in reply to Re^5: WANTED: Simple & portable graphics to use with Perl
in thread WANTED: Simple & portable graphics to use with Perl

Paul, I just installed the SDL module using MinGW (using the instructions at http://www.netadelica.com/coding/sdl/install.html).

Since sdl-config is a shell script to be meant to be executed e.g. by the MSys shell, I created two links sdl-config-libs, sdl-config-cflags with targets C:\Programme\msys\1.0\bin\sh.exe sdl-config.sh --libs resp. C:\Programme\msys\1.0\bin\sh.exe sdl-config.sh --cflags which I then referenced in the Build.PL file of the SDL module.

I then ran into the error that the environment variable LIBS was not set, so I set it to point to C:\Programme\MinGW\lib, where I had placed the SDL libraries.

Next error: Can't use an undefined value as an ARRAY reference at make/lib/SDL/Build.pm line 154. So I then ran the Build.PL under the debugger but could not yet solve the problem.

So, you see, it isn't at all straightforward (not that anybody has claimed it...), fiddling around with Build.PL is not how installing a module should work. I am not blaming anyone for this and maybe I invest a few hours trying to sort it out and share my experiences afterward. But it is really quite painful and I would really like to have a simpler solution working on Windows, too.

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Re^7: WANTED: Simple & portable graphics to use with Perl
by jettero (Monsignor) on Jun 03, 2008 at 15:55 UTC
    I suggest you ask about that on the sdl-perl mailing list. (I assume there is one.) Most likely, very few people build SDL for win32 since it's so disagreeable to build packages there. I tried it for a short while myself and I ran into various problems with the block of code +/- 5 lines around line 154.

    It seems like something the maintainers would be willing to help fix.

    -Paul

[reply]
      Thanks, Paul. I will follow your suggestion and look for an sdl-perl mailing list. Windows is not my favourite OS, but I use it quite often (e.g. for work...), so even though it's sometimes painful, I would like to get things running there, too.
[reply]

        Yeah, I'm not saying windows is bad or that I don't use it -- although technically I hate it -- I'm just saying it's developer unfriendly. I use it quite a bit myself and even built an active repo: https://voltar.org/active/. I find building things under win32 to be pretty painful so I lost interest in strawberry really fast (favoring downloading PPDs instead).

        But I'm under the impression that you can install active ppds under strawberry, so ... perhaps I should give it another look.

        -Paul

[reply]

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