Greetings, The latest round of updates to configure.com have recently been posted here at best: http://www.best.com/~pvhp/vms/cfgperl_6529/ where you'll want to pick up the configure.com6.gz file along with several patches (if you haven't picked them up already) to the specified perl kit. The big news in this update is a significant user visible change in command line arg handling and the possiblity of a few persistent symbols influencing the build. At this time several variables having influence over the installation location are now "-D" settable from the command line (or via global symbols assignments). I have checked it out with a test configure invoked with: @configure "-Dprefix=dkb100:[perlfoo.]" "-des" and the build and test went ok (as good as we've gotten a patched 6529 kit at any rate), note the crumbs left behind in config.sh: File DKB100:[000000]CONFIG.SH;1 config_args='-Dprefix=dkb100:[perlfoo.] -des' Note in particular that the config_args variable has everything in one string without double quotation marks. The current implementaiontion of command line parsing needs to strip " from strings. Hence you *cannot* set something like one of the format strings with the likes of: "-Duvuformat=""lu""" (also note that the value of uvuformat is not checked for an external setting anyway...) As mentioned the variables that are settable via either global symbol assignments or via "-Dvar=value" include these (shown with the values they took in my build): archlib='perl_root:[lib.VMS_AXP.5_6_0]' archlibexp='perl_root:[lib.VMS_AXP.5_6_0]' bin='/perl_root/000000' binexp='perl_root:[000000]' builddir='perl_root:[000000]' installarchlib='perl_root:[lib.VMS_AXP.5_6_0]' installbin='perl_root:[000000]' installman1dir='perl_root:[man.man1]' installman3dir='perl_root:[man.man3]' installprivlib='perl_root:[lib]' installscript='perl_root:[utils]' installsitearch='perl_root:[lib.site_perl.VMS_AXP]' installsitelib='perl_root:[lib.site_perl]' oldarchlib='perl_root:[lib.VMS_AXP]' oldarchlibexp='perl_root:[lib.VMS_AXP]' privlib='perl_root:[lib]' privlibexp='perl_root:[lib]' sitearch='perl_root:[lib.site_perl.VMS_AXP]' sitearchexp='perl_root:[lib.site_perl.VMS_AXP]' sitelib='perl_root:[lib.site_perl]' sitelib_stem='perl_root:[lib.site_perl]' sitelibexp='perl_root:[lib.site_perl]' Variables not dealt with at all on VMS include: vendorarchexp='' vendorlib_stem='' vendorlibexp='' Note that for some reason the prefix that gets written to config.sh is: prefix='perl_root' rather than the $trnlnm of prefix. We also have a couple of new variables: perl_root='dkb100:[perlfoo.]' vms_prefix='perl_root' and I would very much like to see if we can set prefix to remain the physical dev name + dir (e.g. dkb100:[perlfoo.]) rather than being 'perl_root' >> Todo. Note that unlike the mess on unix (where they only set gccversion if gcc is being used) we can now refer folks to run `perl -"V:ccverson"` because we now have (e.g.): ccversion='60090001' I am still somewhat uncomfortable with introducing the RCS style variables: Author='$Author' Date='$Date' Header='$Header' Id='$Id' Locker='$Locker' Log='$Log' RCSfile='$RCSfile' Revision='$Revision' Source='$Source' State='$State' Before I forget to mention it: the command line "-Uvar" and "-Uvar=" type parameters now work too. BUGS: archname gets written twice to config.sh. Should gidformat contain " characters? It appears to be: gidformat='lu' The prefix mess is a bug. The RCS variable should be considered a bug until I can get a hold of a perforce guru. MORE TODO: The procedure does not yet check for nor attempt to write a config.com. The procedure does not deal with a prior config.sh at all. Try to have only a config.sh file rather than a config.sh and a config.local files for the interactive editing option. The procedure does not check the user specified prefix: device mounted? directory exists? write directory if it does not exist? test and warn about writability? Should we even consider MAXBLOCKS tests of the destination filesystem? The procedure does not check the PGLFLQUO of the initiating process against a minimum value (100000?). MORE TESTING: Does "-M" still work? Does a "-des" config.sh have all the same installation paths that an interactive configure has as well as an interactive configure where the user opts not to skip the remaining "where install" type questions but does wind up taking all the defaults. Does `mms install` work? Do extra modules install? Thanks for any feedback. Peter Prymmer
