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1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you |
2 | see. It is written in the POD format (see perlpod manpage) which is |
3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
4 | |
5 | =head1 NAME |
6 | |
7 | perlos2 - Perl under OS/2, Win0.31, Win0.95 and WinNT. |
8 | |
9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
10 | |
11 | One can read this document in the following formats: |
12 | |
13 | man perlos2 |
14 | view perl perlos2 |
15 | explorer perlos2.html |
16 | info perlos2 |
17 | |
18 | to list some (not all may be available simultaneously), or it may |
19 | be read I<as is>: either as F<README.os2>, or F<pod/perlos2.pod>. |
20 | |
21 | =cut |
22 | |
23 | Contents |
24 | |
25 | perlos2 - Perl under OS/2 |
26 | |
27 | NAME |
28 | SYNOPSIS |
29 | DESCRIPTION |
30 | - Target |
31 | - Other OSes |
32 | - Prerequisites |
33 | - Starting Perl programs under OS/2 |
34 | - Starting OS/2 programs under Perl |
35 | Frequently asked questions |
36 | - I cannot run extenal programs |
37 | - I cannot embed perl into my program, or use perl.dll from my program. |
38 | INSTALLATION |
39 | - Automatic binary installation |
40 | - Manual binary installation |
41 | - Warning |
42 | Accessing documentation |
43 | - OS/2 .INF file |
44 | - Plain text |
45 | - Manpages |
46 | - HTML |
47 | - GNU info files |
48 | - .PDF files |
49 | - LaTeX docs |
50 | BUILD |
51 | - Prerequisites |
52 | - Getting perl source |
53 | - Application of the patches |
54 | - Hand-editing |
55 | - Making |
56 | - Testing |
57 | - Installing the built perl |
58 | - a.out-style build |
59 | Build FAQ |
60 | - Some / became \ in pdksh. |
61 | - 'errno' - unresolved external |
62 | - Problems with tr |
63 | - Some problem (forget which ;-) |
64 | - Library ... not found |
65 | - Segfault in make |
66 | Specific (mis)features of OS/2 port |
67 | - setpriority, getpriority |
68 | - system() |
69 | - Additional modules: |
70 | - Prebuilt methods: |
71 | - Misfeatures |
72 | Perl flavors |
73 | - perl.exe |
74 | - perl_.exe |
75 | - perl__.exe |
76 | - perl___.exe |
77 | - Why strange names? |
78 | - Why dynamic linking? |
79 | - Why chimera build? |
80 | ENVIRONMENT |
81 | - PERLLIB_PREFIX |
82 | - PERL_BADLANG |
83 | - PERL_BADFREE |
84 | - PERL_SH_DIR |
85 | - TMP or TEMP |
86 | Evolution |
87 | - Priorities |
88 | - DLL name mungling |
89 | - Threading |
90 | - Calls to external programs |
91 | AUTHOR |
92 | SEE ALSO |
93 | |
94 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
95 | |
96 | =head2 Target |
97 | |
98 | The target is to make OS/2 the best supported platform for |
99 | using/building/developping Perl and I<Perl applications>, as well as |
100 | make Perl the best language to use under OS/2. |
101 | |
102 | The current state is quite close to this target. Known limitations: |
103 | |
104 | =over 5 |
105 | |
106 | =item * |
107 | |
108 | Some *nix programs use fork() a lot, but currently fork() is not |
109 | supported after I<use>ing dynamically loaded extensions. |
110 | |
111 | =item * |
112 | |
113 | You need a separate perl executable F<perl__.exe> (see L<perl__.exe>) |
114 | to use PM code in your application (like the forthcoming Perl/Tk). |
115 | |
116 | =item * |
117 | |
118 | There is no simple way to access B<WPS> objects. The only way I know |
119 | is via C<OS2::REXX> extension (see L<OS2::REXX>), and we do not have access to |
120 | convinience methods of B<Object REXX>. (Is it possible at all? I know |
121 | of no B<Object-REXX> API.) |
