----- Original Message -----
From: "Packy Anderson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
.
.
Um, well, any module that requires xs, for starters, since ActiveState
doesn't ship with a C compiler. You'd need to provide your own, and,
since xs modules need to be compiled with the same compiler used to
compile the perl binary, you'll need to provide MS Visual C++.
Yes, this was *once* true, but no longer is :-)
You can use the MinGW compiler and either dmake or nmake to build XS modules
on ActivePerl. In fact you can use the very same MinGW compiler and dmake
that ships with Strawberry Perl. ActivePerl achieves this by making use of
the technique that first appeared (afaik) in ExtUtils::FakeConfig - but it
does so in a fully automated way that requires no action on the part of the
user - save having the compiler/make combination of his choice in the path.
(ActiveState's early attempts to achieve this did not quite get it right -
but their latest builds are bug-free in this respect, afaik.)
There are some XS modules (certain aspects of Win32::GUITest come to mind)
that you cannot build with MinGW, but can build with a Microsoft compiler.
So - there are modules that will build on ActivePerl, but not on Strawberry
Perl (since Strawberry does not yet support the use of Visual Studio). But
anything that builds on Strawberry using MinGW, will also build on
ActivePerl using MinGW.
as a list of modules that ActiveState claims don't build under
ActiveState, I was able to cherry pick a few moderately useful modules:
DateTime
DBD::SQLite
Image::ExifTool
Perl::Critic
Spoon
If these build under Strawberry using MinGW, they will build the same way
under ActivePerl using MinGW - assuming the presence of pre-requisites. (It
may simply be that they don't build under ActiveState's automated
ppm-building procedure.)
IMHO, Strawberry's main "selling" point is that it ships with both the
compiler and make utility. (You don't have to then hunt around and install
them separately.)
Also, it provides some additional and useful C libraries such as expat,
iconv, gmp, xml2 and zlib - which aren't part of MinGW.
Cheers,
Rob
