Revision history for Perl distribution Win32-UTCFileTime

1.59 2018-07-31

    - Fixed broken link for active bugs on the CPAN Request Tracker.

    - Added optional Changes testing (skipped unless AUTHOR_TESTING).

    - Made Perl Critic, Pod and Pod Coverage tests skip unless AUTHOR_TESTING.

    - Added optional POD coverage testing.

    - Added optional Perl::Critic testing.

    - Made code Perl::Critic clean.

    - Simplified and corrected Makefile.PL requirements.

1.58 2014-05-30

    - Simplified repository metadata for cleaner appearance on search.cpan.org.

1.57 2014-05-16

    - Avoided possible test failures in t/02_file_times.t and t/12_errstr.t by
      avoiding the problem of trying to open a file with a pending delete.

    - Documented a new problem with the _utime() function in Visual Studio 2013
      (VC12)'s C RTL DLL, which this module's replacement utime() function also
      fixes.

    - Incorporated an improvement to the stat(), lstat() and alt_stat()
      functions that was introduced in Perl 5.8.9: These functions now work
      correctly on directories specified with trailing slashses or backslashes,
      even when using an older version of Perl.

    - Incorporated perl's special handling of the file mode field returned by
      stat() when compiled with Borland C++ into alt_stat() so that the field is
      no longer set differently to perl for that compiler.

    - Changed the Microsoft C library function call _get_osfhandle() to Perl's
      exported function win32_get_osfhandle() so that it should not fail due to
      the file descriptor passed to it being unrecognized.  This could
      previously happen if this module was built by a compiler that used a
      different C RTL DLL to that used by the compiler used to build perl.  This
      restores support for such configurations, which was added in version 1.33,
      but was broken if Visual Studio 2005 (VC8) or later was used to build this
      module because the failing _get_osfhandle() call would actually crash the
      program due to the new default invalid parameter handler.

      It appears that using different compilers (and hence potentially different
      C RTL DLLs) is safe now that the potential problem in doing so has been
      removed, so the rudimentary checks on the compiler versions in Makefile.PL
      have been removed too.  Note, however, that there is still a compatibility
      problem when building this module with Visual Studio .NET 2002/2003 (VC7)
      or earlier if your perl was built with Visual Studio 2005 (VC8) or later:
      see Perl RT#121448.  However, that is quite an unlikely scenario, so it is
      not worth checking for in Makefile.PL.

    - Changed all PerlLIO_*() function calls to the corresponding lowio
      functions: they should be redefined as necessary by perl's header files
      anyway, which is indeed the case in perl-5.8.1 and above, at least -- see
      the exchanges between myself and Jan Dubois on the "perl5-porters" mailing
      list, 04-05 Mar 2010, for more details on this.

    - Uploaded source code to GitHub and included repository URLs in metadata.

    - Included META.json file in addition to META.yml.

    - Simplified Makefile.PL commands for making a new distribution archive.

    - Bumped minimum required ExtUtils::MakeMaker version to 6.66 to allow
      building with 64-bit perl (otherwise the build fails with errors about
      fakethr.h and perlsfio.h).

    - Reverted to plain old ExtUtils::MakeMaker for building, now that that's
      more fully maintained again.  Module::Install has virtually died a death,
      and Module::Build is no better either.  Require a fairly recent version
      (6.64) to ensure that all parameters used are supported, to save jumping
      through hoops to support earlier versions.  (This should not be a problem
      since ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.64 is easily installed into Perl 5.8.1 and
      above, that being the whole point of the new choice of minimum supported
      Perl version.)

    - Bumped minimum required Perl version from 5.6.0 to 5.8.1.  This is in line
      with the minimum requirement of the "Perl Toolchain".

1.56 2013-07-08

    - Corrected typo in a comment.  [<dsteinbrunner@pobox.com>, CPAN RT#86749]

1.55 2012-03-20

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.07.

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 1.06 of that distribution.

1.54 2012-03-05

    - Fixed a bug in the Win32UTCFileTime_SetUTCFileTimes() C function (used by
      the replacement utime() function) in which a file descriptor was wrongly
      being left open, with only its underlying file object handle being closed.
      Added new test scripts to check that none of the functions are now leaking
      filehandles.  [CPAN RT#65095]

1.53 2012-02-28

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 1.04 of that distribution.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.20 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

1.52 2009-10-25

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.91 of that distribution.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.19 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

1.51 2009-10-11

    - Declare all core module dependencies in the Makefile.PL as well as the
      existing CPAN module dependencies.  [Cf. CPAN RT#50107]

1.50 2008-08-25

    - Silenced a warning from Visual Studio 2005 (VC8) onwards, which now
      defines time_t as a 64-bit integer by default.  A better solution to take
      advantage of the larger time_t size may be forthcoming.