122 | |
123 | =back |
124 | |
125 | Please keep this list up-to-date by informing me about other items. |
126 | |
127 | =head2 Other OSes |
128 | |
129 | Since OS/2 port of perl uses a remarkable B<EMX> environment, it can |
130 | run (and build extensions, and - possibly - be build itself) under any |
131 | environment which can run EMX. The current list is DOS, |
132 | DOS-inside-OS/2, Win0.31, Win0.95 and WinNT. Out of many perl flavors, |
133 | only one works, see L<"perl_.exe">. |
134 | |
135 | Note that not all features of Perl are available under these |
136 | environments. This depends on the features the I<extender> - most |
137 | probably C<RSX> - decided to implement. |
138 | |
139 | Cf. L<Prerequisites>. |
140 | |
141 | =head2 Prerequisites |
142 | |
143 | =over 6 |
144 | |
145 | =item B<EMX> |
146 | |
147 | B<EMX> runtime is required. Note that it is possible to make F<perl_.exe> |
148 | to run under DOS without any external support by binding F<emx.exe> to |
149 | it, see L<emxbind>. |
150 | |
151 | Only the latest runtime is supported, currently C<0.9c>. |
152 | |
153 | One can get different parts of B<EMX> from, say |
154 | |
155 | ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/emx0.9c/ |
156 | ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/unix/gnu/ |
157 | |
158 | The runtime component should have the name F<emxrt.zip>. |
159 | |
160 | =item B<RSX> |
161 | |
162 | To run Perl on C<DPMS> platforms one needs B<RSX> runtime. This is |
163 | needed under DOS-inside-OS/2, Win0.31, Win0.95 and WinNT (see |
164 | L<"Other OSes">). |
165 | |
166 | One can get B<RSX> from, say |
167 | |
168 | ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/emx0.9c/contrib |
169 | ftp://ftp.uni-bielefeld.de/pub/systems/msdos/misc |
170 | |
171 | Contact the author on C<rainer@mathematik.uni-bielefeld.de>. |
172 | |
173 | =item B<HPFS> |
174 | |
175 | Perl does not care about file systems, but to install the whole perl |
176 | library intact one needs a file system which supports long file names. |
177 | |
178 | Note that if you do not plan to build the perl itself, it may be |
179 | possible to fool B<EMX> to truncate file names. This is not supported, |
180 | read B<EMX> docs to see how to do it. |
181 | |
182 | =back |
183 | |
184 | =head2 Starting Perl programs under OS/2 |
185 | |
186 | Start your Perl program F<foo.pl> with arguments C<arg1 arg2 arg3> the |
187 | same way as on any other platform, by |
188 | |
189 | perl foo.pl arg1 arg2 arg3 |
190 | |
191 | If you want to specify perl options C<-my_opts> to the perl itself (as |
192 | opposed to to your program), use |
193 | |
194 | perl -my_opts foo.pl arg1 arg2 arg3 |
195 | |
196 | Alternately, if you use OS/2-ish shell, like C<CMD> or C<4os2>, put |
197 | the following at the start of your perl script: |
198 | |
199 | extproc perl -x -S |
200 | #!/usr/bin/perl -my_opts |
201 | |
202 | rename your program to F<foo.cmd>, and start it by typing |
203 | |
204 | foo arg1 arg2 arg3 |
205 | |
206 | (Note that having *nixish full path to perl F</usr/bin/perl> is not |
207 | necessary, F<perl> would be enough, but having full path would make it |
208 | easier to use your script under *nix.) |
209 | |
210 | Note that because of stupid OS/2 limitations the full path of the perl |
211 | script is not available when you use C<extproc>, thus you are forced to |
212 | use C<-S> perl switch, and your script should be on path. As a plus |
213 | side, if you know a full path to your script, you may still start it |
