[staf-users] Using STAF 3.0.0 with Perl5.8 on Windows, perl crashes using STAF::Unmarshall() functio

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Folks --

I'm brand-new to this list and brand-new to STAF. I searched the list 
archives before sending this message, and while I did find some useful 
hints none of them directly addresses the problem I'm having. [I was very 
interested to see some questions from Bruce Malasky, an old colleague of 
mine from almost 10 years ago, who ironically seems to be doing almost 
exactly the same thing I'm doing right now...].

Here's my issue:

I'm trying to use STAF 3.0.0 with Perl 5.8 on Windows. My little-teeny 
test program is just trying to run a process (a DOS "DIR" command) on a 
remote system (actually at the moment it's LOCAL), and get back the 
STDOUT, STDERR, and result. The program seems to work OK when I run it 
using regular Perl, but if I try to run under the Perl debugger (i.e. the 
"-d" command-line switch), Perl blows up with an application error. The 
perl debugger is kind-of vital to my work and not something I can simple 
live without...

The problem occurrs when I'm calling STAF::Unmarshall() to reconstitute 
the remote process's results into a Perl-accessible data structure. I 
tried modifying the Perl code in PLSTAF.pm to make it simpler and 
initially I seemed to be making some headway with that, but ultimately I 
gave up because I couldn't completely eliminate the crashes.

By the way this works fine with Perl 5.6.1. I have several side-by-side 
systems where the only difference is Perl 5.6.1 on one and Perl 5.8.6 on 
the other. Furthermore I've taken a system with Perl5.6.1, uninstalled 
Perl, and installed Perl5.8, copied STAF\BIN\Perl56\PLSTAF.DLL to 
STAF\BIN\PLSTAF.DLL (replacing the Perl56 version that was in ..\BIN 
previously), and the problem occurs.

Among other problems I'm working in the dark with respect to the 
Unmarshall functions -- they exist in the PLSTAF.pm file but they are not 
documented in the STAFUG (in fact there is no doc for any Perl functions 
in the User's Guide -- DON'T GET ME STARTED!), nor in the STAFPerl.htm 
file. Furthermore there aren't any usage-examples for the unmarshall 
functions in any other language either (as far as I could see). So I am 
not 100% sure I am using the Unmarshalling functions correctly -- if 
someone could tell me whether I am or not, or whether there's a simpler 
way to do this that does not involve unmarshalling, I would really 
appreciate it!

I'll make you a deal: if you help me get this working so that I can use 
STAF functions from a Perl program running under Perl 5.8 using the 
debugger, and I'll be glad to submit tons of working code examples in Perl 
to supplement what's currently sparse/missing from the STAF documentation. 
Do we have a deal <grin>????

Here are additional details:

I'm using Perl 5.8.6:
J:\>perl -v
This is perl, v5.8.6 built for MSWin32-x86-multi-thread
(with 3 registered patches, see perl -V for more detail)
Copyright 1987-2004, Larry Wall
Binary build 811 provided by ActiveState Corp. http://www.ActiveState.com
ActiveState is a division of Sophos.
Built Dec 13 2004 09:52:01
...

..and STAF 3.0.0:
STAFProc version 3.0.0 initialized

STAF\BIN is in my PATH:
J:\>PATH
PATH=C:\Perl\bin\;C:\STAF\bin;C:\RCPRSH32;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\PROGRA~1\IBM\SQLLIB\BIN;C:\PROGRA~1\IBM\SQLLIB\FUNCTION

I have a very simple test program:

use strict;
use lib qw(
    C:/STAF/bin
    C:/STAF/lib
);
use PLSTAF;
my($STAFH) = STAF::STAFHandle->new("MyTestProgram");
if ($STAFH->{rc} != $STAF::kOk) {
    die "Error registering with STAF. RC=".$STAFH->{rc}."\n";
}
my($Result);
$Result = $STAFH->submit(
    "LOCAL",
    "PROCESS",
    "START shell command dir wait returnstdout returnstderr"
);
print "STAFH->submit() returned!\n";
print "Result->{rc}='".$Result->{rc}."'\n";
print "Result->{result}='".$Result->{result}."'\n";
if (STAF::STAFIsMarshalledData($Result->{result})) {
    # Extract the STDOUT output and display it...
    my($UnmarshalledResult) = STAF::STAFUnmarshall($Result->{result});
    my($STDOUT) = $UnmarshalledResult->{rootObject}{fileList}[0]{data};
    print "STDOUT output 
======================================================================\n"
        .$STDOUT."\n"
        ."End  of STDOUT output 
==============================================================\n"
    ;
} else {
    print "Result is not MarshalledData...\n";
}
my($rc) = $STAFH->unRegister();
print "unRegister rc=$rc\n";

My program works if I run it without invoking the Perl debugger (pardon 
the line-wrapping but this was cut-and-pasted from a Command Prompt 
window):

