Re: perl-5.22.0-RC2 / Perl distributions

[Ken Brown <kbrown@cornell.edu>]

On 5/25/2015 3:00 AM, Achim Gratz wrote:
> Ken Brown writes:
>> The latest version of Biber requires autovivification, XML::Writer,
>> and Text::Roman.  And Test::Difference is required for running the
>> tests.  Can you add those?
>
> I have the first two already from my last look at Biber… OK, the rest is
> now up, too.

I don't see XML::Writer.

>> Here's a trickier one: Biber wants Unicode::Normalize, version <=
>> 1.17.  There's a comment that says "1.18 removes XS and is too slow".
>> I'm not sure what to do about that.  Any advice?
>
> That is due to a deprecation in Perl 5.20 and later:
>
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> Revision history for Perl extension Unicode::Normalize.
>
> 1.18  Tue May 27 22:04:23 2014
>      - XSUB is now deprecated and removed. see perl 5.20.0,
>        perldelta, Internal Changes, deprecation of uvuni_to_utf8 etc.
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
>
> I don't know if it's still possible to build on 5.22, depending on where
> in the deprecation cycle we are with that function.  But the earlier
> module versions have been pulled from CPAN anyway and only 1.18 is
> available.  If it's just "too slow", then why do the Biber folks care?

I don't know.  I'm about to go on vacation, so I'll worry about this when I get 
back.  It's not relevant to the transition to perl-5.22.0.  My plan for the 
transition is to build biber-1.8 (x86_64 only for now), assuming it builds and 
tests OK once I have perl-XML-Writer.

Ken