is Inline::C able to use the #line directive?

Theoretically yes. But ...

The XS pre-compiler already uses (something like) this to try and make error messages produce by the C compiler relate to line numbers in the .XS file.

Inline::C extracts the source code from the .pl file, places it into an .XS file with some requisite pre- and post-amble, and then pre-compiles that to produce the the .c file. That then gets compiled to build a .dll/.so binary that is then dynamically linked back to the perl binary at runtime.

I don't think anyone has tried to apply two levels of line control simultaneously. I'm not sure we humans would understand the results :)

I think the best way to enable Inline::C using #line directives would be to implement an xsubpp (== ExtUtils::ParseXS) option to NOT generate #line directives. That shouldn't be hard.

...

Oops! Turns out that's already done! Check out the linenumbers option. I haven't tested it, though.

This being said, I believe Inline::C is a deployment nightmare and should be avoided outside experiments accordingly.

Once you learned the C and perlapi stuff to write Inline::C, XS is child's play.

Check out the linenumbers option.

What "linenumber options"? Options to what?

I believe Inline::C is a deployment nightmare ... XS is child's play.

Inline::C is a much nicer development environment than XS. Edit -> Run; Edit -> Run.

Just like using your favourite dynamic language except for a somewhat extended delay and some annoying trace output.

The only thing that's missing is a "BUILD_DISTRIBUTION => 1" config flag, then it would be perfect.

In theory, automating the generation of a distribution should be simple. At least for anything that doesn't use external libraries.

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