Can't find DLL for bundled Tkx application

[Michael Carman]

I'm having difficulties using pp to create a self-contained executable
of a Tkx application. Tkx depends on tkkit.dll, which isn't found when I
try to run the program:

Failed to load Tcl dll! at ...DynaLoader.pm line 224.

Tcl.pm is looking through @INC for auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll. If I open the exe
file using IZarc I can see that the DLL has been included under
/inc/lib/auto/Tcl. I checked the run cache and it isn't getting unpacked
(anywhere). For fun I copied tkkit.dll into /inc/lib/auto/Tcl and my
application ran, so this appears to be my only stumbling block.

I found a thread[1] in the archives that suggested using the -l <lib>
option. If I do that the DLL does get unpacked to the cache root, but
Tcl.pm can't find it there.

Is there anything I can do about this?

-mjc

[1] http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.par/2004/08/msg1625.html

[Jan Dubois]

You should be able to set the PERL_TCL_DL_PATH environment variable
to point to the tkkit.dll. You need to do this in a BEGIN block
before you "use" the Tcl or Tkx modules.

Cheers,
-Jan

[Steffen Mueller]

Hi Michael, hi Jan,

Jan Dubois wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, Michael Carman wrote:
>> I'm having difficulties using pp to create a self-contained executable
>> of a Tkx application. Tkx depends on tkkit.dll, which isn't found when I
>> try to run the program:
>>
>> Failed to load Tcl dll! at ...DynaLoader.pm line 224.
>>
>> Tcl.pm is looking through @INC for auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll. If I open the exe
>> file using IZarc I can see that the DLL has been included under
>> /inc/lib/auto/Tcl. I checked the run cache and it isn't getting unpacked
>> (anywhere). For fun I copied tkkit.dll into /inc/lib/auto/Tcl and my
>> application ran, so this appears to be my only stumbling block.

There's code in PAR to skip unpacking shared objects to arbitrary
locations. The whole shared library aspect could do with a make-over, I
have to admit.

>> I found a thread[1] in the archives that suggested using the -l <lib>
>> option. If I do that the DLL does get unpacked to the cache root, but
>> Tcl.pm can't find it there.

In the cache root or in $cache_root . "/shlib"?

>> Is there anything I can do about this?
>
> You should be able to set the PERL_TCL_DL_PATH environment variable
> to point to the tkkit.dll. You need to do this in a BEGIN block
> before you "use" the Tcl or Tkx modules.

If you want the program to run with- or without PAR, you can check the
PAR_PROGNAME environment variable:

# untested!
use File::Spec;
use Config ();
if (exists $ENV{PAR_PROGNAME}) {
$ENV{PERL_TCL_DL_PATH} = File::Spec->catfile($ENV{PAR_TEMP}, 'shlib',
'tkkit.'.$Config::Config{dlext});
}

A final thing you could try is adding the shared object file to
inc/lib/auto/Tcl with -atkkit.dll;lib/auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll but I fear that
won't make the extraction code extract it either.

Now that I think about it, you can probably use
PAR::read_file("lib/auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll") to get the contents of the file
(hopefully in binmode) and write them to wherever you like.
PAR::par_handle() can return the Archive::Zip handle of any of the
loaded .par files including the running executable. TIMTOWTDI, I'm afraid.

Best regards,
Steffen

[Michael Carman]

Steffen Mueller wrote:
>> On Fri, 26 Sep 2008, Michael Carman wrote:
>>> Tkx depends on tkkit.dll, which isn't found when I try to run the

>>> program [...] I found a thread in the archives that suggested

>>> using the -l <lib> option. If I do that the DLL does get unpacked
>>> to the cache root, but Tcl.pm can't find it there.
>
> In the cache root or in $cache_root . "/shlib"?

It gets unpacked to the cache root. In the *.exe it's under
/shlib/MSWin32-x86-multi-thread.

>> You should be able to set the PERL_TCL_DL_PATH environment variable
>> to point to the tkkit.dll. You need to do this in a BEGIN block
>> before you "use" the Tcl or Tkx modules.
>

> If you want the program to run with or without PAR, you can check the
> PAR_PROGNAME environment variable:

I do. That's just what I needed to make the $ENV{PERL_TCL_DL_PATH}
option usable. Thank you!

> A final thing you could try is adding the shared object file to
> inc/lib/auto/Tcl with -atkkit.dll;lib/auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll but I fear
> that won't make the extraction code extract it either.

Nope. That's the first thing I tried when I thought that the library
wasn't getting included in the archive. It was; it just doesn't get
extracted from there.

> you can probably use PAR::read_file("lib/auto/Tcl/tkkit.dll") to get
> the contents of the file (hopefully in binmode) and write them to
> wherever you like.

In this case it's easier to set $ENV{PERL_TCL_DL_PATH}, but that's good
to know if I ever don't have another option.

-mjc