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Re: Perl @ http://www.ccl4.org/~nick/P/perl-33444.tar.bz2

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From:
Robert May
Date:
March 10, 2008 10:39
Subject:
Re: Perl @ http://www.ccl4.org/~nick/P/perl-33444.tar.bz2
Message ID:
54bdc7510803101039uc5b3e2avcfa1d7d2ff48fd75@mail.gmail.com
On 10/03/2008, Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org> wrote:
> On Mon, Mar 10, 2008 at 10:40:26PM +0530, Robert May wrote:
>  > On 10/03/2008, Nicholas Clark <nick@ccl4.org> wrote:
>  > >  Also, is it right to do this within the 5.8.x branch?
>  > >
>  > >  +# added -mms-bitfields to be able to link to MSVC win32 bitfields libs
>  > >  +# (4 byte instead of 2 byte alignment)
>  > >
>  > >  specifically, it will act as a binary compatibility breakage between 5.8.8
>  > >  and 5.8.9, won't it?
>  >
>  > 5.8.8 doesn't use bit fields.  If 5.8.9-to-be has the bit field
>  > changes merged, then this should be added (but I doubt they have been
>  > merged as I think that would break binary compatibility between 5.8.8
>  > and 5.8.9).  If the bit field changes have not been merged, then this
>  > is not necessary (but it won't harm either)
>
> It can't have the bit field changes merged for precisely that reason.
>
>  I was more thinking that it *can* harm, if those flags are used on XS modules
>  that incorporate headers from elsewhere, that are already using bitfields
>  in ways that are affected by the flags.

I withdraw my comment "but it won't harm either". It does beg the
question of whether it should be in the cygwin build at all, as it
will harm compatibility with native cygwin dlls that use bitfields ...
that's a no-win situation.  Jan's changes that make the use of this
flag unnecessary remove that problem, but I guess for binary
compatibility reasons we won't see them in an official release until
5.12.

Rob.

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