[rt.cpan.org #92402] Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard

Discussion:

Linda A Walsh via RT

2014-01-23 05:24:28 UTC

Thu Jan 23 00:24:28 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Ticket created by LAWALSH
Queue: Inline
Subject: Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: new
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

Example:

Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good

Inline::C is packaged with Inline.pm because it is the most commonly used
Inline Language Support Module (ILSM).

See also: Inline::ASM, ::Awk, ::BC, ::Basic, ::Befunge, ::CPP (C++), ::CPR,
::Foo, ::Guile, ::Java, ::Octave, ::PERL, ::Python, ::Ruby, ::TT,
::Tcl and ::WebChat.

Config.pm indicates that your version of Perl was built with this C compiler:

gcc

I have located this compiler on your system.

Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y
(/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL exited with 9)

CPAN::Reporter: test results were not valid, Command interrupted.

No 'Makefile' created SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL -- NOT OK
Running make test
Make had some problems, won't test
Running make install
Make had some problems, won't install
---------------------

Very frustrating -- I tried to type 'y', bt it was ignored, as STDIN seems to be taken over by CPAN.

Running the make manually, however, works fine...

(maybe a CPAN deficiency? Though the make of this module was done as a pre-req in a long line of automatic build/installs -- wasn't until I looked back later that I found the cause.

David J. Oswald via RT

2014-01-23 06:25:13 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 01:25:12 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by DAVIDO
Queue: Inline
Subject: Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: new
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good
Inline::C is packaged with Inline.pm because it is the most commonly
used
Inline Language Support Module (ILSM).
See also: Inline::ASM, ::Awk, ::BC, ::Basic, ::Befunge, ::CPP (C++),
::CPR,
: :Foo, ::Guile, ::Java, ::Octave, ::PERL, ::Python, ::Ruby, ::TT,
: :Tcl and ::WebChat.
Config.pm indicates that your version of Perl was built with this C
gcc
I have located this compiler on your system.
Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y

At this point you're experiencing the Makefile.PL for Inline::C, as the CPAN installer runs all Makefile.PL's within the distribution recursively. The prompting is handled by ExtUtils::MakeMaker's prompt() function. And as you see within the "[y]" square brackets, prompt() is being directed to supply a default.

prompt() detects whether Makefile.PL has been invoked interactively, or non-interactively (as is the case when running the 'cpan' installer). When it's invoked non-interactively, the default is used. Inline::C supplies the "y" default, which seems to be what you would have selected anyway, had you been in interactive mode. If Inline::C's Makefile.PL didn't supply a default, prompt() would use the empty string as a default in non-interactive mode, which would cause Inline::C's Makefile.PL to enter an endless loop (you can look at the source to see what I mean). Fortunately, Inline::C's Makefile.PL does the right thing; it supplies a default.

So the prompting problem you're describing is actually "how things are done": Makefile.PL is making correct use of prompt(), supplied by ExtUtils::MakeMaker. If you don't like how ExtUtils::MakeMaker::prompt works, and for the most part, prompt() works flawlessly across a broad range of systems and configurations; it has to, being part of EU::MM.

The next issue to consider is how the cpan installer works. The basic 'cpan' installer (provided by App::cpan) doesn't (to my knowledge) provide an option for interactive installations. So if you want to install automatically using the 'cpan' installer, you're going to have to accept Inline::C's defaults, which is exactly why defaults are provided. It would be nice to see an "interactive mode" feature implemented for App::cpan / CPAN.pm, but that's someone else's jurisdiction, not Inline's.

However, if you would like a degree of automation, but still want to be able to hit the "y" key yourself (without waiting around for someone to implement the feature in App::cpan / CPAN.pm), you may use 'cpanm' (App::cpanm, or cpanminus) to install Inline and Inline::C. 'cpanm' provides an "--interactive" option. If you invoke this command: 'cpanm --interactive Inline' you will get an automated installation of Inline, along with blocking prompting that you can respond to manually before Inline::C gets installed.

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
(/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL exited with 9)
CPAN::Reporter: test results were not valid, Command interrupted.
No 'Makefile' created SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL -- NOT OK
Running make test
Make had some problems, won't test
Running make install
Make had some problems, won't install
---------------------

This problem, I haven't seen before. But it's not related to prompting. The fact that you're able to achieve a successful install manually (make, make test, make install) indicates that your setup is capable of installing Inline and Inline::C. And as indicated earlier, the prompting is working as intended.

s***@public.gmane.org

2014-01-23 06:55:06 UTC

Permalink

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda A Walsh via RT

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y
(/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL exited with 9)
Very frustrating -- I tried to type 'y', bt it was ignored, as STDIN seems
to be taken over by CPAN.

