Issue installing System::Timeout qw(timeout); - perl

Question

I am trying to install the timeout_system module. I'm on windows. When I try
cpanm System::Timeout
it fails.
When I try
cpan System::Timeout
I get
C:\Windows\System32>cpan System:Timeout
CPAN: LWP::UserAgent loaded ok (v6.03)
Fetching with LWP:
http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/01mailrc.txt.gz
CPAN: YAML loaded ok (v0.77)
CPAN: CPAN::SQLite loaded ok (v0.202)
Fetching with LWP:
http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/modules/02packages.details.txt.gz
Fetching with LWP:
http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/modules/03modlist.data.gz
Database was generated on Mon, 16 Sep 2013 20:14:09 GMT
Updating database file ...
Done!Running install for module 'System::Timeout'
Running make for C/CH/CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
Fetching with LWP:
http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/id/C/CH/CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
CPAN: Digest::SHA loaded ok (v5.63)
Fetching with LWP:
http://cpan.strawberryperl.com/authors/id/C/CH/CHENGANG/CHECKSUMS
CPAN: Compress::Zlib loaded ok (v2.042)
Checksum for C:\Dwimperl\cpan\sources\authors\id\C\CH\CHENGANG\System-Timeout- 0.07.tar.gz ok
CPAN: Archive::Tar loaded ok (v1.80)
CPAN: File::Temp loaded ok (v0.22)
CPAN: Parse::CPAN::Meta loaded ok (v1.4401)
CPAN: CPAN::Meta loaded ok (v2.120351)
CPAN: Module::CoreList loaded ok (v2.57)
CPAN.pm: Building C/CH/CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good
Writing Makefile for System::Timeout
Writing MYMETA.yml and MYMETA.json
cp lib/System/Timeout.pm blib\lib\System\Timeout.pm
C:\Dwimperl\perl\bin\perl.exe -MExtUtils::Command -e cp -- bin/timeout blib\script\timeout
pl2bat.bat blib\script\timeout
CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
C:\Dwimperl\c\bin\dmake.EXE -- OK
Running make test
C:\Dwimperl\perl\bin\perl.exe "-MExtUtils::Command::MM" "-e" "test_harness(0, 'blib\lib', 'blib\arch')" t/*.t
t/00System-Timeout.t .. 1/9 'sleep' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
'sleep' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.
# Failed test 'system timeout exit code'
# at t/00System-Timeout.t line 21.
Can't find string terminator "'" anywhere before EOF at -e line 1.
# Failed test 'timeout timeout exit code'
# at t/00System-Timeout.t line 27.
# Looks like you failed 2 tests of 9.
t/00System-Timeout.t .. Dubious, test returned 2 (wstat 512, 0x200)
Failed 2/9 subtests
t/01bin-timeout.t ..... '..' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
t/01bin-timeout.t ..... 1/4 '..' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
# Failed test 'bin-timeout exit code'
# at t/01bin-timeout.t line 15.
# Looks like you failed 1 test of 4.
t/01bin-timeout.t ..... Dubious, test returned 1 (wstat 256, 0x100)
Failed 1/4 subtests
Test Summary Report
-------------------
t/00System-Timeout.t (Wstat: 512 Tests: 9 Failed: 2)
Failed tests: 7, 9
Non-zero exit status: 2
t/01bin-timeout.t (Wstat: 256 Tests: 4 Failed: 1)
Failed test: 4
Non-zero exit status: 1
Files=2, Tests=13, 1 wallclock secs ( 0.09 usr + 0.05 sys = 0.14 CPU)
Result: FAIL
Failed 2/2 test programs. 3/13 subtests failed.
dmake.EXE: Error code 129, while making 'test_dynamic'
CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
C:\Dwimperl\c\bin\dmake.EXE test -- NOT OK
//hint// to see the cpan-testers results for installing this module, try:
reports CHENGANG/System-Timeout-0.07.tar.gz
Running make install
make test had returned bad status, won't install without force
C:\Windows\System32>ppm Par-Packer
If anyone has an idea, that would be helpful. I don't have too much experience installing modules in Perl, and it would be very nice to use timeout_system.
Thx
Update: I ended up going with the following:
my $pid = fork();
if (!$pid) {
exec($command);
}
else {
sleep 100;
system("TASKKILL /F /T /PID $$");
}
which works.

Answer 1

I don't think this will work on Windows without change given that forking on Windows does not work the same as on *NIX systems. Installing and testing the dependency module IPC::Cmd via CPAN and running the sample script in the CPAN docs produces the following result...
c:\Perl>perl TEST_IPC_Cmd.pl
Set up gcc environment - 3.4.5 (mingw-vista special r3)
fetched webpage successfully: Continuing in background, pid 5244.
Output will be written to `wget-log.2'.
this is what the command printed:
Continuing in background, pid 5796.
Output will be written to `wget-log.3'.
run_forked is not available: at TEST_IPC_Cmd.pl line 30.
IPC::Open3 available: 1.12IPC::Run available: Can capture buffer: 1
c:\Perl>
Because System::Timeout is just a very simple wrapper around the IPC::Cmd run method (that also sets the timeout property), the IPC::Cmd module would first need modification to run correctly on Windows before System::Timeout would ever work as expected.
In my case, manually installing System::Timeout after installing IPC::Cmd successfully launched a an executable (a Perl one liner) but failed to kill the process after 3 seconds.
#Perl_AAA.pl
use System::Timeout qw(timeout);
print localtime()."\n";
timeout('perl -e "sleep(9); print \"Done\n\";"'); # invoke CORE::system, will not timeout exit
print localtime()."\n";
timeout("3", 'perl -e "sleep(9); print \"Done\n\";"'); # timeout exit after 3 seconds
print localtime()."\n";
print "Normal exit\n";
exit;
Result...
c:\Perl>
c:\Perl>perl TEST_AAA.pl
Thu Oct 17 12:51:22 2013
Done
Thu Oct 17 12:51:31 2013
Running [perl -e "sleep(9); print \"Done\n\";"]...
Done
Thu Oct 17 12:51:40 2013
Normal exit
c:\Perl>