| Subject: | Co-existence with non-Win32 environments |
The exported colour variables seem to cause some trouble if you're writing a module that tries to work on both Win32 and normal ANSI sequence TTYs.
In my case, if we're under Win32, I use console functions to colour my output, if we're under Linux, I just print to STDERR with escape sequences. However, under `use strict`, the variables will not be defined and my module won't compile because I cannot `use Win32::Console` (it is not possible to compile even a stub on Linux, as the compiler says OS not supported). If I predefine the variables (unconditionally, because if is a block, so I can't usefully put a `my` declaration inside it of course), then importing Win32::Console won't override them so all I get is black on black...
The solution seems to be to always refer to these variables with their full names, ie. $Win32::Console::FG_YELLOW, which makes strict and Linux happy, and still works on Windows.
I wonder if there's a better way than the current exporting of variables (`use constant FG_YELLOW`?), or if Win32::Console could be made to compile to a stub module on non-Win32 so it can be used unconditionally and just not get in the way.