From: "Magnus Lewis-Smith" <magnus DOT lewis-smith AT pace DOT co DOT uk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: DJGPP perl port vs ActivePerl line length
Date: Thu, 31 Aug 2000 09:45:20 +0100
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Several failed postings later...

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Eli Zaretskii [SMTP:eliz AT is DOT elta DOT co DOT il]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 7:03 PM
> To: Magnus DOT Lewis-Smith AT pace DOT co DOT uk
> Cc: djgpp AT delorie DOT com
> Subject: Re: DJGPP perl port vs ActivePerl line length
>
> > From: Magnus Lewis-Smith <Magnus DOT Lewis-Smith AT pace DOT co DOT uk>
> > Date: Wed, 30 Aug 2000 15:50:04 +0100
> >
> > In the script I am using $command is defined as
> >
> >     my $command = "cvs -fQq -d $repos co -r $tag $1";
> >
> > where the CVS executable was installed as part of the WinCVS
> > distribution.
>
> If this is a native Windows application, I understand why the command
> line is truncated at 126 characters.
>
[Magnus Lewis-Smith]
Yes, it is.  I've just been rereading the djgpp faq and knowledge base, and
now I understand it too.  What is still a little unclear to me is how come
this doesn't happen with ActivePerl.

> Does this port of CVS support response files?  If it does, you could
> try invoking CVS via Bash, since Bash automatically uses a response
> file with non-DJGPP programs when the command line is too long.
>
[Magnus Lewis-Smith]
Unfortunately not.  We are in fact running the scripts from Bash, but I also
tried saving the options to a file and using "CVS @<file>".  No luck.

For now, I think the solution is to use ActivePerl rather than DJGPP perl,
with misgivings on my part.  This is all part of a complete restructuring of
the core processes of our development team, and while company policy is to
use Windows, we can at least have a sensible build environment and pretend
that we are on unix.

Another solution could be to use Cygwin; since we are not building windows
apps, but using the tools to build embedded software I don't think that is
the best answer -- Cygwin Bash seems to be *much* slower than DJGPP Bash
(for example)

> I have an experimental version of `system' and related `spawn*'
> functions which can pass long command lines to Windows programs via
> the CMDLINE environment variable.  If you are desperate and aren't
> afraid of using alpha-quality software, I can send you the sources of
> the patched functions, but you will need to rebuild Perl after
> patching your libc.
>
[Magnus Lewis-Smith]
We are desperate to finalise this build environment and get on with "real
work", but unfortunately alpha software is out of the question -- our IT
dept is not even terribly happy about our using open source tools, but that
is just tough.

Thanks for your help.

--
Magnus Lewis-Smith