alien_helper does not work as expected

[MaxPerl]

I tried alien_helpers, but They didn't work as expected. I think the problem is that the code is executed twice. Here a little code snippet (I just want to change the dir before building becaus the source archive has several subdirectories for different OSes):

use Alien::Base::ModuleBuild;
# See perldoc Module::Build for details of how this works

my $builder = Alien::Base::ModuleBuild->new
    ( module_name     => 'Alien::Tcl',
      license         => 'perl',
      alien_repository => {
                protocol => 'local',
                location => 'src',
                exact_filename => 'tcl866-src.zip',             
      },
      alien_helper => {
        'chdir' => 'chdir "$CWD/win"'
      },
      alien_build_commands => ['%{chdir}', '%c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit', 'make'],
    )->create_build_script;

The error message is as follow:

• 1 Can't exec "1": No such file or directory at /usr/share/perl5/Module/Build/Base.pm line 5538. External command (1) failed! Error: -1 at ./Build line 60. Failed Build not completed at ./Build line 60.

By the way: If I pass a code ref alien_helper => sub {...} I get the following error as early as I execute perl Build.PL:

Encountered CODE ref, using dummy placeholder at /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/perl/5.22/Data/Dumper.pm line 231.

[plicease]

helpers are used to help render commands, so what is happening, the string chdir "$CWD/win" is being evaluated, and it returns 1 for success, which it then tries to execute. It is a little awkward, but what you want to do is probably something like this:

  alien_build_commands => [ 'cd win; %c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit', 'make -C win' ],

The reason code references do not work is because the configuration is serialized between running Build.PL and ./Build by Module::Build which doesn't allow code references to be saved.

An option to change the base directory for build commands would be a useful feature. This is also handled better by Alien::Build which is under development and allows you to provide code references in command sequences like this.

edit: fixed capitalization

[MaxPerl]

Dear plicease, Thank you very much for your help. I got it with following command: alien_build_commands => [ 'cd win; %c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit', 'make -C win' ],

Nevertheless I am a little bit confused. Because the following don't work. And I don't know why: alien_build_Commands => [ 'cd win; %c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit', 'make -C win' ], With this the cd part is simply bypassed. and with alien_build_commands => [ 'cd win', '%c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit', 'make -C win' ], I get the error, that the command cd was not found.

Has anyone an idea why the first works and the others don't?

Anyway thank you very much for your help...

[plicease]

The second was my bad, I believe I accidentally capitalized Commands which is wrong!

I wouldn't expect the third version to work, but I am puzzled by the error that you got.

[MaxPerl]

Okay next problem. I test it no on windows (before I worked on Linux). On Windows I get the error that the filename, the directory name or the volume label syntax is incorrect.

[plicease]

Try "cd win && %c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit" that should work in both windows and linux unix.

[MaxPerl]

Thanks for your help. Now cd win is executed before ./configure. Unfortunately the Build script now stopped after configure. With ["cd win && %c --prefix=%s --enable-64bit && make"] it stopped after the make process and the script doesn't enter in the installation stage.

[plicease]

If you have the Alien dist you are working on somewhere public that I can see (preferably GitHub) I may be able to help. Also useful if there are any diagnostics emitted from either make or perl or AB::MB.

[MaxPerl]

Hi Plicease, Thanks for your help. Herel you can find the repo. It is in a very early stadium. It concerns the following bug report. My target was to develop the same for Tk and so on. But at the moment I think that this is perhaps over my abilities...

[plicease]

Thank you for the detail. I am adding myself as a CC: on the RT issue in case I can help there. It doesn't look like a bug in AB atm, so I am going to close this one.

[plicease]

btw- I will take a look at this when I get home and have my PC to test on but that won't be for two weeks at least.