Re: [Plplot-devel] Error when extracting Octave docs from api.xml

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

From Joao's recent post, his perl system cannot parse api.xml version 1.47
while my Debian woody perl system (and presumably Rafael's Debian testing
system once he is back on line) can.  The perl script
doc/docbook/bin/api2text.pl has the following statements:

use XML::Parser;
use XML::DOM;

so I am wondering if one of those perl modules is the source of
Joao's problem parsing api.xml.  From his previous post he has

> perl-XML-DOM-1.39-24
> perl-XML-Parser-2.31-30

It is hard to correlate Debian packages (also RedHat packages) with perl
module versions since the modules tend to be bundled in much bigger packages
for both Debian and RedHat. For example, on RedHat perl-XML-DOM is part of
the perl-libxml-enno-1.02-15 package.  However, I did check CPAN, and the
latest versions of these two modules are perl-XML-DOM-1.42 and
perl-XML-Parser-2.31.  So Joao, your perl-XML-Parser package seems up to
date, but you probably need to upgrade to a later perl-XML-DOM and try
again. One way to do that with CPAN is given below.

I know virtually no perl, but I am beginning to experiment with the CPAN
module to get the latest modules from CPAN.  (RedHat rpm perl module support
is incomplete.  Although it is good enough to build the octave documention,
it will be necessary to use CPAN to get the required modules for the
complete documentation build.)

You can figure out virtually everything you need to know by using man CPAN
(especially the FAQ number 5 at the end: "I am not root, how can I install a
module in a personal directory?"  However, that FAQ is wrong in one key
aspect.  It recommends using (after you have invoked perl -MCPAN -e shell)

o conf makepl_arg \
"LIB=~/myperl/lib \
INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/myperl/man/man1 \
INSTALLMAN3DIR=~/myperl/man/man3"

You need to define the PREFIX as well (I found that out from a google search).

Thus use instead:

o conf makepl_arg \
"PREFIX=~/myperl \
LIB=~/myperl/lib \
INSTALLMAN1DIR=~/myperl/man/man1 \
INSTALLMAN3DIR=~/myperl/man/man3"

After creating all these directories and setting PERL5LIB and MANPATH
appropriately I found

install MD5
install Bundle::CPAN
install XML::DOM
install XML::Parser

all worked fine to install personal versions of these modules.  (The last
two are versions 1.42 and 2.31).

The first two installs are to make sure MD5 sums are checked on download and
to bootstrap to the latest version of the CPAN module.  My initial
impressions are the CPAN module is great for downloading and installing
modules from CPAN, and I think it is probably the way to go if your Linux
distribution has incomplete (RedHat) or out-of-date (SuSe?) perl modules.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin
email: ir...@be...
phone: 250-727-2902

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the Canadian Centre for Climate Modelling and
Analysis (www.cccma.bc.ec.gc.ca) and the PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org).

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