- Threading
- Calls to external programs
- Memory allocation
+ - Threads
AUTHOR
SEE ALSO
=head2 Application of the patches
-You need to apply the patches in F<./os2/diff.*> and
-F<./os2/POSIX.mkfifo> like this:
+You need to apply the patches in F<./os2/diff.*> like this:
- gnupatch -p0 < os2\POSIX.mkfifo
gnupatch -p0 < os2\diff.configure
You may also need to apply the patches supplied with the binary
make test
-Some tests (4..6) should fail. Some perl invocations should end in a
-segfault (system error C<SYS3175>). To get finer error reports, call
+All tests should succeed (with some of them skipped). Note that on one
+of the systems I see intermittent failures of F<io/pipe.t> subtest 9.
+Any help to track what happens with this test is appreciated.
- perl t/harness
+Some tests may generate extra messages similar to
-The report you get may look like
+=over 4
- Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed
- ---------------------------------------------------------------
- io/fs.t 26 11 42.31% 2-5, 7-11, 18, 25
- lib/io_pipe.t 3 768 6 ?? % ??
- lib/io_sock.t 3 768 5 ?? % ??
- op/stat.t 56 5 8.93% 3-4, 20, 35, 39
- Failed 4/140 test scripts, 97.14% okay. 27/2937 subtests failed, 99.08% okay.
+=item A lot of C<bad free>
+
+in database tests related to Berkeley DB. This is a confirmed bug of
+DB. You may disable this warnings, see L<"PERL_BADFREE">.
-Note that using C<make test> target two more tests may fail: C<op/exec:1>
-because of (mis)feature of pdksh, and C<lib/posix:15>, which checks
-that the buffers are not flushed on C<_exit> (this is a bug in the test
-which assumes that tty output is buffered).
+There is not much we can do with it (but apparently it does not cause
+any real error with data).
+
+=item Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT
+
+This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications. *nix
+applications die in silence. It is considered a feature. One can
+easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers.
+
+However the test engine bleeds these message to screen in unexpected
+moments. Two messages of this kind I<should> be present during
+testing.
+
+=back
+
+Two F<lib/io_*> tests may generate popups (system error C<SYS3175>),
+but should succeed anyway. This is due to a bug of EMX related to
+fork()ing with dynamically loaded libraries.
I submitted a patch to EMX which makes it possible to fork() with EMX
-dynamic libraries loaded, which makes F<lib/io*> tests pass. This means
-that soon the number of failing tests may decrease yet more.
+dynamic libraries loaded, which makes F<lib/io*> tests pass without
+skipping offended tests. This means that soon the number of skipped tests
+may decrease yet more.
-However, the test F<lib/io_udp.t> is disabled, since it never terminates, I
-do not know why. Comments/fixes welcome.
+To get finer test reports, call
-The reasons for failed tests are:
+ perl t/harness
-=over 8
+The report with F<io/pipe.t> failing may look like this:
-=item F<io/fs.t>
+ Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed
+ ------------------------------------------------------------
+ io/pipe.t 12 1 8.33% 9
+ 7 tests skipped, plus 56 subtests skipped.
+ Failed 1/195 test scripts, 99.49% okay. 1/6542 subtests failed, 99.98% okay.
-Checks I<file system> operations. Tests:
+The reasons for most important skipped tests are:
-=over 10
+=over 8
-=item 2-5, 7-11
+=item F<op/fs.t>
-Check C<link()> and C<inode count> - nonesuch under OS/2.
+=over 4
=item 18
-Checks C<atime> and C<mtime> of C<stat()> - I could not understand this test.
+Checks C<atime> and C<mtime> of C<stat()> - unfortunately, HPFS
+provides only 2sec time granularity (for compatibility with FAT?).
=item 25
=over 4
-=item 3
-
-Checks C<inode count> - nonesuch under OS/2.
-
=item 4
-Checks C<mtime> and C<ctime> of C<stat()> - I could not understand this test.
-
-=item 20
-
-Checks C<-x> - determined by the file extension only under OS/2.
-
-=item 35
-
-Needs F</usr/bin>.
-
-=item 39
-
-Checks C<-t> of F</dev/null>. Should not fail!
-
-=back
+Checks C<atime> and C<mtime> of C<stat()> - unfortunately, HPFS
+provides only 2sec time granularity (for compatibility with FAT?).
=back
-In addition to errors, you should get a lot of warnings.
-
-=over 4
-
-=item A lot of C<bad free>
-
-in databases related to Berkeley DB. This is a confirmed bug of
-DB. You may disable this warnings, see L<"PERL_BADFREE">.
-
-=item Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT
+=item F<lib/io_udp.t>
-This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications. *nix
-applications die in silence. It is considered a feature. One can
-easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers.
-
-However the test engine bleeds these message to screen in unexpected
-moments. Two messages of this kind I<should> be present during
-testing.
-
-=item F<*/sh.exe>: ln: not found
-
-=item C<ls>: /dev: No such file or directory
-
-The last two should be self-explanatory. The test suite discovers that
-the system it runs on is not I<that much> *nixish.
+It never terminates, apparently some bug in storing the last socket from
+which we obtained a message.
=back
-A lot of C<bad free>... in databases, bug in DB confirmed on other
-platforms. You may disable it by setting PERL_BADFREE environment variable
-to 1.
-
=head2 Installing the built perl
If you haven't yet moved perl.dll onto LIBPATH, do it now.
file which would have C<name> if CWD were C<dir>. C<Dir> defaults to the
current dir.
-=item C<Cwd::extLibpath([type])
+=item C<Cwd::extLibpath([type])>
Get current value of extended library search path. If C<type> is
present and I<true>, works with END_LIBPATH, otherwise with
=head2 Memory allocation
Perl uses its own malloc() under OS/2 - interpreters are usually malloc-bound
-for speed, but perl is not, since its malloc is lightning-fast.
-Unfortunately, it is also quite frivolous with memory usage as well.
-
-Since kitchen-top machines are usually low on memory, perl is compiled with
-all the possible memory-saving options. This probably makes perl's
-malloc() as greedy with memory as the neighbor's malloc(), but still
-much quickier. Note that this is true only for a "typical" usage,
-it is possible that the perl malloc will be worse for some very special usage.
+for speed, but perl is not, since its malloc is lightning-fast.
+Perl-memory-usage-tuned benchmarks show that Perl's malloc is 5 times quickier
+than EMX one. I do not have convincing data about memory footpring, but
+a (pretty random) benchmark showed that Perl one is 5% better.
Combination of perl's malloc() and rigid DLL name resolution creates
a special problem with library functions which expect their return value to
the prefix C<emx_> added. (Currently only DLL perl has this, it should
propagate to F<perl_.exe> shortly.)
+=head2 Threads
+
+One can build perl with thread support enabled by providing C<-D usethreads>
+option to F<Configure>. Currently OS/2 support of threads is very
+preliminary.
+
+Most notable problems:
+
+=over
+
+=item C<COND_WAIT>
+
+may have a race condition. Needs a reimplementation (in terms of chaining
+waiting threads, with linker list stored in per-thread structure?).
+
+=item F<os2.c>
+
+has a couple of static variables used in OS/2-specific functions. (Need to be
+moved to per-thread structure, or serialized?)
+
+=back
+
+Note that these problems should not discourage experimenting, since they
+have a low probability of affecting small programs.
+
=cut
OS/2 extensions
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff