Perl in the toolchain

Perl in the toolchain

[Pete Zaitcev]

Kai, what's your opinion? I suspect you missed my posing to l-k
http://www.uwsg.indiana.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0301.3/1203.html

-- Pete

Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:53:59 +0100
From: Konrad Eisele <eiselekd@web.de>
To: "PeteZaitcev" <zaitcev@redhat.com>
Subject: Adding sparc-leon linux to sourcetree

.....
There is also one change I have made on the buildsystem. Because I'm using some 
perl inline scripts in the $cmd_xxx the >'<  and >$< signs in the inline perl scripts 
cause trouble (perl -e '...$x=....'), the >'< because of the echo command, the >$< when
rereading from the xxx..cmd files. Could this be applied to the original file?

scripts/Makefile.lib:
+-------------------------------+

# ===========================================================================
# Generic stuff
# ===========================================================================

# function to only execute the passed command if necessary
# the ' -> '\'' and $ to $$ substitution are done if $(cmd_$(1)) includes a inline perlscript

if_changed = $(if $(strip $? \
		          $(filter-out $(cmd_$(1)),$(cmd_$@))\
			  $(filter-out $(cmd_$@),$(cmd_$(1)))),\
	@set -e; \
	$(if $($(quiet)cmd_$(1)),echo '  $(subst ','\'',$($(quiet)cmd_$(1)))';) \
	$(cmd_$(1)); \
	echo 'cmd_$@ := $(subst $$,$$$$,$(subst ','\'',$(cmd_$(1))))' > $(@D)/.$(@F).cmd)

----- End forwarded message -----

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Kai Germaschewski]

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Pete Zaitcev wrote:

> Kai, what's your opinion? I suspect you missed my posing to l-k

> Date: Thu, 30 Jan 2003 14:53:59 +0100
> From: Konrad Eisele <eiselekd@web.de>
> To: "PeteZaitcev" <zaitcev@redhat.com>
> Subject: Adding sparc-leon linux to sourcetree
> 
> .....
> There is also one change I have made on the buildsystem. Because I'm using some 
> perl inline scripts in the $cmd_xxx the >'<  and >$< signs in the inline perl scripts 
> cause trouble (perl -e '...$x=....'), the >'< because of the echo command, the >$< when
> rereading from the xxx..cmd files. Could this be applied to the original file?

Unfortunately, I cannot find the original posting quoted above, since 
that would probably reveal where the actual usage of perl is.

Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
stuff I don't really care about, the uses of perl are for the optional 
"make checkconfig" etc. (which btw look mostly obsolete and should 
probably be killed), and for generating some firmware, though by default a 
shipped version of the generated files is used.

That said, I'm not necessarily opposed to allowing for use of ',$ in the 
command variables as the change above does (getting that as a patch would 
be nice, though).

--Kai

> scripts/Makefile.lib:
> +-------------------------------+
> 
> # ===========================================================================
> # Generic stuff
> # ===========================================================================
> 
> # function to only execute the passed command if necessary
> # the ' -> '\'' and $ to $$ substitution are done if $(cmd_$(1)) includes a inline perlscript
> 
> if_changed = $(if $(strip $? \
> 		          $(filter-out $(cmd_$(1)),$(cmd_$@))\
> 			  $(filter-out $(cmd_$@),$(cmd_$(1)))),\
> 	@set -e; \
> 	$(if $($(quiet)cmd_$(1)),echo '  $(subst ','\'',$($(quiet)cmd_$(1)))';) \
> 	$(cmd_$(1)); \
> 	echo 'cmd_$@ := $(subst $$,$$$$,$(subst ','\'',$(cmd_$(1))))' > $(@D)/.$(@F).cmd)

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Jeff Garzik]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
> build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 

That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...

