@(#)README	1.8	12/20/94

sybperl 2 alpha 7
	
This is sybperl, the Sybase extensions for Perl5.

This version requires Perl5.000.

There are currently two modules in this distribution: Sybase::DBlib
and Sybase::Sybperl (a third one, Sybase::CTlib, is planned)

Sybase::DBlib implements the Perl 5 version of the DB-library
API. This differs slightly from the Perl 4 version.
The Sybase::Sybperl module implements the sybperl 1.0xx API, and is
built on top of Sybase::DBlib.

All of the sybperl 1.0xx API has been implemented, and there are some
extras (such as the two-phase commit routines).

NOTE: I'm still labelling this version as an 'alpha' release, mainly
====  because the CTlibrary extension still remains to be
      written, and because some of the tools that are used to build
      this extension (such as the MakeMaker package) are still
      changing fairly rapidly, making the build and install procedures
      a little difficult. However, I consider the Sybperl and DBlib
      extensions to be pretty stable - and I use them here at ITF in
      production mode. 


Installation:

For the build to succeed, this package MUST be unpacked in the
[perl5src]/ext directory. If you have unpacked the distribution
somewhere else you must move it into the perl src tree now, before
proceeding.
This version comes with two different sets of Makefile.PL files. The
default set of files is intended to be used with a clean Perl5.000
distribution. The second set (Makefile.PL.36) is to be used if you're
joined to the perl5-porters list and have upgraded your
ExtUtils::MakeMaker to version 3.6. If you have MakeMaker 3.6 you need
to rename Sybase/Makefile.PL.36, Sybase/DBlib/Makefile.PL.36 and
Sybase/Sybperl/Makefile.PL.36 to xxx/Makefile.PL. Note that the
patche to bring MakeMaker up to version 3.6 are included in this
distribution (see the patches directory).

Check Sybase/Makefile.PL and set $DBLIBVS (DBlibrary version) and
$SYBASE (Sybase home directory) to appropriate values.

Extract the Makefile by doing 'perl -I../../lib Makefile.PL' in the
[perl5src]/ext/Sybase directory.

Do a 'make config' and then a 'make' to build everything.

If everything builds OK, you should be able to run the tests by doing
'make test' in each subdirectory (ie in Sybperl && DBlib).

NOTE: If you are building against OpenClient 10.x under SunOS or
      Solaris you need to make sure that the dynamic linker (ld.so)
      can find libsybdb.so. This can be done by linking it to /usr/lib
      (for example) or setting LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point to
      $SYBASE/lib. Under SunOS you will also have to add 
            lddlflags='-assert nodefinitions'
      to config.sh so that building the dynamically loadable module
      can proceed without problems.


The regression tests are still under construction, but they test most
of the basic functions, and should work cleanly.

If everything went OK, you can install everything by running 'make
install' in the Perl 5 source directory. (This will reinstall all of
Perl 5, but at the moment I haven't figured out a cleaner way, sorry)

There are a couple of scripts in eg/ which illustrate the use of the
compatibility package, mainly.

Documentation (in the pod/ directory) has grown since 2a6, but it
still not complete...


Comments, criticism, et.al. VERY welcome!

Michael Peppler mpeppler@itf.ch
