Re: a common place for pl/perlu modules

Hello,

When developing pl/perlu functions common definitions and methods are often stored in external .pm modules. During deployment the modules should be installed somewhere in @INC to be reachable by the perl interpreter. However, installing the modules to a location outside of the PG installation makes it hard to have a consistent environment when running multiple PG versions on the same host. What do you think about defining a canonical place for pl/perlu .pm modules (i.e. PKGLIBDIR) and adding this location to @INC during the interpreter initialization ? Another idea is to allow a user to specify such location by adding a new custom GUC variable.

--
Alexey Klyukin http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc

Alexey Klyukin wrote:
> Hello,
>
> When developing pl/perlu functions common definitions and methods are often stored in external .pm modules. During deployment the modules should be installed somewhere in @INC to be reachable by the perl interpreter. However, installing the modules to a location outside of the PG installation makes it hard to have a consistent environment when running multiple PG versions on the same host. What do you think about defining a canonical place for pl/perlu .pm modules (i.e. PKGLIBDIR) and adding this location to @INC during the interpreter initialization ? Another idea is to allow a user to specify such location by adding a new custom GUC variable.
>
>
>

Why won't setting this in the new on_perl_init setting work? It's even
included in to documented examples using the standard lib module:
<http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/plperl-under-the-hood.html#PLPERL-CONFIG>

cheers

andrew

On Feb 11, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

>
>
> Alexey Klyukin wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> When developing pl/perlu functions common definitions and methods are often stored in external .pm modules. During deployment the modules should be installed somewhere in @INC to be reachable by the perl interpreter. However, installing the modules to a location outside of the PG installation makes it hard to have a consistent environment when running multiple PG versions on the same host. What do you think about defining a canonical place for pl/perlu .pm modules (i.e. PKGLIBDIR) and adding this location to @INC during the interpreter initialization ? Another idea is to allow a user to specify such location by adding a new custom GUC variable.
>>
>>
>>
>
> Why won't setting this in the new on_perl_init setting work? It's even included in to documented examples using the standard lib module: <http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/plperl-under-the-hood.html#PLPERL-CONFIG>

The lack of support for SPI functions makes this hardly an adequate solution. I do have both modules and SPI calls in several pl/perlu functions.

--
Alexey Klyukin http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc

Alexey Klyukin wrote:
> On Feb 11, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>
>
>> Alexey Klyukin wrote:
>>
>>> Hello,
>>>
>>> When developing pl/perlu functions common definitions and methods are often stored in external .pm modules. During deployment the modules should be installed somewhere in @INC to be reachable by the perl interpreter. However, installing the modules to a location outside of the PG installation makes it hard to have a consistent environment when running multiple PG versions on the same host. What do you think about defining a canonical place for pl/perlu .pm modules (i.e. PKGLIBDIR) and adding this location to @INC during the interpreter initialization ? Another idea is to allow a user to specify such location by adding a new custom GUC variable.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Why won't setting this in the new on_perl_init setting work? It's even included in to documented examples using the standard lib module: <http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/plperl-under-the-hood.html#PLPERL-CONFIG>
>>
>
> The lack of support for SPI functions makes this hardly an adequate solution. I do have both modules and SPI calls in several pl/perlu functions.
>
>

That has nothing to do with what you asked about, namely setting the
include path. You can set the include path in on_perl_init with "use
lib" and then "use" your modules in your plperlu functions, at which
point SPI will be available.

cheers

andrew

On Feb 11, 2010, at 7:07 PM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:

>
>
> Alexey Klyukin wrote:
>> On Feb 11, 2010, at 6:24 PM, Andrew Dunstan wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Alexey Klyukin wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello,
>>>>
>>>> When developing pl/perlu functions common definitions and methods are often stored in external .pm modules. During deployment the modules should be installed somewhere in @INC to be reachable by the perl interpreter. However, installing the modules to a location outside of the PG installation makes it hard to have a consistent environment when running multiple PG versions on the same host. What do you think about defining a canonical place for pl/perlu .pm modules (i.e. PKGLIBDIR) and adding this location to @INC during the interpreter initialization ? Another idea is to allow a user to specify such location by adding a new custom GUC variable.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>> Why won't setting this in the new on_perl_init setting work? It's even included in to documented examples using the standard lib module: <http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/plperl-under-the-hood.html#PLPERL-CONFIG>
>>>
>>
>> The lack of support for SPI functions makes this hardly an adequate solution. I do have both modules and SPI calls in several pl/perlu functions.
>>
>>
>
>
> That has nothing to do with what you asked about, namely setting the include path. You can set the include path in on_perl_init with "use lib" and then "use" your modules in your plperlu functions, at which point SPI will be available.

Ah, it seems I misinterpreted the documentation. This is much better, but still it requires setting the path explicitly.
What about having a default location for the modules that is automatically added to @INC and is recommended in the documentation as a place to put .pm files ?

--
Alexey Klyukin http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc