After just having read the PLJava-0.04 bug report I decided to try building the module with ActivePerl 5.8.0 (build 806) and VC 7 ... and it worked. I get the following nmake test ouptut:

C:\_32\comp\PLJava-0.04>nmake test

Microsoft (R) Program Maintenance Utility Version 7.00.9466
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

        C:\jdk1.5.0_07\bin\java test
Hello World!
TIME: 1245292957

@INC:
  C:/_32/ap806/lib
  C:/_32/ap806/site/lib
  .

ERROR:
This is a warning! at (eval 7) line 1.


MATH:
1024
3
3.33333333333333
============================
ID: 1
Type: SCALAR
Val: 123456
============================
ID: 2
Type: SCALAR
Val: 1111
============================
ID: 1
Type: SCALAR
Val: 123456
============================
ID: 3
Type: ARRAY
Val: t 1245292957
x: 1245292957
============================
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
ID: 4
Type: foo
Val: foo=HASH(0x234f988)
FOO>> foo=HASH(0x234f988) 123 456 foo=HASH(0x234f988)
call: 1
dump: $VAR1 = bless( {}, 'foo' );

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
============================
ID: 5
Type: HASH
Val: HASH(0x48a1d18)
k: 1245292957
elem:
call:
============================'This is a \\\' quote \'test\'
!'
[download]

But for all other builds of perl, the test suite fails to run - irrespective of which compiler I use. I think it's very likely that PLJava-0.04 relies on perl behaviour that it ought not have been relying on, and that behaviour has subsequently changed, causing PLJava-0.04 to break.

Btw, it makes absolutely no sense to me that I was able to build PLJava on build 806 using VC 7 - as VC 6 was used to build both that perl and my jdk1.5.0_07.

As regards, Inline::Java, the test suite doesn't provide any tests for the JNI extension, so I don't know whether that works for me or not.
Posts to the Inline mailing list (see http://lists.cpan.org/showlist.cgi?name=inline) usually attract the attention of the Inline::Java author - if you're unable to get good help elsewhere.

Cheers,
Rob