Yes, I would find that very annoying.
I don't use any of the CPAN family of modules very much - I avoid them
unless there's a very long dependency chain.
Consequently, I don't know much about the options they provide, or about the
details of the way in which they're supposed to work.

Did David's reply help ?

The only thing I can think of adding to what David provided is that, if
you're happy to accept the default, then setting the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT
environment variable to 1 should enable that. (The default will be 'y' if a
compiler is found, and 'n' if a compiler is not found.)

Cheers,
Rob

sisyphus1-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/F98K4Iww@public.gmane.org via RT

2014-01-23 07:00:32 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 02:00:31 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by sisyphus1-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/***@public.gmane.org
Queue: Inline
Subject: Re: [rt.cpan.org #92402] Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

-----Original Message-----
From: Linda A Walsh via RT

Xiao Yafeng

2014-01-23 13:29:07 UTC

Permalink

I've tried reinstall Inline via cpan and seems work fine:

***@AndyHome:~$ cpan -f -i Inline
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.34)
Reading '/home/xyf/.cpan/Metadata'
Database was generated on Thu, 23 Jan 2014 10:17:02 GMT
CPAN: Module::CoreList loaded ok (v2.76)
Running install for module 'Inline'
Running make for S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v6.05)
CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.9725)
Fetching with LWP:
http://mirrors.btte.net/CPAN/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v0.88)
CPAN: Digest::SHA loaded ok (v5.71)
Fetching with LWP:
http://mirrors.btte.net/CPAN/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/CHECKSUMS
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.048)
Checksum for /home/xyf/.cpan/sources/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
ok
CPAN: File::Temp loaded ok (v0.22)
CPAN: CPAN::Meta loaded ok (v2.130880)

CPAN.pm: Building S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz

Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good

Inline::C is packaged with Inline.pm because it is the most commonly used
Inline Language Support Module (ILSM).

See also: Inline::ASM, ::Awk, ::BC, ::Basic, ::Befunge, ::CPP (C++), ::CPR,
::Foo, ::Guile, ::Java, ::Octave, ::PERL, ::Python, ::Ruby, ::TT,
::Tcl and ::WebChat.

Config.pm indicates that your version of Perl was built with this C compiler:

cc

I have located this compiler on your system.

Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y
Writing Makefile for Inline::C
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
Writing Makefile for Inline
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
cp Inline.pod blib/lib/Inline.pod
cp lib/Inline/MakeMaker/Changes blib/lib/Inline/MakeMaker/Changes
cp lib/Inline/denter.pm blib/lib/Inline/denter.pm
....
....
SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
/usr/bin/make install -- OK

uname -a
Linux AndyHome 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.51-1 i686 GNU/Linux

Post by sisyphus1-sFbbPxZDHXw0n/***@public.gmane.org via RT
Thu Jan 23 02:00:31 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Queue: Inline
Subject: Re: [rt.cpan.org #92402] Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >
-----Original Message-----
From: Linda A Walsh via RT

Yes, I would find that very annoying.
I don't use any of the CPAN family of modules very much - I avoid them
unless there's a very long dependency chain.
Consequently, I don't know much about the options they provide, or about the
details of the way in which they're supposed to work.
Did David's reply help ?
The only thing I can think of adding to what David provided is that, if
you're happy to accept the default, then setting the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT
environment variable to 1 should enable that. (The default will be 'y' if a
compiler is found, and 'n' if a compiler is not found.)
Cheers,
Rob

Xiao Yafeng via RT

2014-01-23 13:29:39 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 08:29:39 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by xyf.xiao-***@public.gmane.org
Queue: Inline
Subject: Re: [rt.cpan.org #92402] Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

I've tried reinstall Inline via cpan and seems work fine:

***@AndyHome:~$ cpan -f -i Inline
CPAN: Storable loaded ok (v2.34)
Reading '/home/xyf/.cpan/Metadata'
Database was generated on Thu, 23 Jan 2014 10:17:02 GMT
CPAN: Module::CoreList loaded ok (v2.76)
Running install for module 'Inline'
Running make for S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v6.05)
CPAN: Time::HiRes loaded ok (v1.9725)
Fetching with LWP:
http://mirrors.btte.net/CPAN/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v0.88)
CPAN: Digest::SHA loaded ok (v5.71)
Fetching with LWP:
http://mirrors.btte.net/CPAN/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/CHECKSUMS
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.048)
Checksum for /home/xyf/.cpan/sources/authors/id/S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
ok
CPAN: File::Temp loaded ok (v0.22)
CPAN: CPAN::Meta loaded ok (v2.130880)

CPAN.pm: Building S/SI/SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz

Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good

Inline::C is packaged with Inline.pm because it is the most commonly used
Inline Language Support Module (ILSM).