	Jeff

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Mr. James W. Laferriere]

	Hello All,   And no one wanted python ?  I find the necessity for
	extraneous packages silly .  Perl for gods sake .  JimL my .02

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> > Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel
> > build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific
> That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
> indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
> 	Jeff
-- 
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+
       | James   W.   Laferriere | System    Techniques | Give me VMS     |
       | Network        Engineer |     P.O. Box 854     |  Give me Linux  |
       | babydr@baby-dragons.com | Coudersport PA 16915 |   only  on  AXP |
       +------------------------------------------------------------------+

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 02:48:37PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> > Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
> > build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
> 
> That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
> indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...

None of the perl scripts looks complicated.
Obivious question is if the same functionality could be achived by a simple
c program.
In the tool chain we use small C utilities in favour of for example
perl scripts in several places.

I would like to see perl kept out of the short-list of required programs
for the main stream kernels.
If the prize to do this is to write one or two small c tools to klibc
then I'm willing to pay that.

	Sam

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Ben Greear]

Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 02:48:37PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
>>On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
>>
>>>Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
>>>build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
>>
>>That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
>>indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
> 
> 
> None of the perl scripts looks complicated.
> Obivious question is if the same functionality could be achived by a simple
> c program.
> In the tool chain we use small C utilities in favour of for example
> perl scripts in several places.

I've seen a lot of machines, and I've yet to see one that has the gcc toolchain
but not perl.  Why do you want to keep perl out?

Ben


-- 
Ben Greear <greearb@candelatech.com>       <Ben_Greear AT excite.com>
President of Candela Technologies Inc      http://www.candelatech.com
ScryMUD:  http://scry.wanfear.com     http://scry.wanfear.com/~greear

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[J.A. Magallon]

On 2003.01.31 Jeff Garzik wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> > Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
> > build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
> 
> That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
> indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
> 

So in short, kernel people:
- do not want perl in the kernel build
- allow qt to pollute the kernel to have a decent gui config tool
- have to rewrite half perl features in C
- but perl will be needed anyways

instead of
- do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
  in kconfig scripts
- do the config backend in perl, and...
- do the gui in perl-XXX, so you can have perl-GTK, perl-GTK2, perl-QT or 
  perl-Tk, even perl-Xaw (so you get rid of tcl/tk)

I really do not understand...

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon@able.es>      \                 Software is like sex:
werewolf.able.es                         \           It's better when it's free
Mandrake Linux release 9.1 (Cooker) for i586
Linux 2.4.21-pre4-jam1 (gcc 3.2.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.1 3.2.1-5mdk))

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 10:38:27PM +0100, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> So in short, kernel people:
> - do not want perl in the kernel build
Correct, at least for mainstream architectures.
The rationale here is that we already put a lot of constraints on what
tools people need to build a kernel. If we can avoid an extra
_mandatory_ tool then this will make life easier for a lot of people.

For optional features additional requirements are OK, for example
to geneate docbook documentation a lot of extra stuff is needed.

> - allow qt to pollute the kernel to have a decent gui config tool
It would be good to get a replacement, but until that shows up.
Then yes an optional frontend that uses qt is OK.
kconfig is prepared for and one gtk frontend is on the way.
If someone comes up with a decent perl based frontend ten that could be
considered.

> - but perl will be needed anyways
No.

> instead of
> - do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
>   in kconfig scripts
flex and bison is better for this job.

	Sam

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Jeff Garzik]

(sigh, I did not wish to spark a religious debate, though I suppose I 
should have expected it... :))

Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 10:38:27PM +0100, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> 
>>So in short, kernel people:
>>- do not want perl in the kernel build
> 
> Correct, at least for mainstream architectures.
> The rationale here is that we already put a lot of constraints on what
> tools people need to build a kernel. If we can avoid an extra
> _mandatory_ tool then this will make life easier for a lot of people.

This is a logically correct argument, but also one that ignores basic 
numbers.

The fact of the matter is, the area of build tools matters most to 
people who cross-compile their kernels, because every tool is generally 
hand-built rather than automatically installed on their Linux system. 
For this audience, as well as the typical non-cross-compiling kernel 
developer, Perl is on their system.

