[Dbix-class] DBIx::Class and Red Hat perl bugs and performance redux

[Nigel Metheringham]

On 5 Oct 2008, at 12:00, Matt S Trout wrote:

> On Thu, Oct 02, 2008 at 02:34:10PM +0100, Nigel Metheringham wrote:
>> DBIx::Class::StartupCheck
>> -------------------------
>>
>> Both old and new perls trigger the startup check - as will any perl  
>> with
>> the fixes to bless/overload bugs that is less than version 5.8.9.  
>> Other
>> than doing performance checks, which would be prohibitively cpu
>> intensive, I cannot think of a method for identifying this problem in
>> the startup check code without hitting a lot of false positives. I  
>> see
>> that this code is patched out in rpm distributions of DBIx::Class.  
>> I am
>> wondering if the checks have now outlived their usefulness, at  
>> least as
>> a by default option. Maybe they should be added to the test suite
>> instead.
>
> Nobody will see the warning then.

A run time check of this type is realistically only aiming at those  
using a system perl and their own cpan install - and you would hope  
that those people would at least look at any test suite failures on  
install.

The test suite failures should be noticed by rpm packagers as the  
standard packaging tools do run the test suites on built.

>
> I think the correct approach is probably to identify what in "perl -V"
> output indicates a fixed perl as opposed to a broken one, and  
> provide that
> in the warning so people know when it's safe to set the env var.

Unfortunately I don't think there is anything I can identify in perl - 
V which acts as a differentiator.  There is definitely no patch  
information in the output for the rpm built perls, so everything ends  
up being hopeful guesswork.

I don't like it any more than you do, but we seem to be between a rock  
and a hard place here :-/

I'll recheck this more thoroughly on Monday when I can get at my test  
systems again (and am not suffering terminal man flu).

	Nigel.
--
[ Nigel Metheringham             Nigel.Metheringham at InTechnology.com ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]