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.77 of that distribution.

    - Changed the use of "eval { ... };" to test the return value rather than $@
      since under certain circumstances $@ can end up undefined after a failed
      eval.

1.49 2008-07-09

    - Changed dwDesiredAccess and dwShareMode flags in the CreateFile() calls in
      stat() and alt_stat() from GENERIC_READ and FILE_SHARE_READ to 0 and 0 as
      per the CreateFile() call in Perl's own win32_stat().  This allows those
      functions to operate on a file that is opened by another process that is
      denying access to other processes trying to read the file.  [CPAN
      RT#37535]

1.48 2008-07-06

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.06 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * Added the magic "OS unsupported" phrase to Makefile.PL's die() message
        so that CPAN Testers report "N/A" rather than "FAIL" on OSes where the
        appropriate C compiler cannot be found.

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.75 of that distribution.
      Changed Makefile.PL appropriately to cope with a non-backwards-compatible
      change in the (undocumented) recommends() method.

    - Added full paths to Cygwin tools used when creating the distribution.

1.47 2008-06-30

    - Added the magic "OS unsupported" phrase to Makefile.PL's die() message so
      that CPAN Testers report "N/A" rather than "FAIL" on non-Win32 OSes.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.14 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

1.46 2007-07-10

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.05 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * Fixed the compiler version checking on Win32 for Visual Studio 2005
        (VC8), which now uses four numbers separated by dots for its compiler
        version.
        
    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.65 of that distribution.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.11 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

    - Added comments to MANIFEST file.

1.45 2006-02-14

    - Fixed all the functions so that they work correctly on FAT drives.

      Previous versions of this module made some erroneous assumptions about the
      behaviour of certain Win32 API functions that were used in the solutions
      implemented here, leading to incorrect behaviour on FAT drives.  In fact,
      the test suite did not even pass all tests on FAT drives.

      The new solutions are much simpler, and all tests now pass on both NTFS
      and FAT drives, on Windows NT 4.0 Workstation, Windows 2000 Professional
      and Windows XP Professional (at least).

      [Wayne Scott <wsc9tt@gmail.com>]

    - Fixes for building with Borland C++:

      * Used <dos.h> instead of <direct.h> for the declaration of _getdrive();

      * Added definition of _dev_t, which Borland C++ omits;

      * Skipped some directory mode tests because Borland's stat(2) sets the
        mode differently to Microsoft's stat(2), emulated by alt_stat().

      This module should now build (and test) cleanly with perls built using
      Borland C++ and dmake.

    - Changed various "use MODULE;" lines to be explicit about what is being
      imported, and in particular to not import things that are not required.

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.04 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * Fixed the handling of user-input relative directory paths so that they
        are converted to absolute paths before use in case the Makefile.PL has
        changed to another directory in the meantime;

      * Renamed lots of methods for a better naming convention.

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.56 of that distribution.
      This includes Module::AutoInstall, which supersedes ExtUtils::AutoInstall.
      Changed Makefile.PL appropriately to take advantage of the new features.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.08 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

    - Modified PREOP key in the dist option in Makefile.PL to ensure files are
      all Windows end-of-line format.

    - Corrected spelling mistakes and improved the grammar in some of the
      documentation.

1.44 2005-09-02

    - Changed test scripts from using Test to Test::More for better diagnostic
      output in case of failures.

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.03 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * Relaxed the compiler version checking so that only the major version
        numbers have to match (and also the minor version numbers for Visual
        Studio .NET 2002/2003 (VC7) and later, which use C RTL DLLs named
        msvcr70.dll, msvcr71.dll, etc)  [Sisyphus <sisyphus1@optusnet.com.au> on
        the PAR mailing list (par@perl.org)];

      * Fixed the parsing of bcc32's output as per Perl core change #24855.

    - Dropped the use of I<> for Perl variables in POD, in line with changes
      made (some time ago) to the perlpod manpage (Perl core change #12542).

    - Corrected spelling mistake: INITIALISATION should be INITIALIZATION.

    - Updated Module::Install and ExtUtils::AutoInstall components from versions
      0.37 and 0.62 of those distributions respectively.

