Mac::Carbon is a Carbon/Mac OS X port of the Mac:: modules included with MacPerl. It's in development, but a lot of it works, and it is available, on the CPAN (soon) and on SourceForge.net (now). To discuss Mac::Carbon, check out the macosx@perl mailing list.
NAME
README - Carbon API for perl on Mac OS X
SYNOPSIS
This is not release-quality software. It is still in development, and
not recommend for use in a production environment.
Mac::Carbon is a collection of perl modules for accessing the Carbon API
under Mac OS X. It is a port of the Toolbox modules written by Matthias
Neeracher for MacPerl.
Part of the current strategy is to make Mac::Carbon the intersection of
the old and new Mac OS APIs. We will not be adding new functionality
from Carbon, except as needed, for now. This may change over time as
Mac::Carbon stabilizes.
See the documentation in the Mac::Carbon manpage for more implementation
details, bugs, etc.
HELP ME
There are probably a lot of bugs, especially in Carbon.h. Bugs are
listed in the section on "Known Bugs" in the Mac::Carbon manpage; please
feel free to report them on the MacPerl bug reporting page, in the "Mac
Toolbox" category. Patches are welcome, too, of course. For large
patches, such as stuff for test suites and building, please do
coordinate with me before spending much time on it.
http://sf.net/projects/macperl/
REQUIREMENTS
Mac OS
These modules all build under Mac OS, but it is recommended you build
them as a part of MacPerl itself, or at least under the MacPerl source.
See http://dev.macperl.org/ for more information.
Under Mac OS, the full Mac OS API is available, not just the
Carbon-compatible routines.
Mac OS X
To build these modules on Mac OS X, the Developer Tools are required.
The Test::More module is required for running tests.
The separate Mac::Errors module is not required, but is highly
recommended.
These modules have only been tested with perl 5.6.0 on Mac OS X. See the
note in the BUILDING manpage.
The modules will compile and test remotely (such as via ssh, instead of
via the Terminal), but some of the tests might not run properly, and one
of the tests (for Mac::Notification) wants user feedback (though will
work without it).
BUILDING
Matthias added some extensions to XS for his Toolbox modules; they were
never fully embraced by p5p, and as a result, we have a separate xsubpp
for these additional XS macros. There is currently no resolution to this
problem. Either we write a pre-preprocessor that converts the .xs files
to be able to be handled by perl's xsubpp, or we modify the .xs so that
it can be handled by perl's xsubpp, or we distribute a separate xsubpp
(which is dangerous, as xsubpp changes with versions of perl).
Currently, Mac::Carbon is distributed with the already-processed .c
files. If you really want to compile with the .xs files, you can use the
xsubpp programs (either the 5.6 or 5.8 versions) included in the
distribution. This is only temporary, until we have a permanent
resolution to these issues.
You might want to run the test suite with `make test TEST_VERBOSE=1'.
It's cool.
SUPPORTED MODULES
Currently, only a subset of the modules are supported. The ported
modules are:
Mac::Components
Mac::Files
Mac::Gestalt
Mac::Memory
Mac::MoreFiles
Mac::Notification
Mac::Processes
Mac::Resources
Mac::Sound
Mac::Speech
Mac::Types
Coming next, hopefully:
Mac::AppleEvents
Mac::OSA
Mac::AppleEvents is going to take more work than the others, as it
involves some significant API changes.
Following those, the pure-perl modules, which should not take much work,
as long as the core XS modules they rely on are working:
Mac::AppleEvents::Simple
Mac::OSA::Simple
Mac::Glue
And, possibly:
Mac::InternetConfig
Mac::SpeechRecognition
There are currently no plans for the other (GUI) modules, including:
Mac::Controls
Mac::Dialogs
Mac::Events
Mac::Fonts
Mac::Lists
Mac::Menus
Mac::Movies
Mac::Navigation
Mac::QDOffScreen
Mac::QuickDraw
Mac::QuickTimeVR
Mac::TextEdit
Mac::Windows
We could do these eventually, if there is enough interest. They don't
port as easily as some of the others, for many reasons, not the least of
which is that we need a framework to handle events etc., which for
MacPerl is mostly implemented in macish.c / macish.h.
AUTHOR
The Mac Toolbox modules were written by Matthias Neeracher.
They are currently maintained by Chris Nandor.
VERSION
$Id: README,v 1.1 2002/11/13 02:04:50 pudge Exp $