On Sat, 15 Aug 2009 00:18:03 +0000 (UTC), "Christopher J. Madsen" <perl@cjmweb.net> wrote: > Dave Mitchell <davem <at> iabyn.com> writes: > > > +=item other environment variables > > + > > +Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes > > +have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example, > > +OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with > > +their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time > > +behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually > > +executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE, > > +PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPTS will influence the behaviour of the test suite. > > +So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try > > +retesting with the various PERL variables unset. > > But as I pointed out before (5.10.1-RC1 build failure with PERL_UNICODE), > setting PERL_UNICODE can prevent Perl from building at all. It doesn't just > make some tests fail. > > Ideally, make should unset PERL_UNICODE while building. If that's impractical, > it would be nice if Configure warned about it. But would it be useful/reliable? PERL_UNICODE can also be set AFTER Configure has finished (before make) and have the same disastrous effects. I think that /if/ a warning is to be issued, it should be during build time, and not during Configure time. -- H.Merijn Brand http://tux.nl Perl Monger http://amsterdam.pm.org/ using & porting perl 5.6.2, 5.8.x, 5.10.x, 5.11.x on HP-UX 10.20, 11.00, 11.11, 11.23, and 11.31, OpenSuSE 10.3, 11.0, and 11.1, AIX 5.2 and 5.3. http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/ http://www.test-smoke.org/ http://qa.perl.org http://www.goldmark.org/jeff/stupid-disclaimers/