1.43 2005-06-01

    - Updated Module::Install::PRIVATE to version 1.02 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * ExtUtils::AutoInstall command-line options are now better supported,
        fixing problems with custom option handling that did not recognize them;

      * Errors now croak() rather than die() so that the error messages look a
        little more friendly;

      * If the "auto install" checks loaded Test::Builder then that module's
        cleanup diagnostic code is now skipped, which suppresses the somewhat
        confusing (given the context) message

          # Looks like your test died before it could output anything.

        in the event of any subsequent error that causes Makefile.PL to croak().

1.42 2005-03-03

    - Included Module::Install::PRIVATE version 1.01 for Makefile.PL
      improvements:

      * Added code to try to check that on Win32 the same compiler is being used
        to build this module as was used to build perl itself to avoid problems
        with binaries built by different compiler versions loading different C
        RTL DLLs.

    - Added a recommendation for Test::Pod to Makefile.PL to test the POD when
      building these modules.  Included ExtUtils::AutoInstall to facilitate
      this.

    - Updated ppport.h using version 3.06 of the Devel::PPPort distribution.

    - Corrected spelling mistakes: categorise, emphasise, initialise, realise,
      specialise, summarise and synchronise are more properly spelled
      categorize, emphasize, initialize, realize, specialize, summarize and
      synchronize respectively.

    - Corrected "daylight savings time" to "daylight saving time" (except in
      Microsoft Knowledge Base article titles) in the POD.

    - Fixed up copyright years in all files to reflect which files actually
      changed in each year.

1.41 2004-12-12

    - Moved XSLoader::load() call inside BEGIN subroutine as recommended by the
      XSLoader manpage.  This means that the XSUBs are now installed before the
      rest of the Perl module is compiled, and hence their prototypes are now
      known, and can be checked, during the remaining compilation.

1.40 2004-10-31

    - Removed $Debug variable and introduced new $ErrStr variable.

      Instead of callers having no clue as to why a function failed unless an
      error happens to be in $! and/or $^E or they had $Debug set to a true
      value, they can now inspect the $ErrStr variable to obtain the reason for
      the failure, much like the use of $! and $^E themselves, except that
      $ErrStr will always be set when a function fails, even if the last error
      did not relate to a system call or Win32 API call.

      Note that $! and/or $^E will continue to be set as well wherever they were
      previously being set, so existing code that inspects those variables will
      not be affected.  Callers should simply consider inspecting $ErrStr
      instead in the future.

      The only backwards compatibility issue here is the removal of the $Debug
      variable, which is unlikely to affect most production systems.

    - Updated documentation and tests for these changes.

    - Renamed some functions, macros and external variables in the XS and C code
      to use names that are more likely to be unique to this code, namely
      Win32UTCFileTime_*() for functions, WIN32_UTCFILETIME_* for macros and
      win32_utcfiletime_* for external variables.

    - Introduced use of *MY_CXT* macros etc for handling static data in the C
      code to make the module thread-safe.

    - Reinstated ppport.h to provide *MY_CXT* macros etc for Perls older than
      5.7.3 (or 5.9.2 in the case of MY_CXT_CLONE).

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.36 of that distribution.

1.33 2004-08-08

    - Added a check to the return value from the _get_osfhandle() call in the
      _SetUTCFileTimes() C function (used by the replacement utime() function)
      so that we do not try to continue with an invalid handle.

    - Also added an extra attempt at continuing in the above scenario by closing
      the previously opened file descriptor and trying to open an operating-
      system file handle directly instead, and modified the similar existing
      case intended to cover directories to always retry rather than only when
      errno was set to EACCES because (a) the debug message was misleading
      (errno is set to EACCES for read-only files too) and (b) errno is not
      always reliably set (see below).

      This module now appears to function correctly when built using the free
      Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 compiler in conjunction with a perl (e.g.
      ActivePerl Build 810) that was built using Visual C++ 6.0.  (Passing file
      descriptors, errno and other such resources between the different C RTL
      DLLs used by those compilers (msvcr71.dll and msvcrt.dll respectively)
      does not work.)

      Using such mismatched C RTL DLLs, however, has to be seen as undesirable
      and may not always work.

      Added a note to the INSTALL file that if possible the same compiler should
      be used to build this module as was used to build perl itself.

      [Robert Rothenberg <rrwo@cpan.org> on CPAN Testers Reports
      (http://www.cpantesters.org/)]

1.32 2004-08-01

    - Removed standard modules from the list of pre-requisites in Makefile.PL
      (since a minimum required Perl version is given anyway).

    - Updated Module::Install components from version 0.35 of that distribution
      and changed Makefile.PL to use abstract_from() now that it is fixed.

    - Changed INSTALL document and Makefile.PL to remove requirement for Visual
      C++, and mention dmake.

