My attempt at launching my module belly-flopped. I've learned that even though Test::More is part of Perl core going back to v5.6.2, Test::More::UTF8 was never part of Perl's core. Furthermore, Test2, said to be unicode compatible, only made it to core in Perl 5.25.1.

My module does not need to use unicode. If the unicode comments and POD were stripped out of it, it would not even require "use utf8;" as there is no unicode in its actual code. But because it is for utf8 and the tests, to be meaningful, incorporate uft8 characters, the entire module fails to install on perl systems which do not already have the non-core module "Test::More::UTF8."

In order to make the installation as easy and fuss-free as possible, and more space-conserving, too, I don't want to require the installation of non-core modules. If there is not a better way to do this, my next version release will abandon all of those useful tests and put in one or more tests which require no unicode at all--just a "free pass" so to speak. This way, at least, the install would be able to complete.

So the question remains, is it even possible to create, and install, a module designed for Perl 5.8.3 compatibility, that provides UTF8 functions, and that does not require any non-core modules--and do this with reasonable UTF8-based tests?

UPDATE:

I think I've managed to find a hackish solution that should get me by for now. I've dumped once again (I should not have gone back to it after dropping it the first time) the "Test::More::UTF8" package earlier thought to be a "solution" for the lack of UTF8 compatibility of Test::More...it wasn't, and even when the package was manually installed (not part of core), it tended to generate some inexplicable 'wide character' warnings. So, I went with a pure-ASCII solution, no need even for "use utf8" in the testing script. Instead of testing on actual UTF8 characters, the script now tests on the hexadecimal codepoints returned from the module. If the correct codepoint is returned, the function can legitimately be considered to be installed and functioning. It would have been nice to test on real unicode, but oh well...the module will still work just fine, I'm sure.

Blessings,

~Polyglot~

In reply to How to create and install a module compatible with both UTF8 and Perl 5.8.3 without using non-core modules? by Polyglot

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