214 | with |
215 | |
216 | perl -x ../../blah/foo.cmd arg1 arg2 arg3 |
217 | |
218 | (note that the argument C<-my_opts> is taken care of by the C<#!> line |
219 | in your script). |
220 | |
221 | To understand what the above I<magic> does, read perl docs about C<-S> |
222 | and C<-x> switches - see L<perlrun>, and cmdref about C<extproc>: |
223 | |
224 | view perl perlrun |
225 | man perlrun |
226 | view cmdref extproc |
227 | help extproc |
228 | |
229 | or whatever method you prefer. |
230 | |
231 | There are also endless possibilites to use I<executable extensions> of |
232 | B<4OS2>, I<associations> of B<WPS> and so on... However, if you use |
233 | *nixish shell (like F<sh.exe> supplied in the binary distribution), |
234 | you need follow the syntax specified in L<perlrun/"Switches">. |
235 | |
236 | =head2 Starting OS/2 programs under Perl |
237 | |
238 | This is what system() (see L<perlfunc/system>), C<``> (see |
239 | L<perlop/"I/O Operators">), and I<open pipe> (see L<perlfunc/open>) |
240 | are for. (Avoid exec() (see L<perlfunc/exec>) unless you know what you |
241 | do). |
242 | |
243 | Note however that to use some of these operators you need to have a |
244 | C<sh>-syntax shell installed (see L<"Pdksh">, |
245 | L<"Frequently asked questions">), and perl should be able to find it |
246 | (see L<"PERL_SH_DIR">). |
247 | |
248 | The only cases when the shell is not used is the multi-argument |
249 | system() (see L<perlfunc/system>)/exec() (see L<perlfunc/exec>), and |
250 | one-argument version thereof without redirection and shell |
251 | meta-characters. |
252 | |
253 | =head1 Frequently asked questions |
254 | |
255 | =head2 I cannot run extenal programs |
256 | |
257 | Did you run your programs with C<-w> switch? See |
258 | L<Starting OS/2 programs under Perl>. |
259 | |
260 | =head2 I cannot embed perl into my program, or use F<perl.dll> from my |
261 | program. |
262 | |
263 | =over 4 |
264 | |
265 | =item Is your program B<EMX>-compiled with C<-Zmt -Zcrtdll>? |
266 | |
267 | If not, you need to build a stand-alone DLL for perl. Contact me, I |
268 | did it once. Sockets would not work, as a lot of other stuff. |
269 | |
270 | =item Did you use C<ExtUtils::Embed>? |
271 | |
272 | I had reports it does not work. Somebody would need to fix it. |
273 | |
274 | =back |
275 | |
276 | =head1 INSTALLATION |
277 | |
278 | =head2 Automatic binary installation |
279 | |
280 | The most convinient way of installing perl is via perl installer |
281 | F<install.exe>. Just follow the instructions, and 99% of the |
282 | installation blues would go away. |
283 | |
284 | Note however, that you need to have F<unzip.exe> on your path, and |
285 | B<EMX> environment I<running>. The latter means that if you just |
286 | installed B<EMX>, and made all the needed changes to F<Config.sys>, |
287 | you may need to reboot in between. Check B<EMX> runtime by running |
288 | |
289 | emxrev |
290 | |
291 | A folder is created on your desktop which contains some useful |
292 | objects. |
293 | |
294 | B<Things not taken care of by automatic binary installation:> |
295 | |
296 | =over 15 |
297 | |
298 | =item C<PERL_BADLANG> |
299 | |
300 | may be needed if you change your codepage I<after> perl installation, |
301 | and the new value is not supported by B<EMX>. See L<"PERL_BADLANG">. |
302 | |
303 | =item C<PERL_BADFREE> |
304 | |
305 | see L<"PERL_BADFREE">. |
306 | |
307 | =item F<Config.pm> |
308 | |
309 | This file resides somewhere deep in the location you installed your |
