Hi Philip, Thanks again, your reply has been very useful. Just a few more questions if I may though!
1) Your handler example is fantastic, however in my application I need to set the $pkg (the package to be dynamically included) from some logic in another script, so the process may go as follows: User request -> main script -> database call to get $pkg name - > dynamically call the package (as per your example). If my thinking is correct (and I'm a little new to Mod_perl!) the handler example you kindly wrote will be called when the /foo path is visited, however I will be needing to deliver this from a number of places (and will not be able to rely on paths in the url) and would IDEALLY call the dynamic functionality from within a script, rather than having it as a handler. Is there a way to do this and still not have the cache problem? 2) What is the best way to install the libapreq objects, can the same functionality be got through the Apache2 classes? 3) Point taken with the startup.pl, I will (even though there may be many) 'use' the packages in both places, I can see the benefit of sharing as much memory as possible, thanks for the advice. Kind regards, Ben -----Original Message----- From: Philip M. Gollucci [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 01 September 2006 06:58 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: modperl@perl.apache.org Subject: Re: Reloading .so files and .pm files Ben Wilder wrote: > Thanks Philip, > > Your advice is very helpful. > you can guess whats coming next... running this under Mod_perl with 8 > 'StartServers', if i perform 8 requests with a particular $packageFileName > and then attempt a different $packageFileName, Mod_perl will tell me that > the package does not exist, because the 8 child processes all have a > compiled version using the first $packageFileName that i specified and > 'required'. 2.x example: <Location /foo> SetHandler modperl PerlResponseHandler FOO </Location> package FOO; #core use strict; use warnings FATAL => 'all'; no warnings qw(redefine); use Carp; #mp2 use Apache2::RequestRec (); use Apache2::Const -compile => qw(OK); use Apache2::Log (); #libapreq use APR::Request (); use APR::Request::Apache2 (); ## Or this is already in PERL5INC some other way already use lib qw(/path/to/lotsofpms); sub handler { my $r = shift; my $req = APR::Request::Apache2->handle($r); my $pkg = $req->param('pkg'); ## VALIDATE $pkg VERY carefully for MALICOUS input! ## VALIDATE $pkg VERY carefully for MALICOUS input! ## VALIDATE $pkg VERY carefully for MALICOUS input! ## VALIDATE $pkg VERY carefully for MALICOUS input! if (eval "require $pkg") { ## if this can fail or not exist, eval {} it ## or use UNIVERSAL::can() $pkg->methodX(%args); } else { $r->log_error("$pkg require failed\n") } return Apache2::Const::OK; } 1; Were it me, I would just have a 'use' statement for _ALL_ the files in your startup.pl and in this file. BECAUSE if you serve a requests for X of the Y packages you use the memory X, but its not shared with the 'require' method. If you do the startup.pl/use thing, you still use the memory, but its shared. This also answers your question, even if the child compiles stuff it will use the module you request everytime. I'm guess you were using package/file scoped global vars before -- hence the caching problem. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Philip M. Gollucci ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 323.219.4708 Consultant / http://p6m7g8.net/Resume/resume.shtml Senior Software Engineer - TicketMaster - http://ticketmaster.com 1024D/A79997FA F357 0FDD 2301 6296 690F 6A47 D55A 7172 A799 97F "In all that I've done wrong I know I must have done something right to deserve a hug every morning and butterfly kisses at night." __ ___ ___ ____ __ / |/ /_ __/ __/ __ \/ / / /|_/ / // /\ \/ /_/ / /__ /_/ /_/\_, /___/\___\_\___/ <___/
