Inline support

[mohawk2]

What do we think of the idea of adding an inheritable Inline function so that it would be possible to do:

package Actual::Module;
use Alien::Subclass qw(Inline);

And then be able to do:

use Inline with => qw(Actual::Module);

Inline will call a class method Actual::Module->Inline, so it's inheritable (that's why I changed it to be a method, not a function). Then it will be easy to use XS with Inline to get the C functions into action.

What say you?

[plicease]

Definitely would like to see this.

1. I think also add a recipe to the Alien::Base synopsis
2. How do you plan on testing. Can we make an optional test part of Alien::Base if Inline is installed? Alternative is to have a dist that uses this feature and to track it as part of the release test plan.

[plicease]

When I started looking at this I realize I am not exactly sure what the intended role of Actual::Module is.

The way that I approached this was to add an Inline sub in Alien::Base that returns the appropriate configuration for Inline::C (Question: can we do the same for Inline::CPP? If it is easy then we should do it). This way any Alien::Foo can be used by an Inline module thusly:

use Inline C => 'DATA', with => 'Alien::Foo'; 

if #77 isn't what was intended, please elaborate.

[mohawk2]

One slight caveat: you're best off having the with on a separate "use" line: https://metacpan.org/pod/Inline#Playing-with-Others

You may have noted that the ->Inline method checks for which language (C, CPP, etc) it's being called against. This is because you can do this:

use Inline with => qw(Alien::Acme::DontPanic);
use Inline C => 'DATA';
use Inline CPP => 'DATA';

The ->Inline method would get called once each with the arg C and with CPP. So long as you make the method return the right info, and not return an error on CPP, it will just work.

[plicease]

ah okay, that is the way I had it before in the test, I can switch it back.

[plicease]

I believe either #77 or #78 will resolve this feature request. Pending discussion and consensus one of those should be merged.

[plicease]

Should be addressed in 0.005_01

[plicease]

Hrm. I got a failure on 0.005_02 with t/inline.t. I think there was an older version of Inline installed. I think I upgraded unintentionally when installing Inline::CPP and don't know the version that it used to be. If anyone knows if/when the semantics of the with / sub Inline changed we can fix this.

edit or at least skip the test for older Inlines

[plicease]

Nevermind last comment, I believe this is fixed in 0.005_03 (feel free to check my work but).