310 | perl library, find it out by |
311 | |
312 | perl -MConfig -le "print $INC{'Config.pm'}" |
313 | |
314 | While most important values in this file I<are> updated by the binary |
315 | installer, some of them may need to be hand-edited. I know no such |
316 | data, please keep me informed if you find one. |
317 | |
318 | =back |
319 | |
320 | =head2 Manual binary installation |
321 | |
322 | As of version 5.00305, OS/2 perl binary distribution comes splitted |
323 | into 11 components. Unfortunately, to enable configurable binary |
324 | installation, the file paths in the C<zip> files are not absolute, but |
325 | relative to some directory. |
326 | |
327 | Note that the extraction with the stored paths is still necessary |
328 | (default with C<unzip>, specify C<-d> to C<pkunzip>). However, you |
329 | need to know where to extract the files. You need also to manually |
330 | change entries in F<Config.sys> to reflect where did you put the |
331 | files. |
332 | |
333 | Below is the sample of what to do to reproduce the configuration on my |
334 | machine: |
335 | |
336 | =over 3 |
337 | |
338 | =item Perl VIO and PM executables (dynamically linked) |
339 | |
340 | unzip perl_exc.zip *.exe *.ico -d f:/emx.add/bin |
341 | unzip perl_exc.zip *.dll -d f:/emx.add/dll |
342 | |
343 | (have the directories with C<*.exe> on C<PATH>, and C<*.dll> on |
344 | C<LIBPATH>); |
345 | |
346 | =item Perl_ VIO executable (statically linked) |
347 | |
348 | unzip perl_aou.zip -d f:/emx.add/bin |
349 | |
350 | (have the directory on C<PATH>); |
351 | |
352 | =item Executables for Perl utilities |
353 | |
354 | unzip perl_utl.zip -d f:/emx.add/bin |
355 | |
356 | (have the directory on C<PATH>); |
357 | |
358 | =item Main Perl library |
359 | |
360 | unzip perl_mlb.zip -d f:/perllib/lib |
361 | |
362 | If this directory is preserved, you do not need to change |
363 | anything. However, for perl to find it if it is changed, you need to |
364 | C<set PERLLIB_PREFIX> in F<Config.sys>, see L<"PERLLIB_PREFIX">. |
365 | |
366 | =item Additional Perl modules |
367 | |
368 | unzip perl_ste.zip -d f:/perllib/lib/site_perl |
369 | |
370 | If you do not change this directory, do nothing. Otherwise put this |
371 | directory and subdirectory F<./os2> in C<PERLLIB> or C<PERL5LIB> |
372 | variable. Do not use C<PERL5LIB> unless you have it set already. See |
373 | L<perl/"ENVIRONMENT">. |
374 | |
375 | =item Tools to compile Perl modules |
376 | |
377 | unzip perl_blb.zip -d f:/perllib/lib |
378 | |
379 | If this directory is preserved, you do not need to change |
380 | anything. However, for perl to find it if it is changed, you need to |
381 | C<set PERLLIB_PREFIX> in F<Config.sys>, see L<"PERLLIB_PREFIX">. |
382 | |
383 | =item Manpages for Perl and utilities |
384 | |
385 | unzip perl_man.zip -d f:/perllib/man |
386 | |
387 | This directory should better be on C<MANPATH>. You need to have a |
388 | working C<man> to access these files. |
389 | |
390 | =item Manpages for Perl modules |
391 | |
392 | unzip perl_mam.zip -d f:/perllib/man |
393 | |
394 | This directory should better be on C<MANPATH>. You need to have a |
395 | working C<man> to access these files. |
396 | |
397 | =item Source for Perl documentation |
398 | |
399 | unzip perl_pod.zip -d f:/perllib/lib |
400 | |
401 | This is used by by C<perldoc> program (see L<perldoc>), and may be used to |
402 | generate B<HTML> documentation usable by WWW browsers, and |
403 | documentation in zillions of other formats: C<info>, C<LaTeX>, |
404 | C<Acrobat>, C<FrameMaker> and so on. |
