Testing for C library status at perl binding build time?

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

i'm contributing the the Crypt::GCrypt perl bindings for libgcrypt. Certain old versions of libgcrypt are simply buggy, and will guarantee a test suite failure for the perl module. I'd like to refuse module compilation entirely when those versions are present (and print a helpful error message explaining why users should upgrade). What's the best way to do that?

I have a very simple C program written that could be compiled with the same flags used by the translated GCrypt.xs; It returns a 1 for "bad version" or 0 for "good version".

Is there a standard way to have the perl Makefile.PL step build and run this program before emitting a Makefile? Or should i look at some other way to check this information? Or should i just let the test suites fail without any other checking?

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Re: Testing for C library status at perl binding build time? by Corion (Patriarch) on Dec 17, 2009 at 18:09 UTC
I'd look at how Net::Pcap does it - it does some testing and precompilation of small programs before emitting the real Makefile. Also, Net::Pcap builds on Windows, so it likely knows about non-gcc compilers and how to treat them.	[reply]
Re: Testing for C library status at perl binding build time? by jettero (Monsignor) on Dec 17, 2009 at 18:10 UTC
I've been using Devel::CheckLib with great success. -Paul	[reply]
Re^2: Testing for C library status at perl binding build time? by dkg (Acolyte) on Dec 17, 2009 at 19:01 UTC
We're already using Devel::CheckLib, but it only checks for the existence of the library. I don't see a way to make it check the return value of a given function call when compiled against that library. Have i missed something from the Devel::CheckLib documentation?	[reply]
Re^3: Testing for C library status at perl binding build time? by Corion (Patriarch) on Dec 17, 2009 at 19:06 UTC
The current stable version (0.06) doesn't support this, but it seems that the current developer version, 0.699_001, supports supplying your own function body to be compiled and/or run. And as you're supposed to bundle Devel::CheckLib with your module anyway, using the developer version is just as good as using the stable version.	[reply]
Re^4: Testing for C library status at perl binding build time? by dkg (Acolyte) on Dec 17, 2009 at 23:25 UTC