However, that fact is less significant than the more basic and core 
argument:

klibc uses perl for text munging.  i.e. one of Perl's acknowledged 
strengths.  This is not a case of choosing a favorite script language, 
but instead a case of choosing "the right tool for the job."  Regardless 
of whether you think Perl is line noise :) or not, from a technical 
basis Perl is clearly superior to sed+awk in this case.

Therefore, any rewrite of _this_ _particular_ script in C or shell 
script would be willfully choosing a sub-optimal implementation language 
for this task.  If you take into account the fact that the overwhelming 
majority of the target audience does indeed have Perl on their system, 
then that only serves to make it more clear that any such perl-to-C 
rewrite would not be on any technical nor practical basis at all.

Adding some final thoughts, perl is already used in nooks and crannies 
in the build system.  Instead of being motivated to stomp those out, 
please [respectfully!] consider that the Perl scripts might be there 
because an evaluation of the best tool for the job took place. 
script_asm.pl in drivers/scsi is a favorite example here.

Thanks for raising this subject!  I wanted to give your answer some 
consideration, because it is worth mentioning, and discussing.

	Jeff

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[H. Peter Anvin]

Followup to:  <3E3B0557.3070400@pobox.com>
By author:    Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@pobox.com>
In newsgroup: linux.dev.kernel
> 
> This is a logically correct argument, but also one that ignores basic 
> numbers.
> 
> The fact of the matter is, the area of build tools matters most to 
> people who cross-compile their kernels, because every tool is generally 
> hand-built rather than automatically installed on their Linux system. 
> For this audience, as well as the typical non-cross-compiling kernel 
> developer, Perl is on their system.
> 
> However, that fact is less significant than the more basic and core 
> argument:
> 
> klibc uses perl for text munging.  i.e. one of Perl's acknowledged 
> strengths.  This is not a case of choosing a favorite script language, 
> but instead a case of choosing "the right tool for the job."  Regardless 
> of whether you think Perl is line noise :) or not, from a technical 
> basis Perl is clearly superior to sed+awk in this case.
> 

Thanks Jeff :)

To emphasize things a bit further, Perl is:

a) good at munging text;
b) available on basically all development systems;
c) not host- or target-specific.

Thus, I cannot see it as being an issue, and I challenge anyone to
find a machine on which they regularly build kernels which doesn't
have Perl.  Like it or not, today it's as much a part of a
general-purpose Unix platform as sed or awk.

Yes, you can write complete shit code in Perl.  You can write shit
code in any language (Perl does, however, make it easier, so if you're
programming in Perl you need to watch out for this.)  Yes, you can
require 47 different obscure interdependent modules which were just
released last week on CPAN, but you can require an equivalent number
of obscure libraries in C.  Doing that, or require features only
available in very recent versions of Perl, would be wholly
inappropriate for the kernel build.  My personal rule of thumb is that
it should work at least as far back as Perl 5.004.

There is one klibc script which possibly ought to be rewritten, and
that is the one that uses Digest::MD5 which may not be available on
some very old platforms.  If so, I'd probably just include the MD5
digest code in the script itself, rather than having to deal with C
code that is compiled for the host in the klibc tree.

	-hpa

-- 
<hpa@transmeta.com> at work, <hpa@zytor.com> in private!
"Unix gives you enough rope to shoot yourself in the foot."
Architectures needed: cris ia64 m68k mips64 ppc ppc64 s390 s390x sh v850 x86-64

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Sam Ravnborg]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 06:23:03PM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> klibc uses perl for text munging.  i.e. one of Perl's acknowledged 
> strengths.  This is not a case of choosing a favorite script language, 
> but instead a case of choosing "the right tool for the job."

Choosing the right tool for the right job is an argument that matters
in this context.
Two major type of arguments pop's up when selecting diverse tools:
1) "the right tool for the right job"
2) "the most preferred tool"

My main objective is that argument 2) should _not_ be the rationale
behind adding a new tool to the mandatory tool chain.