    - This module should now build cleanly with perls built using MinGW / dmake.

    - Changed various standard C library function calls to their Perl
      replacement functions.

    - Improved warning and error messages to include the message string for the
      relevant standard C library errno or Win32 API last-error code where
      appropriate.

    - Fixed a bug in the _SetUTCFileTimes() C function (used by the replacement
      utime() function) in which a file handle was wrongly being closed twice.
      The inevitable failure of the second attempted closure had gone unnoticed
      because the error checking code was also faulty :(

    - Changed return value from the private _set_utc_file_times() XSUB so that
      if it fails when called in list context then it returns an empty list
      rather than a single "false" value (which would be seen as "true" in list
      context).  (It is not currently called in list context anyway; this is
      just defensive programming.)

1.31 2004-02-26

    - Use Module::Install as a front-end to ExtUtils::MakeMaker.  The same build
      script can also be used as a front-end to Module::Build in due course
      (once problems building XS modules with Module::Build are ironed out), and
      it also creates a META.yml file that contains a "license" key, which
      http://search.cpan.org/ makes use of.

    - Added new test to check for POD errors if Test::Pod is available.

1.30 2004-02-22

    - Changed stat(), lstat() and alt_stat() to use $_ if no argument is given,
      as per the Perl built-in functions.

    - Added new test script to exercise this new feature.

    - Clarified licence and warranty for the module, and included relevant
      licence files in the distribution.

    - Moved installation instructions to a separate INSTALL file.

    - Added PREOP to the dist option in Makefile.PL to ensure permissions are
      set correctly within the distdir (since they often are not set correctly
      in the top-level directory when working on Windows) to stop CPANTS from
      complaining about bad permissions.

    - Added COMPRESS (and SUFFIX) and ZIPFLAGS to the dist option in Makefile.PL
      to enable "best compression" for gzip when running "nmake dist" and for
      zip when running "nmake zipdist" respectively.

    - Added clean option to Makefile.PL to have the const-c.inc and const-xs.inc
      files deleted by "nmake clean".

    - Added MANIFEST.SKIP to stop "nmake distcheck" from producing bogus
      warnings.

    - Moved UTCFileTime.pm into lib/Win32/ sub-directory within distribution.
      This is the new layout style produced by h2xs as of version 1.23.

    - Removed ppport.h since no use was being made of it.  (This module builds
      on Perl installations back to 5.6.0, both with and without ithreads,
      without needing any portability fixups.)

1.20 2003-09-24

    - Introduced an alternative C stat(2) function from CVSNT and Perl code that
      can succeed in some cases where Microsoft's implementation fails.  A Perl
      interface, alt_stat(), is optionally exported, and can be automatically
      tried by the replacement stat() and lstat() functions if the built-in
      functions that they call first fail.

    - Changed the replacement utime()'s use of Perl's trick for making it work
      on directories too.  The trick only works under Windows NT platforms, so
      it is more appropriate to try a more natural approach first and only fall
      back on the trick if that fails.  This is the approach that Perl uses too.

    - Improved the replacement stat() and lstat() functions by having them fall
      back on CreateFile() if FindFirstFile() fails when getting the correct UTC
      file times.  The file times can now be retrieved under Windows NT
      platforms for root (drive or UNC) directories, and for directories
      specified with a trailing slash or backslash.

    - Improved the detection of the filesystem when determining whether it
      stores UTC file times.

    - Cached the conversion of the base SYSTEMTIME to FILETIME for a minor
      speed-up.

    - Changed the output of debug information to use warn() rather than simply
      print()ing to STDERR to enable the information to be captured by a
      $SIG{__WARN__} handler if required.

    - Added new test scripts to exercise the new and improved features.

    - Renamed some functions in the XS and C code.

    - Reverted the typemap for "const char *" back to the default T_PV.  There
      did not seem to be any point in the custom typemap.

    - Changed tabs to spaces (via "expand -t 4 infile > outfile") to avoid
      irritation when switching between editors that use 4- or 8-space tabs.

    - Added META.yml (courtesy of ExtUtils::MakeMaker 6.17).

1.10 2003-06-23

    - Incorporated improvements to the underlying C code from CVSNT code.  The
      DST season transition dates are now correctly calculated (assuming that
      they are not determined by year-specific clues), rather than assuming the
      United States' rule applies.

1.00 2003-06-05

    - First released version.

0.01 2003-05-20

    - Original version; created by h2xs 1.22 with options:
      -n Win32::UTCFileTime -b 5.6.0
