INTRO:

This is IPC::Shm::Simple, a PERL module that provides storage of simple data
in SysV shared memory segments. Simple means string or numeric.

It is a derivative of IPC::ShareLite by Maurice Aubrey.


COPYRIGHT / LICENSE:

Copyright (C) 2005 K Cody <kcody@users.sourceforge.net>
Copyright (C) 1998-2002 Maurice Aubrey <maurice@hevanet.com>

This software may be modified and/or redistributed under the terms of
either the Artistic License or the GNU General Public License, at the
discretion of the modifier/redistributor. These are the same terms
under which PERL itself is distributed.


MAJOR CHANGES FROM ShareLite:

Actual shared memory segment and semaphore operations are in separate code
modules from the API implementation.

The monolithic new() call is gone, replaced by create(),  attach(), remove().

The unlock() call is gone, use lock( LOCK_UN ).

There are new shmat() and shmid() calls for effectively working with unkeyed
shared memory segments.

There is a new Descriptor structure that holds shared object data in the
top shared memory segment, so no space is wasted in the chunk segments.

The semaphore doesn't use the ipckey at all anymore.

Chunk segments can now be a different size than the top segment.

The PERL layer provides defeatable read-caching and write verification.

The PERL layer also caches instances, to keep the kernel shm table limited
to one connection per share object per process.


API DOCUMENTATION:

It works through an object oriented interface. See the POD's and test.pl.


DEPENDENCIES:

	Test::More
		Test::Harness
		Storable

	Class::Attrib
		Class::Multi


PORTABILITY:

It has compiled and tested cleanly on:
        x86     - Linux 2.6 Gentoo 2004.0
        x86     - Linux 2.6 Fedora FC2
        x86     - Linux 2.4 Debian 2.2
        AMD     - Linux 2.6 Fedora Core 3
        PPCG4   - Mac OS X 10.3

It has compiled and tested with warnings on:
        x86     - OpenBSD 3.4 - possible Test::Harness bug
        Alpha   - Linux 2.2 Debian 3.0 - va_list warnings

It has compiled but not tested on:
        x86     - FreeBSD 4.8 - no Test::More
        x86     - NetBSD 1.6.1 - no Test::More

It will not compile on Solaris due to the absence of LOCK_? definitions.

All test servers except Gentoo and Mac were provided by SourceForge,
and had a variety of PERL versions ranging from 5.004 to 5.8.5.

Some required manual installation of:

        Test::Harness
        Test::More
        Storable

There are two dependencies whose list entries have yet to be approved:
        Class::Multi
        Class::Attrib


GETTING THE SOFTWARE:

They can be downloaded from my CPAN directory, or from SourceForge CVS.

IPC::Shm::Simple can be checked by:

CVSROOT=":pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net/cvsroot/ipcshm-simple"
cvs -z3 -d$CVSROOT co ipcshm-simple

Class::Multi can be checked out by:

CVSROOT=":pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net/cvsroot/class-multi"
cvs -z3 -d$CVSROOT co class-multi

Class::Attrib can be checked out by:

CVSROOT=":pserver:anonymous@cvs.sourceforge.net/cvsroot/class-attrib"
cvs -z3 -d$CVSROOT co class-attrib


AUTHOR CONTACT INFO:

Bug reports, questions, and flames should be sent to:

K Cody <kcody@users.sourceforge.net>