> Therefore, any rewrite of _this_ _particular_ script in C or shell 
> script would be willfully choosing a sub-optimal implementation language 
> for this task.
The perl scripts used in klibc looks straightforward, expect one that uses
some md5 CPAN module.
Like with C you can in perl pull in a lot of uncommon stuff.

My main objective is to avoid a lot of noise due to one added tool
that may not be required.
Part of the noise will be because people do not understand the
syntax.

> If you take into account the fact that the overwhelming 
> majority of the target audience does indeed have Perl on their system, 
> then that only serves to make it more clear that any such perl-to-C 
> rewrite would not be on any technical nor practical basis at all.

One example could be fixdep:
fixdep could have been done in perl as well. Implementing that one
in c does not count as an "perl-to-C" translation.
To repeat my point.

There is only one good reason to add additional tools to the mandatory
set in the tool-chain. At that reason is that the tool is the right
choice, and not just someones favourite.
If that imply a small C utility then fine.

> Thanks for raising this subject!  I wanted to give your answer some 
> consideration, because it is worth mentioning, and discussing.

Thanks self. I just want to make sure the technically right choice is taken.

	Sam

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[J.A. Magallon]

On 2003.01.31 Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 10:38:27PM +0100, J.A. Magallon wrote:
[...]
> > instead of
> > - do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
> >   in kconfig scripts
> flex and bison is better for this job.

Sure ? KConfig syntax is now context-dependent or the like ?

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon@able.es>      \                 Software is like sex:
werewolf.able.es                         \           It's better when it's free
Mandrake Linux release 9.1 (Cooker) for i586
Linux 2.4.21-pre4-jam1 (gcc 3.2.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.1 3.2.1-5mdk))

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Pete Zaitcev]

> The fact of the matter is, the area of build tools matters most to 
> people who cross-compile their kernels, because every tool is generally 
> hand-built rather than automatically installed on their Linux system. 
> For this audience, as well as the typical non-cross-compiling kernel 
> developer, Perl is on their system.

Sure, but I want to self-host, too. I can cross-compile kernels,
but cross-compiling modutils is an insane pain, for example,
so to this day I never ever used Rusty's new shiny module loader,
and thus I never got around to fix dots in export symbols.

For the record, the userland which I posess does have a somewhat
working Perl RPM, which originates from Red Hat 5.2, I believe.
So, I cannot invoke "missing perl" argument in good conscience.
However, I shudder to think what happens if I need to rebuild it
for some reason.

> However, that fact is less significant than the more basic and core 
> argument:
> 
> klibc uses perl for text munging.  i.e. one of Perl's acknowledged 
> strengths.  This is not a case of choosing a favorite script language, 
> but instead a case of choosing "the right tool for the job."  Regardless 
> of whether you think Perl is line noise :) or not, from a technical 
> basis Perl is clearly superior to sed+awk in this case.

I hear you. Actually, your argument comes in force only after a
non-trivial amount of mungling, but to slay your argument
I need to see your klibc stuff first.

> Adding some final thoughts, perl is already used in nooks and crannies 
> in the build system.  Instead of being motivated to stomp those out, 
> please [respectfully!] consider that the Perl scripts might be there 
> because an evaluation of the best tool for the job took place. 
> script_asm.pl in drivers/scsi is a favorite example here.

There's also a subject of a skillset. I know nil about Perl.
(ok, I hacked sirc long ago. I don't think it counts.)
This means I cannot debug and fix your text mungling.
Perl not only has a reputation for being perfect for text
mungling, but also a reputation for being unreadable by anyone
but the author (due to the fact that the same thing can be
expressed in a half a dozen different ways - so says Larry Wall
himself in my Perl book (ok, he actually makes strict subsets
of knowledge, which helps very little in my example ("Programming
Perl", p33 - What You Don't Know...))).

-- Pete

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Ryan Anderson]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 08:06:33PM -0500, Pete Zaitcev wrote:
> 
> For the record, the userland which I posess does have a somewhat
> working Perl RPM, which originates from Red Hat 5.2, I believe.
> So, I cannot invoke "missing perl" argument in good conscience.
> However, I shudder to think what happens if I need to rebuild it
> for some reason.

