Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript

Michael Vincent

@PeterJones said in Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript:

(Now you just need to come up with the logic to search all the included library modules as well… or, um, maybe not.)

I thought I read somewhere: “only perl can parse Perl”. I originally wrote this in PerlScript since it was more familiar to me and then just had my PythonScript so a subprocess(['perl', 'perl_ide.pl' ... but that was awful slow and launched a CMD window - so I ported the whole thing to Python.

I’ve been looking at Perl Language Servers but that would require a Notepad++Language Server client (the topic in the post I linked to at the beginning). One mentions integrating plsense which looks amazing!

I liked @Ekopalypse approach of this lightweight way to go with a scripting plugin. I have my cTags plugin helping with autocomplete across my Perl scripts in the same hierarchy and NppEventExec can be set to perl -c on file save. Not sure what else we can do to parse Perl with Python to make this “Perl IDE” better, but certainly open to suggestions!

Cheers.

Ekopalypse

@Michael-Vincent

does perl, itself, has a feature of parsing. By that I mean builtin not by
using perl -module.pm script.pm

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse ,

“builtin” – not quite; perl -c does a compile check, but doesn’t give you the full parse…

There is the CORE module B::Deparse, which runs as perl -MO=Deparse script.pl, which comes closer – though I’ve never used it except when replicating experiments shown by perlmonks experts, so I don’t really know how to use it. (CORE is defined as the set of modules that ship with Perl, by default, and are normally assumed to be present; though there are minimalist distributions of Perl which don’t include all of CORE.)

But with Perl, you can do some pretty powerful stuff (like define an anonymous subroutine, then manually assign it to a slot in any namespace, so that from the user’s point of view, there is no difference between that and a subroutine that had been defined by a traditional sub name { ... } block. I don’t know how well Deparse works with those.

The thought behind “only perl can parse Perl” is that, by Perl’s very nature, if you create an executable that’s capable of parsing any arbitrary correct Perl code, that executable is effectively an implementation of the perl executable.

Michael Vincent

@Ekopalypse said in Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript:

does perl, itself, has a feature of parsing

@PeterJones probably knows better than I (EDIT: HE ALSO TYPES FASTER!!!) but I don’t think so. perl -c will “compile / check” to make sure your code is valid without actually running it. That would be the equivalent to maybe the “lint” feature in your Python IDE script.

To actually parse the Perl and return methods for objects, you’d need something like plsense modified to work in this environment. There is also Perl::LanguageServer which seems to be the most complete Perl Language Server but note it does not work on Windows (so says the README) and it requires a Language Server Client - NppLSP - but as discussed, it’s very alpha.

Cheers.

Ekopalypse

i was thinking - can we use perl.dll in some way?
It seems to export a lot of stuff.

Ekopalypse

it has

...
 806  325 00023D20 Perl_parse_arithexpr
 807  326 00023D90 Perl_parse_barestmt
 808  327 00023D60 Perl_parse_block
 809  328 00023D50 Perl_parse_fullexpr
 810  329 00024130 Perl_parse_fullstmt
 811  32A 00023DC0 Perl_parse_label
 812  32B 00023D40 Perl_parse_listexpr
 813  32C 00024160 Perl_parse_stmtseq
 814  32D 00023D30 Perl_parse_termexpr
 815  32E 00039A50 Perl_parse_uniprop_string
 816  32F 0009B3C0 Perl_parser_dup
...

Ekopalypse

@Ekopalypse

there is even an exported function RunPerl

EXTERN_C DllExport int
RunPerl(int argc, char **argv, char **env)
{
    int exitstatus;
    PerlInterpreter *my_perl, *new_perl = NULL;
    bool use_environ = (env == environ);

#ifdef PERL_GLOBAL_STRUCT
#define PERLVAR(prefix,var,type) /**/
#define PERLVARA(prefix,var,type) /**/
#define PERLVARI(prefix,var,type,init) PL_Vars.prefix##var = init;
#define PERLVARIC(prefix,var,type,init) PL_Vars.prefix##var = init;
#include "perlvars.h"
#undef PERLVAR
#undef PERLVARA
#undef PERLVARI
#undef PERLVARIC
#endif

    PERL_SYS_INIT(&argc,&argv);

    if (!(my_perl = perl_alloc()))
	return (1);
    perl_construct(my_perl);
    PL_perl_destruct_level = 0;

    /* PERL_SYS_INIT() may update the environment, e.g. via ansify_path().
     * This may reallocate the RTL environment block. Therefore we need
     * to make sure that `env` continues to have the same value as `environ`
     * if we have been called this way.  If we have been called with any
     * other value for `env` then all environment munging by PERL_SYS_INIT()
     * will be lost again.
     */
    if (use_environ)
        env = environ;

    if (!perl_parse(my_perl, xs_init, argc, argv, env)) {
#if defined(TOP_CLONE) && defined(USE_ITHREADS)		/* XXXXXX testing */
	new_perl = perl_clone(my_perl, 1);
	(void) perl_run(new_perl);
	PERL_SET_THX(my_perl);
#else
	(void) perl_run(my_perl);
#endif
    }

    exitstatus = perl_destruct(my_perl);
    perl_free(my_perl);
#ifdef USE_ITHREADS
    if (new_perl) {
	PERL_SET_THX(new_perl);
	exitstatus = perl_destruct(new_perl);
	perl_free(new_perl);
    }
#endif

    PERL_SYS_TERM();

    return (exitstatus);
}

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse ,

I don’t know the guts (I was going to say “very well”, but that would be understatement; I think the unqualified comes closest to the truth), but perldoc perlembed shows how to embed the perl interpreter into an application, and takes a bit about perl_parse and perl_run.

