=item Configure
-The configure process is the way we make Perl portable across the
+The Configure process is the way we make Perl portable across the
myriad of operating systems it supports. Responsibility for the
-configure, build and installation process, as well as the overall
-portability of the core code rests with the configure pumpkin - others
-help out with individual operating systems.
+Configure, build and installation process, as well as the overall
+portability of the core code rests with the Configure pumpkin -
+others help out with individual operating systems.
+
+The three files that fall under his/her resposibility are Configure,
+config_h.SH, and Porting/Glossary (and a whole bunch of small related
+files that are less important here). The Configure pumpkin decides how
+patches to these are dealt with. Currently, the Configure pumpkin will
+accept patches in most common formats, even directly to these files.
+Other committers are allowed to commit to these files under the strict
+condition that they will inform the Configure pumpkin, either on IRC
+(if he/she happens to be around) or through (personal) e-mail.
The files involved are the operating system directories, (F<win32/>,
F<os2/>, F<vms/> and so on) the shell scripts which generate F<config.h>
and F<Makefile>, as well as the metaconfig files which generate
F<Configure>. (metaconfig isn't included in the core distribution.)
+See http://perl5.git.perl.org/metaconfig.git/blob/HEAD:/README for a
+description of the full process involved.
+
=item Interpreter
And of course, there's the core of the Perl interpreter itself. Let's
C<pack "U3C8", @stuff>) then the resulting string should be treated as
UTF-8 encoded.
+If you are working with a git clone of the Perl repository, you will want to
+create a branch for your changes. This will make creating a proper patch much
+simpler. See the L<perlrepository> for details on how to do this.
+
How do we prepare to fix this up? First we locate the code in question -
the C<pack> happens at runtime, so it's going to be in one of the F<pp>
files. Sure enough, C<pp_pack> is in F<pp.c>. Since we're going to be
pattern with C<C0> (or anything else) to force Perl not to UTF-8 encode your
string, and then follow this with a C<U*> somewhere in your pattern.
-All done. Now let's create the patch. F<Porting/patching.pod> tells us
-that if we're making major changes, we should copy the entire directory
-to somewhere safe before we begin fiddling, and then do
-
- diff -ruN old new > patch
-
-However, we know which files we've changed, and we can simply do this:
-
- diff -u pp.c~ pp.c > patch
- diff -u t/op/pack.t~ t/op/pack.t >> patch
- diff -u pod/perlfunc.pod~ pod/perlfunc.pod >> patch
-
-We end up with a patch looking a little like this:
-
- --- pp.c~ Fri Jun 02 04:34:10 2000
- +++ pp.c Fri Jun 16 11:37:25 2000
- @@ -4375,6 +4375,7 @@
- register I32 items;
- STRLEN fromlen;
- register char *pat = SvPVx(*++MARK, fromlen);
- + char *patcopy;
- register char *patend = pat + fromlen;
- register I32 len;
- I32 datumtype;
- @@ -4405,6 +4406,7 @@
- ...
-
-And finally, we submit it, with our rationale, to perl5-porters. Job
-done!
-
=head2 Patching a core module
This works just like patching anything else, with an extra
conventions used in the perl source files. See L<perlstyle> for
details. Although most of the guidelines discussed seem to focus on
Perl code, rather than c, they all apply (except when they don't ;).
-See also I<Porting/patching.pod> file in the Perl source distribution
-for lots of details about both formatting and submitting patches of
-your changes.
+Also see I<perlrepository> for lots of details about both formatting and
+submitting patches of your changes.
Lastly, TEST TEST TEST TEST TEST any code before posting to p5p.
Test on as many platforms as you can find. Test as many perl