Well, do "perl -v" and see if it's at least 5.004 (5.004.003 I think
would be better.)  If so, hpa's requirement that everything work on
5.004 is fine.  (And really, I don't believe that requirement is going
to be hard to follow, except that it does constrain the modules in use a
little bit - I'm pretty sure the Digest::MD5 was missing from the 5.004
default set of modules.)

> There's also a subject of a skillset. I know nil about Perl.
> (ok, I hacked sirc long ago. I don't think it counts.)

If you hacked sirc...  Well, that's an example of incredibly bad Perl,
so, you should be able to follow well-written and documented Perl, imo.

(I did an amazing amount of sirc hacking in my time, and it was an
exercise in pain, to be honest.)


-- 

Ryan Anderson
  sometimes Pug Majere

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, J.A. Magallon wrote:

> instead of
> - do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
>   in kconfig scripts
> - do the config backend in perl, and...

Parsing is only the very first step to generate the dependency tree, which 
is used generate a consistent configuration, so most of the work are 
dependency calculations.
BTW if we use a script language I prefer ruby. :)

bye, Roman

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Jeff Garzik]

J.A. Magallon wrote:
> On 2003.01.31 Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
>>On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
>>
>>>Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
>>>build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
>>
>>That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
>>indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
>>
> 
> 
> So in short, kernel people:
> - do not want perl in the kernel build
> - allow qt to pollute the kernel to have a decent gui config tool
> - have to rewrite half perl features in C
> - but perl will be needed anyways
> 
> instead of
> - do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
>   in kconfig scripts
> - do the config backend in perl, and...
> - do the gui in perl-XXX, so you can have perl-GTK, perl-GTK2, perl-QT or 
>   perl-Tk, even perl-Xaw (so you get rid of tcl/tk)
> 
> I really do not understand...


Well, you appear to be taking the superset of opinions, which is 
guaranteed to generate a paradox, I should think ;-)

Specifically regarding kconf, it does not require Qt; Qt is merely an 
optional piece.

For Perl, yes I personally think it is needed anyway.  And re-creating 
Perl's features in C, just to avoid Perl, is not the best technical 
solution when developers already have Perl installed.

	Jeff

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[J.A. Magallon]

On 2003.02.01 Jeff Garzik wrote:
> J.A. Magallon wrote:
> > On 2003.01.31 Jeff Garzik wrote:
> > 
> >>On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> >>
> >>>Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite for the kernel 
> >>>build, and I'd like to keep it that way. Except for some arch specific 
> >>
> >>That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
> >>indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
> >>
> > 
> > 
> > So in short, kernel people:
> > - do not want perl in the kernel build
> > - allow qt to pollute the kernel to have a decent gui config tool
> > - have to rewrite half perl features in C
> > - but perl will be needed anyways
> > 
> > instead of
> > - do all parsing in perl, that is what perl is for and what is mainly done
> >   in kconfig scripts
> > - do the config backend in perl, and...
> > - do the gui in perl-XXX, so you can have perl-GTK, perl-GTK2, perl-QT or 
> >   perl-Tk, even perl-Xaw (so you get rid of tcl/tk)
> > 
> > I really do not understand...
> 
> 
> Well, you appear to be taking the superset of opinions, which is 
> guaranteed to generate a paradox, I should think ;-)
> 
> Specifically regarding kconf, it does not require Qt; Qt is merely an 
> optional piece.
> 
> For Perl, yes I personally think it is needed anyway.  And re-creating 
> Perl's features in C, just to avoid Perl, is not the best technical 
> solution when developers already have Perl installed.
> 

As someone said, parsing and string processing is one of the jobs in kernel
config. Kernel gurus decided to rewrite the thing in C to avoid the lacks
in the current bash-ish kconfig, because writing logic for dependencies,
checks and so on is a pain...so let's rewrite the logic handling, _and_ the
string processing, btw.
The easies way (from my point of view): write Perl::KConfig in C to do the logic
hard work and build the big thing in perl. That will be putting a perl
interface on top of klibc ?

