Ken generously researched into HTML::Tidy and convincingly noted:

from my reading I'd suggest changing to HTML::Tidy5 ...Everything about that module indicates that it is very old ...

Yeah, I looked into HTML::Tidy5 after trying to build libtidyp from the source at its github repo; I changed lanes because the C coding in one header file was causing a fatal error in gcc/cpp. I got a solution for that, btw (on SnarkOverflow), and was ultimately able to create a static libtidyp.a from the object code. That's because other problems I encountered included having libtool hang forever–no libtool, no .dll. That's why I stopped at having a static library. But back to HTML::Tidy5: it's very different from HTML::Tidy under the hood (or "bonnet" if you prefer ;-), in that it just invokes the stand-alone binary installed or locally built from tidy-html5, whereas HTML::Tidy was a true Perl extension using XS to interface with the C tidyp lib.

As for one obvious question some will have after reading about my adventure, to wit "why go to all that trouble if you know there's a modern replacement?" ...I'm just stubborn like that. I get a certain way into a problem and then I just don't want to let it go without some substantial resolution.

    — Soren

Sep 20, 2025 at 01:04 UTC