See also: Inline::ASM, ::Awk, ::BC, ::Basic, ::Befunge, ::CPP (C++), ::CPR,
::Foo, ::Guile, ::Java, ::Octave, ::PERL, ::Python, ::Ruby, ::TT,
::Tcl and ::WebChat.

Config.pm indicates that your version of Perl was built with this C compiler:

cc

I have located this compiler on your system.

Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y
Writing Makefile for Inline::C
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
Writing Makefile for Inline
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
cp Inline.pod blib/lib/Inline.pod
cp lib/Inline/MakeMaker/Changes blib/lib/Inline/MakeMaker/Changes
cp lib/Inline/denter.pm blib/lib/Inline/denter.pm
....
....
SISYPHUS/Inline-0.53.tar.gz
/usr/bin/make install -- OK

uname -a
Linux AndyHome 3.2.0-4-686-pae #1 SMP Debian 3.2.51-1 i686 GNU/Linux

Yes, I would find that very annoying.
I don't use any of the CPAN family of modules very much - I avoid them
unless there's a very long dependency chain.
Consequently, I don't know much about the options they provide, or about the
details of the way in which they're supposed to work.
Did David's reply help ?
The only thing I can think of adding to what David provided is that, if
you're happy to accept the default, then setting the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT
environment variable to 1 should enable that. (The default will be 'y' if a
compiler is found, and 'n' if a compiler is not found.)
Cheers,
Rob

Linda A Walsh via RT

2014-01-24 00:06:00 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 19:06:00 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by LAWALSH
Queue: Inline
Subject: Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

Post by David J. Oswald via RT

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y

----
Right -- but then it **waits*** for input.

The input never comes, because my input is being redirected "elsewhere" (dunno).

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
ExtUtils::MakeMaker. If you don't like how
ExtUtils::MakeMaker::prompt works, and for the most part, prompt()
works flawlessly across a broad range of systems and configurations;
it has to, being part of EU::MM.

----
It's not a matter of "like" -- it's a matter of it stopping at any interactive prompt (most have some default), and waiting for input. Then it "pseudo-dies"-- due to hitting the timeout value in my CPAN config file. (usually set to 15 seconds).

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
The next issue to consider is how the cpan installer works. The basic
'cpan' installer (provided by App::cpan) doesn't (to my knowledge)
provide an option for interactive installations.

----
The rest of this seems not relevant, as I don't want interactive, but during non-interactive build,
1) CPAN pauses at any such point to wait for input (even w/a default) until it hits the 'inactivity timeout value.
2) Then the exit via signal is detected by CPAN as an error and no default is taken.

Post by David J. Oswald via RT

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
(/home/perl/perl-5.16.3/bin/perl Makefile.PL exited with 9)
---------------------

This problem, I haven't seen before. But it's not related to
prompting.

----
It is only Makefile.PL's that prompt that have this problem.

To say that it isn't related to prompting isn't supported by the evidence.

I don't know if it would help, but maybe
the makefile.pl needs to check to see if /dev/stdin is a character device. If it is
a pipe (which I'm guessing is the case here, as /dev/stdin isn't being read from the /dev/tty input), then just do the default -- don't prompt.

The fact that you're able to achieve a successful install

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
manually (make, make test, make install) indicates that your setup is
capable of installing Inline and Inline::C. And as indicated earlier,
the prompting is working as intended.

----
Only when it receives input -- which it does in manual mode. But when run automatically,
the prompting waits instead of immediately taking the default, and eventually times out returning an error in the Makefile.PL run to CPAN.

David J. Oswald via RT

2014-01-24 00:27:16 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 19:27:15 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by DAVIDO
Queue: Inline
Subject: Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT

Post by David J. Oswald via RT

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
Do you want to install Inline::C? [y] y

----
Right -- but then it **waits*** for input.
The input never comes, because my input is being redirected
"elsewhere" (dunno).

I myself have taken a pretty close look at how prompt() works, because I've stolen much of its guts into IO::Prompt::Hooked (one of my modules on CPAN). If you are getting blocking behavior, that's a problem, but not an Inline problem. From the prompt() documentation in EU::MM:

"If prompt() detects that it is not running interactively and there is nothing
on STDIN or if the PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT environment variable is set to true, the
$default will be used without prompting. This prevents automated processes from
blocking on user input."

