README for DBD::Informix -- an Informix interface for Perl 5 using DBI. Portions Copyright (c) 1994,1995,1996 Alligator Descartes Portions Copyright (c) 1996,1997 Jonathan Leffler You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License, as specified in the Perl README file. -- The following is a standard warning for all DBI and DBD::* software -- WARNING: THIS IS ALPHA SOFTWARE. IT IS POSSIBLY UNRELIABLE! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- BUILDING DBD::Informix If Perl 5.003 or later is NOT installed, then build, test and install it! If the DBI module (version 0.73 or later preferred; 0.69 or later is mandatory) is not installed, then build, test and install it. You must have a version of ESQL/C available to you. At the moment, version 4.0x or 4.1x are not supported. If someone wants to code up the fix necessary to get versions 4.0x or 4.1x to work, then contact the DBD::Informix Maintenance Team. ESQL/C Versions 5.00 upwards should be OK. Please ensure that you have $INFORMIXDIR set, and that $INFORMIXDIR/bin is on your PATH. The build may work without these environment variables being set, but it will be more reliable if they are. Also, if you are using ESQL/C version 6.x or later, you will be using ESQL/C shared libraries which are found in $INFORMIXDIR/lib and $INFORMIXDIR/lib/esql. You need to ensure that these will be found when you run Perl with DBD::Informix. On SVR4 machines, this means adding these directories to LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on HP-UX, the variable is, I believe, SHLIB_PATH; other systems may have other variable names. You can test that this is correct by compiling and running a trivial ESQL/C program which simply opens a database and exits. When Perl, DBI and ESQL/C are all installed do: perl Makefile.PL The script will attempt to work out what it needs to build the module. Then do: make This should complete without errors, and ideally without warnings either. If you get warnings, I'm interested to know what they are and how they could be fixed generically. If it fails horribly, see below. Do NOT hand edit the generated Makefile unless you are completely sure you understand the implications (and are willing to make those changes manually every time the Makefile is regenerated)! Always try to make changes by editing Makefile.PL, which is extensively annotated. You should also read the section on ExtUtils::MakeMaker in the 2nd Edition of 'Programming Perl'. You should never need to make any changes. If you do *please* let me know so that I can try to make it automatic in a later release. You should then take a look at the documentation in InformixTest.pm, and set the DBD_INFORMIX_* environment variables as appropriate for your system. Although the testing does as little damage as possible, it is not a good idea to use your prize database for this. The stores database is a good bet (unless you are using an old version of Fourgen software and it is using the stores database for its data dictionary). Then run: make test On the reference system (Sun Sparc 10 running Solaris 2.4, compiling with GCC 2.7.0 or SUNWspro SC3.0.1), all the tests pass for ESQL/C versions 5.03.UC1, 5.07.UC1, 6.00.UC1, 7.13.UC1 and 7.21.UC1. Nevertheless, it is a good idea to run: make test TEST_VERBOSE=1 You should inspect the results as not every test compares the actual data returned with the data that should be returned (though t/basic00.t does do this). Note that the blob tests pass on SE, because the test scripts detect that the engine is SE and do not try to test blob handling. Additionally, for a really thorough scrutiny of DBD::Informix, you need to test with at least 3 different databases: one created MODE ANSI, one created with a transaction log but not MODE ANSI, and one created without any transaction logs at all. DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE=mode_ansi make test DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE=logged make test DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE=unlogged make test If you are concerned about both OnLine and SE, then you need these databases for both environments. Also note that the multiple connection tests will use two different databases if you set the environment variable DBD_INFORMIX_DATABASE2, but the tests assume that you don't need to specify the user and password. This could be fixed, but hasn't happened yet. You can use one SE and one OnLine database for the multiple connection testing. Once you are satisfied that DBD::Informix is working correctly, you should install it: make install If you ever need to remove it, possibly as a preamble to installing a new version, you should use the old version's makefile and run: make uninstall You can then install using the new version's makefile. It is important to use the correct (old or new) makefiles because the installed files may be different, and if some file is made obsolete by the new version (is not used by the new version), its makefile will not uninstall the obsolete file; over time and multiple versions, this could, eventually, lead to 'coronary thrombosis' on your disk drive -- or disk full. KNOWN PROBLEMS: * DBD::Informix uses SQL DESCRIPTORS which are not part of ESQL/C Version 4.0x or 4.1x. It also uses string-named cursors and statements, which are likewise not supported in 4.0x or 4.1x (or earlier) versions. * Some desirable features are not implemented. A number of these are listed in the POD file. * Some Oracle-inspired functions which are listed as part of DBI are not implemented for lack of sufficient definition of what is actually required. * Some problems have been encountered on HP-UX 9.x when building shared libraries using 5.0x ESQL/C. This seems to be because the HP-UX compilers and loader do not accept code not compiled for shared libraries inside a shared library. Help (or reassurance) is needed on this. * Some problems have been encountered on SCO which seems to be related to the equivalent of LD_LIBRARY_PATH on System V Release 4 machines. Again, help or reassurance is needed on this. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Error: Undefined symbols __cg92_used at link time. Environment: Solaris, GCC If you compile with the SparcWorks SPARCompiler, you need to add the command line option on -xcg92 to resolve these symbol problems cleanly. Alligator Descartes JL notes: the detailed compiler versions are not known, but SC3.0.1 has not shown any problems on Solaris 2.4. This was originally reported for DBD::Oracle; may be relevant to some versions of Informix-ESQLC on Solaris. Versions 5.00 through 5.03 of ESQL/C on Solaris 2.3 used libraries with names of the form libsql_cg92.a and you may run into problems with these. (Notably, Makefile.PL will warn you that your ESQL/C may not be properly installed, even though it actually is OK.) Separately, for some reason, the STMT_START and STMT_END macros are not being created using the 'if (1) ... else (void)0' version of the macros on Solaris 2.4 with SPARCompiler version 3.0.1, even when -Dsun=1 or -D__sun__ is used on the command line. I have not managed to figure out why. This leads to unwanted warnings about loop termination code not being reached. JL 96-11-19 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS: Firstly, check the Frequently Asked Questions, Known Bugs and any other pertinent documents at: http://www.hermetica.com/technologia/DBI If this does *not* resolve your problem, please post the details of your problem to dbi-users@fugue.com and CC them to me at johnl@informix.com. Please include: 1. A complete log of a complete build, e.g.: perl Makefile.PL (do a make realclean first) make ./test.pl PERL_DBI_DEBUG=2 ./test.pl 2. A complete, sorted dump of your environment: env | sort 3. Full details of which version of Informix-ESQL/C and Perl you're using. 4. The output of: perl -e 'use Config; print Config::myconfig()' 5. If you get a core dump, try to include a stack trace from it. If the stack trace mentions XS_DynaLoader_dl_load_file then rerun make test after setting the environment variable PERL_DL_DEBUG to 2. Similarly, get the Devel::CoreStack module and use it. 6. Please don't post problems to comp.lang.perl.misc or perl5-porters. 7. If you are not currently subscribed to the mailing list please subscribe via http://www.fugue.com/dbi. If you do not have WWW access, then send email to dbi-request@fugue.com. There are 3 mailing lists: dbi-announce@fugue.com, dbi-users@fugue.com and dbi-dev@fugue.com. Regards, Tim & Al & Jonathan @(#)README 50.2 97/01/24 09:17:03 --------------------------------------------------------------------------- NOTE: This document is derived from the DBD::Oracle README. Many of the points made in that will apply to DBD::Informix too. Original document: (c) Tim Bunce Amendments 1: (c) Alligator Descartes Amendments 2: (c) Jonathan Leffler