[Xapian-discuss] problems installing the perl modules

[Olly Betts]

On Tue, Apr 07, 2009 at 01:17:20PM +0100, Amias Channer wrote:
> On Tue, 2009-04-07 at 02:48 +0100, Olly Betts wrote:
> 
> > You're building against an incompatible version of xapian-core.
> 
> Am using the current cpan version with the current version in your repo.

And those are incompatible.

As I explained, the repo on xapian.org doesn't have the latest version
packaged, as we're in the process of moving away from using it.

And as Jacob points out, you're using an obsolete Debian release which
doesn't help.  Our policy is not to make special efforts to support
third party software which isn't supported itself, so we stopped
providing backports to sarge when Debian stopped provided security
updates (just over a year ago).  The latest version for sarge in our
repo looks to be 1.0.5.

> > You should have got a warning about this when you ran:
> > 
> > perl Makefile.PL
> 
> I was just using the cpan installer .

It's generally better to install the debian packages of Perl modules,
rather than use CPAN, to avoid these sorts of compatibility issues.

> > If you didn't, that's a bug - could you open a ticket with the exact
> > output of "perl Makefile.PL" if so.
> 
> ah that only comes up if I run it manually , its not shown if 
> done by the cpan installer.

That's helpful of it.  If anyone knows how to get a message past the
cpan installer let me know.

> > This is only a warning as it often works OK (it's generally only a
> > problem when a newer Search::Xapian wraps a new xapian-core feature)
> > and it's annoying for users to have to modify Makefile.PL to get
> > compatible combinations to work.
> 
> looks more like a fatal error as far as i can see it.

It doesn't work for Search::Xapian 1.0.11.0 and whatever older
xapian-core version you have.  It should always work for Search::Xapian
1.0.x.y and xapian-core 1.0.z when x <= z.  If z > x, it will work
unless Search::Xapian has wrapped a new feature not present in the older
xapian-core.  That's pretty rare, so in most cases it actually does work.

> Where can i get the correct version of the Perl module ?

http://search.cpan.org/~olly/Search-Xapian/

And use the "Other Releases" drop-down to select the version which
matches the xapian-core you have installed.

> Wouldn't it make sense not to put the module on CPAN if there is not
> time to keep it up to date

You have things backwards.  The latest version on CPAN is *too new* for
your system.  It's precisely because it is being kept up to date with
changes in more recent xapian-core releases that it won't build with
older ones.

> instead you could package it in backports or the ubunutu PPA.

This is one of the reasons for moving to them.  Building everything
myself for all the releases was already taking too long, so I wasn't
keen to add another package into the mix.  With backports and PPAs
it all gets autobuilt.

> After all people use CPAN for simplicity so there is
> little point if its only going to work for a tiny portion of the time
> when the versions are in sync. maybe i have missed something ....

The versions don't need to be in sync, just compatible.

> As an aside , i would rather have a seperate repo for xapian than
> bringing in backports . Having a seperate repo means i can add it simply
> without risking the importing of any backports code in to my stable
> system. 

As Jacob says, you can pick just the packages you want using apt's
pinning feature.

> Could I use the ubuntu PPA in that way from debian ?

If the package versions happen to be compatible it may work.  I'd not
recommend it though.

Cheers,
    Olly