405 | |
406 | =item Perl manual in .INF format |
407 | |
408 | unzip perl_inf.zip -d d:/os2/book |
409 | |
410 | This directory should better be on C<BOOKSHELF>. |
411 | |
412 | =item Pdksh |
413 | |
414 | unzip perl_sh.zip -d f:/bin |
415 | |
416 | This is used by perl to run external commands which explicitely |
417 | require shell, like the commands using I<redirection> and I<shell |
418 | metacharacters>. It is also used instead of explicit F</bin/sh>. |
419 | |
420 | Set C<PERL_SH_DIR> (see L<"PERL_SH_DIR">) if you move F<sh.exe> from |
421 | the above location. |
422 | |
423 | B<Note.> It may be possible to use some other C<sh>-compatible shell |
424 | (I<not tested>). |
425 | |
426 | =back |
427 | |
428 | After you installed the components you needed and updated the |
429 | F<Config.sys> correspondingly, you need to hand-edit |
430 | F<Config.pm>. This file resides somewhere deep in the location you |
431 | installed your perl library, find it out by |
432 | |
433 | perl -MConfig -le "print $INC{'Config.pm'}" |
434 | |
435 | You need to correct all the entries which look like file paths (they |
436 | currently start with C<f:/>). |
437 | |
438 | =head2 B<Warning> |
439 | |
440 | The automatic and manual perl installation leave precompiled paths |
441 | inside perl executables. While these paths are overwriteable (see |
442 | L<"PERLLIB_PREFIX">, L<"PERL_SH_DIR">), one may get better results by |
443 | binary editing of paths inside the executables/DLLs. |
444 | |
445 | =head1 Accessing documentation |
446 | |
447 | Depending on how you built/installed perl you may have (otherwise |
448 | identical) Perl documentation in the following formats: |
449 | |
450 | =head2 OS/2 F<.INF> file |
451 | |
452 | Most probably the most convinient form. View it as |
453 | |
454 | view perl |
455 | view perl perlfunc |
456 | view perl less |
457 | view perl ExtUtils::MakeMaker |
458 | |
459 | (currently the last two may hit a wrong location, but this may improve |
460 | soon). |
461 | |
462 | If you want to build the docs yourself, and have I<OS/2 toolkit>, run |
463 | |
464 | pod2ipf > perl.ipf |
465 | |
466 | in F</perllib/lib/pod> directory, then |
467 | |
468 | ipfc /inf perl.ipf |
469 | |
470 | (Expect a lot of errors during the both steps.) Now move it on your |
471 | BOOKSHELF path. |
472 | |
473 | =head2 Plain text |
474 | |
475 | If you have perl documentation in the source form, perl utilities |
476 | installed, and B<GNU> C<groff> installed, you may use |
477 | |
478 | perldoc perlfunc |
479 | perldoc less |
480 | perldoc ExtUtils::MakeMaker |
481 | |
482 | to access the perl documention in the text form (note that you may get |
483 | better results using perl manpages). |
484 | |
485 | Alternately, try running pod2text on F<.pod> files. |
486 | |
487 | =head2 Manpages |
488 | |
489 | If you have C<man> installed on your system, and you installed perl |
490 | manpages, use something like this: |
5243f9ae |
491 | |
5243f9ae |
492 | man perlfunc |
493 | man 3 less |
494 | man ExtUtils.MakeMaker |
5243f9ae |
495 | |
a56dbb1c |
496 | to access documentation for different components of Perl. Start with |
497 | |
498 | man perl |
499 | |
500 | Note that dot (F<.>) is used as a package separator for documentation |
501 | for packages, and as usual, sometimes you need to give the section - C<3> |
502 | above - to avoid shadowing by the I<less(1) manpage>. |
503 | |
504 | Make sure that the directory B<above> the directory with manpages is |
505 | on our C<MANPATH>, like this |