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon@able.es>      \                 Software is like sex:
werewolf.able.es                         \           It's better when it's free
Mandrake Linux release 9.1 (Cooker) for i586
Linux 2.4.21-pre4-jam1 (gcc 3.2.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.1 3.2.1-5mdk))

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Jeff Garzik]

J.A. Magallon wrote:
> As someone said, parsing and string processing is one of the jobs in kernel
> config. Kernel gurus decided to rewrite the thing in C to avoid the lacks
> in the current bash-ish kconfig, because writing logic for dependencies,
> checks and so on is a pain...so let's rewrite the logic handling, _and_ the
> string processing, btw.
> The easies way (from my point of view): write Perl::KConfig in C to do the logic
> hard work and build the big thing in perl. That will be putting a perl
> interface on top of klibc ?


_Any_ rewrite is pure pedantry and useless work.

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[Roman Zippel]

Hi,

On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, J.A. Magallon wrote:

> The easies way (from my point of view): write Perl::KConfig in C to do the logic
> hard work and build the big thing in perl. That will be putting a perl
> interface on top of klibc ?

You gain _nothing_ by rewritting it in perl. The backend is already a 
library and a swig interface file exists, so it's already trivial to 
generate Perl::KConfig. There is absolutely no reason to force people to 
use perl.

bye, Roman

Re: Perl in the toolchain

[J.A. Magallon]

On 2003.02.01 Roman Zippel wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> On Sat, 1 Feb 2003, J.A. Magallon wrote:
> 
> > The easies way (from my point of view): write Perl::KConfig in C to do the logic
> > hard work and build the big thing in perl. That will be putting a perl
> > interface on top of klibc ?
> 
> You gain _nothing_ by rewritting it in perl. The backend is already a 
> library and a swig interface file exists, so it's already trivial to 
> generate Perl::KConfig. There is absolutely no reason to force people to 
> use perl.
> 

No, that was exactly what I tried to say, take nowadays C library, and build
a loadable module for perl (it has not to be written in perl). 

-- 
J.A. Magallon <jamagallon@able.es>      \                 Software is like sex:
werewolf.able.es                         \           It's better when it's free
Mandrake Linux release 9.1 (Cooker) for i586
Linux 2.4.21-pre4-jam1 (gcc 3.2.1 (Mandrake Linux 9.1 3.2.1-5mdk))

RE: Perl in the toolchain

[Ed Vance]

On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 11:49 AM, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> 
> On Fri, Jan 31, 2003 at 01:41:26PM -0600, Kai Germaschewski wrote:
> > Generally, we've been trying to not make perl a prequisite 
> > for the kernel build, and I'd like to keep it that way. 
> > Except for some arch specific 
> 
> That's pretty much out the window when klibc gets merged, so perl will
> indeed be a build requirement for all platforms...
> 

The solution is obvious:
Write a perl interpreter in Python!
of course, to avoid merely moving the problem, Python then would be
implemented in a bash script ... 

RE: Perl in the toolchain

[Scott Robert Ladd]

> Write a perl interpreter in Python!
> of course, to avoid merely moving the problem, Python then would be
> implemented in a bash script ...

Or we could just use Parrot, and be done with it!

Seriously: While Perl's faults may be in the eyes of its beholders, the real
point here is complicating the build environment for the kernel.

As a fundamental piece of portable software, the kernel should build in a
minimal environment. Perl may indeed be a good choice for text munging --
but it is not the only choice, and using it adds yet another requirement to
the kernel build environment.

Minimizing the build environment simple is a valid requirement for selecting
a tool.

..Scott

--
Scott Robert Ladd
Coyote Gulch Productions (http://www.coyotegulch.com)
Professional programming for science and engineering;
Interesting and unusual bits of very free code.