J:\>perl TEST_STAF.pl
STAFH->submit() returned!
Result->{rc}='0'
Result->{result}='@SDT/*:1626:@SDT/{:587::13:map-class-map@SDT/{:559::35:STAF/Service/Process/Comple
tionInfo@SDT/{:261::4:keys@SDT/[3:189:@SDT/{:56::12:display-name@SDT/$S:11:Return 
Code:3:key@SDT/$S:
2:rc@SDT/{:48::12:display-name@SDT/$S:3:Key:3:key@SDT/$S:3:key@SDT/{:55::12:display-name@SDT/$S:5:Fi
les:3:key@SDT/$S:8:fileList:4:name@SDT/$S:35:STAF/Service/Process/CompletionInfo:35:STAF/Service/Pro
cess/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/{:198::4:keys@SDT/[2:126:@SDT/{:56::12:display-name@SDT/$S:11:Return 
Code:3:
key@SDT/$S:2:rc@SDT/{:50::12:display-name@SDT/$S:4:Data:3:key@SDT/$S:4:data:4:name@SDT/$S:35:STAF/Se
rvice/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/%:1016::35:STAF/Service/Process/CompletionInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$0:0:
@SDT/[2:944:@SDT/%:863::35:STAF/Service/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$S:801: 
Volume in driv
e C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 541C-084E

 Directory of C:\STAF

04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          .
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          bin
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          codepage
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          data
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          docs
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          include
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          lib
04/21/2005  02:59 PM            15,710 LICENSE.htm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          samples
04/27/2005  01:04 PM               285 STAFEnv.bat
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          _jvm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          _uninst
               2 File(s)         15,995 bytes
              11 Dir(s)  13,860,478,976 bytes free
@SDT/%:60::35:STAF/Service/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$S:0:'
STDOUT output 
======================================================================
 Volume in drive C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 541C-084E

 Directory of C:\STAF

04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          .
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          bin
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          codepage
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          data
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          docs
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          include
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          lib
04/21/2005  02:59 PM            15,710 LICENSE.htm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          samples
04/27/2005  01:04 PM               285 STAFEnv.bat
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          _jvm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          _uninst
               2 File(s)         15,995 bytes
              11 Dir(s)  13,860,478,976 bytes free

End  of STDOUT output 
==============================================================
unRegister rc=0

...but it blows up if I run it under the Perl debugger, even thought I 
don't *do* anything with the debugger (other than enter "c" for 
"continue", to run the program):

J:\>perl -d TEST_STAF.pl

Loading DB routines from perl5db.pl version 1.28
Editor support available.

Enter h or `h h' for help, or `perldoc perldebug' for more help.

main::(TEST_STAF.pl:13):        my($STAFH) = 
STAF::STAFHandle->new("MyTestProgram");
  DB<1> c
STAFH->submit() returned!
Result->{rc}='0'
Result->{result}='@SDT/*:1626:@SDT/{:587::13:map-class-map@SDT/{:559::35:STAF/Service/Process/Comple
tionInfo@SDT/{:261::4:keys@SDT/[3:189:@SDT/{:56::12:display-name@SDT/$S:11:Return 
Code:3:key@SDT/$S:
2:rc@SDT/{:48::12:display-name@SDT/$S:3:Key:3:key@SDT/$S:3:key@SDT/{:55::12:display-name@SDT/$S:5:Fi
les:3:key@SDT/$S:8:fileList:4:name@SDT/$S:35:STAF/Service/Process/CompletionInfo:35:STAF/Service/Pro
cess/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/{:198::4:keys@SDT/[2:126:@SDT/{:56::12:display-name@SDT/$S:11:Return 
Code:3:
key@SDT/$S:2:rc@SDT/{:50::12:display-name@SDT/$S:4:Data:3:key@SDT/$S:4:data:4:name@SDT/$S:35:STAF/Se
rvice/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/%:1016::35:STAF/Service/Process/CompletionInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$0:0:
@SDT/[2:944:@SDT/%:863::35:STAF/Service/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$S:801: 
Volume in driv
e C has no label.
 Volume Serial Number is 541C-084E

 Directory of C:\STAF

04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          .
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          ..
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          bin
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          codepage
04/27/2005  01:05 PM    <DIR>          data
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          docs
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          include
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          lib
04/21/2005  02:59 PM            15,710 LICENSE.htm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          samples
04/27/2005  01:04 PM               285 STAFEnv.bat
04/27/2005  01:03 PM    <DIR>          _jvm
04/27/2005  01:04 PM    <DIR>          _uninst
               2 File(s)         15,995 bytes
              11 Dir(s)  13,860,413,440 bytes free
@SDT/%:60::35:STAF/Service/Process/ReturnFileInfo@SDT/$S:1:0@SDT/$S:0:'
Use of uninitialized value in string eq at C:/STAF/bin/PLSTAF.pm line 311.
 at C:/STAF/bin/PLSTAF.pm line 311

STAF::STAFUnmarshall('@SDT/*:1626:@SDT/{:587::13:map-class-map@SDT/{:559::35:STAF/S...') 
cal
led at TEST_STAF.pl line 34

<At this point, Perl blows up with an application exception...>

J:\>

Can anyone suggest what I might be doing wrong?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Joe Veilleux
IBM/Rational CTG Quality Engineering
20 Maguire Road
Lexington MA 02421
Tel:   (781) 676-2491
Fax:   (781) 676-2600
Email: Joe...@us...

[staf-users] Using STAF 3.0.0 with Perl5.8 on Windows, perl crashes using STAF::Unmarshall() functio

[staf-users] Using STAF 3.0.0 with Perl5.8 on Windows, perl crashes using STAF::Unmarshall() functions