But I wouldn’t know where to begin on using those functions, or even the output of -MO=Deparse, and implementing a stronger version of what @Michael-Vincent has shown. And even if I did, I already have my huge project of the Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus which isn’t quite to where I want it, and the PerlScript plugin wrapper that I haven’t even started writing yet – and I cannot take on another big project until I’ve got those to a reasonably-functional level.

Ekopalypse

@PeterJones

no problem … I was curious and played already a bit with it.
If I’m right, then 5 lines of pythonscript might give you an embedded perl.

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse said in Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript:

5 lines of pythonscript might give you an embedded perl.

Oh, the irony. :-)

Ekopalypse

@PeterJones

:-D

this seems to do something, not sure what but it doesn’t crash my npp … so … still crossing fingers ;-)

from ctypes import CDLL, POINTER, c_int, c_char_p

perllib = CDLL(r'd:\perl\bin\perl531.dll')

["-le", "print 'something \"with\" quotes';"]

perllib.RunPerl.restype = c_int
perllib.RunPerl.argtypes = c_int, POINTER(c_char_p), POINTER(c_char_p)
args = (c_char_p * 2)(b"-le", b"print 'something \"with\" quotes';")
print(perllib.RunPerl(len(args),args, None))

Ekopalypse

@PeterJones

can you give me a qiuck “Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus for dummies äh ekopalypses” to open a new npp buffer?

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse ,

From the command line, to just open a new file tab:

perl -le "use Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus qw/:main/; notepad->newFile();"

If you want to call a script.pl instead,

use Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus qw/:main/; 
notepad->newFile();

But that assumes that perl has the right @INC (include library paths) to find Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus.

Ekopalypse

@PeterJones

D:\perl\bin>perl D:\temp\perl\Win32-Mechanize-NotepadPlusPlus-0.005\Makefile.PL
Could not open 'lib/Win32/Mechanize/NotepadPlusPlus.pm': No such file or directory at D:/perl/lib/ExtUtils/MM_Unix.pm line 2973.

Now you know why I said “… for ekopalypses” ;-)

Ekopalypse

hah, it is the other way around … from within the source call perl …

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse said in Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript:

@PeterJones

D:\perl\bin>perl D:\temp\perl\Win32-Mechanize-NotepadPlusPlus-0.005\Makefile.PL
Could not open 'lib/Win32/Mechanize/NotepadPlusPlus.pm': No such file or directory at D:/perl/lib/ExtUtils/MM_Unix.pm line 2973.

For the installation, you need to be in the D:\temp\perl\Win32-Mechanize-NotepadPlusPlus-0.005\ directory, and run d:\perl\bin\perl Makefile.PL instead: you need to be in the same directory as the Makefile.PL, so that the relative paths are all correct.

Ekopalypse

@PeterJones

and then I used nmake to create the pm’s.
I’ve copied the resulting Win32 to …/perl/lib/
but now I get Can't locate Win32/API.pm in @INC (you may need to install the Win32::API module) (@INC contains: d:/perl/site/lib d:/perl/lib) at d:/perl/lib/Win32/Mechanize/NotepadPlusPlus/Notepad.pm line 9.

PeterJones

@Ekopalypse ,

The other thing I realized: you probably won’t have all the prerequisite modules installed. I normally use the cpanm utility, which distributes with strawberry perl, and that automatically downloads and installs prereqs before the module you’re trying to install. Without such a tool (and if you built your own perl, which I think you did to get the DLL), I don’t know that you have that.

I think the make process will tell you what prereqs you’re missing … but it’s been a long time since I’ve done a complicated manual install of a module.

Oh, yep, there, you posted the error while I was typing. You’re going to have to install at least Win32::API first… doing that manually is a pain.

When you built your own perl, did you at least get cpan, if not cpanm? I think one or both would be in the same directory as perl.exe… if you have cpanm, just do cpanm Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus, and everything should work. If you have just cpan, I forget whether it handles prereqs; try cpan Win32::Mechanize::NotepadPlusPlus; if that’s not sufficient, do the missing prereqs one at a time with the cpan client. If you have neither… um… That’s going to be tough.

Michael Vincent

@PeterJones said in Perl subroutine calltips - with PythonScript:

If you have just cpan, I forget whether it handles prereqs

I believe it does - I normally just use CPAN and it fetches what I need to build.

Cheers.

Ekopalypse

I have cpan and it keeps installing stuff - did I choose to install the world??