Net::LibIDN in Windows, is it possible?

wilsond has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I'm having a terrible time getting Net::LibIDN to work in Windows via ActivePerl. Is this even possible? The GNU Libidn site claims it works in Windows, so it seems that it should be.

None of the PPM repositories seem to have it (they all list it as buggy/failed) and I can't get it to build via CPAN. (Though I can build pretty much any other module I need)

The error I'm getting during build:

  CPAN.pm: Going to build T/TH/THOR/Net-LibIDN-0.11.tar.gz

Set up gcc environment - 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
'cc' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
__test1.c:1:18: idna.h: No such file or directory
This module requires GNU Libidn, which could not be found.
  THOR/Net-LibIDN-0.11.tar.gz
  C:\Perl\bin\perl.exe Makefile.PL INSTALLDIRS=site -- NO Makefile cre
+ated
Running make test
  Make had some problems, won't test
Running make install
  Make had some problems, won't install
[download]

Now, I know it needs GNU Libidn, but how do I go about making this happen? Do I just need to make the code available somehow, or do I have to fully install GNU Libidn? And if I have to install it, will I have to install it on every Windows computer that runs a copy of my code?

Edit: Update on errors: (downloaded libidn from GNU site and extracted it into subfolder named libidn-1.9 in the cwd)

C:\Perl\cpan\build\Net-LibIDN-0.11-QaNUHQ>perl Makefile.PL --with-libi
+dn=libidn-
1.9 --with-libidn-inc=libidn-1.9\lib
Set up gcc environment - 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
In file included from __test1.c:1:
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:31:38: idn-int.h: No such file or directory
In file included from __test1.c:1:
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:67: error: syntax error before '*' token
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:69: error: syntax error before '*' token
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:74: error: syntax error before '*' token
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:82: error: syntax error before '*' token
libidn-1.9/lib/idna.h:86: error: syntax error before "uint32_t"
This module requires GNU Libidn, which could not be found.
[download]

Thanks a ton, in advance.

While I ask a lot of Win32 questions, I hate Windows with a passion. That's the problem with writing a cross-platform program. I'm a Linux user myself. I wish more people were.

If you want to do evil, science provides the most powerful weapons to do evil; but equally, if you want to do good, science puts into your hands the most powerful tools to do so.

- Richard Dawkins

Comment on Net::LibIDN in Windows, is it possible? Select or Download Code

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Re: Net::LibIDN in Windows, is it possible?
by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 05, 2009 at 14:01 UTC

I guess your stated hatred for the platform you're working on prevented you from showing us what exact problems you're facing while installing Net::LibIDN. Most likely this is a problem of not having the prerequisites, like (likely) the libidn external library. But it's hard to know without knowing more specifics.

After Update:

Set up gcc environment - 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
...
'cc' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
__test1.c:1:18: idna.h: No such file or directory
[download]

This seems to be a configuration problem with the module, because it seems to be hardcoded to use cc, a program which is not installed on your machine. Most likely you can fix that by replacing every instance of cc by $Config{cc}, which for your installation likely should be gcc or gcc.exe.

But that seems not to be all, because something somewhere seems to find your gcc, which then complains about idna.h not being found. So maybe you don't have either the environment variables for your C compiler set up to also include the paths of the headers and library files ($ENV{INCLUDE}, $ENV{LIB}), or you don't have these.

As Net::LibIDN is under the Artistic License, it's unlikely that it includes the libidn libraries.