on
the invocation of "/lib/cpp" that looks through <signal.h>.

    Don Winsor
    Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
    don@dip.eecs.umich.edu