So the question comes down to why is *your* automated process allowing *prompt()* to block for user input? This line from EU::MM::prompt's source makes me wonder....

if ($ENV{PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT} || (!$isa_tty && eof STDIN)) {

Is it possible that you've got something waiting on STDIN, so the "eof STDIN" test fails? Or is there a problem a few lines earlier when prompt() attempts to detect if it's got a tty or not? One way to test this theory would be to set the environment variable PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT and see if you still get the blocking behavior. Setting it to a true value will short-circuit the test of STDIN being at an eof condition, and I suspect you will no longer block.

Either way, this seems to me to be an interaction between your configuration and EU::MM::prompt. I don't see how it could be something relating to Inline::C's Makefile.PL. If you know otherwise, please do point to the code in Inline::C's Makefile.PL that is blocking... but we already know from the dump of your run that prompt() is blocking.... so the finger points back at prompt(), and how it's interacting with your system. Inline::C's makefile doesn't have control over this, unless we decide that there's some more reliable version of prompt that we could be using, which, given EU::MM's ubiquity, is unlikely.

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT
It's not a matter of "like" -- it's a matter of it stopping at any
interactive prompt (most have some default), and waiting for input.
Then it "pseudo-dies"-- due to hitting the timeout value in my CPAN
config file. (usually set to 15 seconds).

Yes, "like" was the wrong word. It's blocking for you, and that's irritating at best, and definitely not what we have in mind. ...but the question is "why?" And as you dive into the layers of code involved, everything I'm seeing points to how ExtUtils::MakeMaker prompt interacts with your environment. I haven't even looked at the EU::MM bug queue lately to see if others are mentioning such issues... but if they are, that's where I'd expect to see them mentioned.

Post by Linda A Walsh via RT

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
The next issue to consider is how the cpan installer works. The
basic
'cpan' installer (provided by App::cpan) doesn't (to my knowledge)
provide an option for interactive installations.

----
The rest of this seems not relevant, as I don't want interactive, but
during non-interactive build,
1) CPAN pauses at any such point to wait for input (even w/a default)
until it hits the 'inactivity timeout value.
2) Then the exit via signal is detected by CPAN as an error and no
default is taken.

Yes, I agree. If you want non-interactive to progress without blocking, setting cpanminus to interactive mode isnt what you need. When I first read your post you mentioned hitting "y" and not getting response from the keyboard, which is where I derived the relevancy of the --interactive mode in cpanminus. But you just want it to stop blocking. I would too. There are a limited number of places to look for that problem; Makefile.PL, which uses prompt, which comes from EU::MM.

Linda A Walsh via RT

2014-01-24 04:40:24 UTC

Permalink

Thu Jan 23 23:40:23 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by LAWALSH
Queue: Inline
Subject: Re: [rt.cpan.org #92402] Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
if ($ENV{PERL_MM_USE_DEFAULT} || (!$isa_tty && eof STDIN)) {

----
Why is it testing eof on STDIN? That seems wrong.

my setup is in regenerating modules that need to be reinstalled/upgraded or
whatever...

usually something like:

cat /tmp/outdatedmodules|(either a while look if I want to do them 1 at
a time, or .. lately been trying xargs -- the blockages happen either way).

in xarg case:
cat /tmp/mods|xargs -n1 -P8 cpan -i

would be a sample line... I'm not sure what xargs does...but a similar
cat /tmp/mods|while read mod;do
cpan -i "$mod"
done

will create the same type of error (Inline hasn't been the only mod I've
seen this on -- wasn't until I looked into it to try to see why.

I don't see a CPAN option to "take the default" in the config or in cpan's
o config options. Is it documented somewhere?

Post by David J. Oswald via RT
Is it possible that you've got something waiting on STDIN, so the "eof STDIN" test fails?

---
Given there is stdin supplying the list of mods to be built, it is
not impossible -- but I wouldn't think stdin from the input file would be
passed unaltered directly into cpan...

Linda A Walsh via RT

2014-02-17 23:11:03 UTC

Permalink

Mon Feb 17 18:11:02 2014: Request 92402 was acted upon.
Transaction: Correspondence added by LAWALSH
Queue: Inline
Subject: Inline asks interactive question -- but doesn't have keyboard
Broken in: (no value)
Severity: Important
Owner: Nobody
Requestors: pause-***@public.gmane.org
Status: open
Ticket <URL: https://rt.cpan.org/Ticket/Display.html?id=92402 >

FWIW -- I tested this with all 'site' libs removed (trying to only use core mods) and got the same result (I thought it might be due to some module I installed.

Also, no vendor files are installed -- (though this same problem happens on the vendor version as well).