506 | |
507 | set MANPATH=c:/man;f:/perllib/man |
508 | |
509 | =head2 B<HTML> |
510 | |
511 | If you have some WWW browser available, installed the Perl |
512 | documentation in the source form, and Perl utilities, you can build |
513 | B<HTML> docs. Cd to directory with F<.pod> files, and do like this |
514 | |
515 | cd f:/perllib/lib/pod |
5243f9ae |
516 | pod2html |
5243f9ae |
517 | |
a56dbb1c |
518 | After this you can direct your browser the file F<perl.html> in this |
519 | directory, and go ahead with reading docs, like this: |
5243f9ae |
520 | |
a56dbb1c |
521 | explore file:///f:/perllib/lib/pod/perl.html |
5243f9ae |
522 | |
a56dbb1c |
523 | Alternatively you may be able to get these docs prebuild from C<CPAN>. |
5243f9ae |
524 | |
a56dbb1c |
525 | =head2 B<GNU> C<info> files |
bb14ff96 |
526 | |
a56dbb1c |
527 | Users of C<Emacs> would appreciate it very much, especially with |
528 | C<CPerl> mode loaded. You need to get latest C<pod2info> from C<CPAN>, |
529 | or, alternately, prebuilt info pages. |
615d1a09 |
530 | |
a56dbb1c |
531 | =head2 F<.PDF> files |
532 | |
533 | for C<Acrobat> are available on CPAN (for slightly old version of |
534 | perl). |
535 | |
536 | =head2 C<LaTeX> docs |
537 | |
538 | can be constructed using C<pod2latex>. |
539 | |
540 | =head1 BUILD |
541 | |
542 | Here we discuss how to build Perl under OS/2. There is an alternative |
543 | (but maybe older) view on L<http://www.shadow.net/~troc/os2perl.html>. |
544 | |
545 | =head2 Prerequisites |
546 | |
547 | You need to have the latest B<EMX> development environment, the full |
548 | B<GNU> tool suite (C<gawk> renamed to C<awk>, and B<GNU> F<find.exe> |
549 | earlier on path than the OS/2 F<find.exe>, same with F<sort.exe>, to |
550 | check use |
551 | |
552 | find --version |
553 | sort --version |
554 | |
555 | ). You need the latest version of F<pdksh> installed as F<sh.exe>. |
556 | |
557 | Possible locations to get this from are |
558 | |
559 | ftp://hobbes.nmsu.edu/os2/unix/gnu/ |
560 | ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/unix/ |
561 | ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/dev32/ |
562 | ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/os2/emx0.9c/ |
563 | |
564 | |
565 | Make sure that no copies or perl are currently running. Later steps |
566 | of the build may fail since an older version of perl.dll loaded into |
567 | memory may be found. |
568 | |
569 | Also make sure that you have F</tmp> directory on the current drive, |
570 | and F<.> directory in your C<LIBPATH>. One may try to correct the |
571 | latter condition by |
572 | |
573 | set BEGINLIBPATH . |
574 | |
575 | if you use something like F<CMD.EXE> or latest versions of F<4os2.exe>. |
576 | |
577 | Make sure your C<gcc> is good for C<-Zomf> linking: run C<omflibs> |
578 | script in F</emx/lib> directory. |
579 | |
580 | Check that you have C<link386> installed. It comes standard with OS/2, |
581 | but may be not installed due to customization. If typing |
582 | |
583 | link386 |
584 | |
585 | shows you do not have it, do I<Selective install>, and choose C<Link |
586 | object modules> in I<Optional system utilites/More>. If you get into |
587 | C<link386>, press C<Ctrl-C>. |
588 | |
589 | =head2 Getting perl source |
590 | |
591 | You need to fetch the latest perl source (including developpers |
592 | releases). With some probability it is located in |
593 | |
594 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0 |
595 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0/unsupported |
