dan asked to keep everyone up to date on any issues i've had while developing mod_parrot. following are the problems i've encountered.
--- i currently get parrot's configuration from config_lib.pasm. however, it is not readily apparent from the configuration the libraries and flags required to link with libparrot.a. in particular: * if linking with ICU, which ICU should we use, and which libraries and linker flags are required? * if parrot is linked with libstdc++ behind the scenes (ICU?), it is not listed in the configuration, so i have to add -lstdc++ manually. i may just have to get this from ICU's configuration, but i think parrot, like perl 5 right now, should be able to list all its required dependencies in one place to make life easier for embedders. --- many of the functions i need to perform in an embedding environment (PMC value manipulation, calling parrot subroutines, etc.) are only available if i include extend.h in addition to embed.h. if these headers are to be mutually exclusive (i believe they were meant to be), then all the functionality i just mentioned should be availble to both embedders and extenders in another "environment neutral" header. --- there is no NCI signature for (char **), which i need this for calling ap_get_basic_auth_pw(request_rec *r, char **). 'B', which is (void **) doesn't seem to work for this situation. the function returns the pointer to the password in a buffer allocated by apache, and that would have to be converted to a parrot string. as for the buffer, in mod_parrot's case memory leaks won't really be a problem here due to apache's memory pools, but i'd say apache is the exception, not the rule. right now i have a small C wrapper that calls ap_get_basic_auth_pw and returns the "parrot stringified" password in a register, but it's not as clean as it should be. i'm not sure if this is something that can be fixed for all applications of char **, but it doesn't hurt to ask. :) --- that's it -- really no *major* problems to report, and that says a lot about the state of parrot right now. -jeff