596 | |
597 | If not, you may need to dig in the indices to find it in the directory |
598 | of the current maintainer. |
599 | |
600 | Quick cycle of developpers release may break the OS/2 build time to |
601 | time, looking into |
602 | |
603 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports/os2/ilyaz/ |
604 | |
605 | may indicate the latest release which was publicly released by the |
606 | maintainer. Note that the release may include some additional patches |
607 | to apply to the current source of perl. |
608 | |
609 | Extract it like this |
610 | |
611 | tar vzxf perl5.00409.tar.gz |
612 | |
613 | You may see a message about errors while extracting F<Configure>. This is |
614 | because there is a conflict with a similarly-named file F<configure>. |
615 | |
616 | Rename F<configure> to F<configure.gnu>. Extract F<Configure> like this |
617 | |
618 | tar --case-sensitive -vzxf perl5.00409.tar.gz perl5.00409/Configure |
619 | |
620 | Change to the directory of extraction. |
621 | |
622 | =head2 Application of the patches |
623 | |
624 | You need to apply the patches in F<./os2/diff.*> and |
625 | F<./os2/POSIX.mkfifo> like this: |
626 | |
627 | gnupatch -p0 < os2\POSIX.mkfifo |
628 | gnupatch -p0 < os2\os2\diff.configure |
629 | |
630 | You may also need to apply the patches supplied with the binary |
631 | distribution of perl. |
632 | |
633 | Note also that the F<db.lib> and F<db.a> from the B<EMX> distribution |
634 | are not suitable for multi-threaded compile (note that currently perl |
635 | is not multithreaded, but is compiled as multithreaded for |
636 | compatibility with B<XFree86>-OS/2). Get a corrected one from |
637 | |
638 | ftp://ftp.math.ohio-state.edu/pub/users/ilya/os2/db_mt.zip |
639 | |
640 | =head2 Hand-editing |
641 | |
642 | You may look into the file F<./hints/os2.sh> and correct anything |
643 | wrong you find there. I do not expect it is needed anywhere. |
615d1a09 |
644 | |
a56dbb1c |
645 | =head2 Making |
615d1a09 |
646 | |
a56dbb1c |
647 | sh Configure -des -D prefix=f:/perllib |
615d1a09 |
648 | |
a56dbb1c |
649 | Prefix means where to install the resulting perl library. Giving |
650 | correct prefix you may avoid the need to specify C<PERLLIB_PREFIX>, |
651 | see L<"PERLLIB_PREFIX">. |
5243f9ae |
652 | |
a56dbb1c |
653 | I<Ignore the message about missing C<ln>, and about C<-c> option to |
654 | C<tr>>. In fact if you can trace where the latter spurious warning |
655 | comes from, please inform me. |
615d1a09 |
656 | |
a56dbb1c |
657 | Now |
5243f9ae |
658 | |
a56dbb1c |
659 | make |
5243f9ae |
660 | |
a56dbb1c |
661 | At some moment the built may die, reporting a I<version mismatch> or |
662 | I<unable to run F<perl>>. This means that most of the build has been |
663 | finished, and it is the time to move the constructed F<perl.dll> to |
664 | some I<absolute> location in C<LIBPATH>. After this done the build |
665 | should finish without a lot of fuss. I<One can avoid it if one has the |
666 | correct prebuilt version of F<perl.dll> on C<LIBPATH>.> |
615d1a09 |
667 | |
a56dbb1c |
668 | Warnings which are safe to ignore: I<mkfifo() redefined> inside |
669 | F<POSIX.c>. |
615d1a09 |
670 | |
a56dbb1c |
671 | =head2 Testing |
672 | |
673 | Now run |
674 | |
675 | make test |
676 | |
677 | Some tests (4..6) should fail. Some perl invocations should end in a |
678 | segfault (system error C<SYS3175>). To get finer error reports, |
679 | |
680 | cd t |
681 | perl -I ../lib harness |
682 | |
683 | The report you get may look like |
684 | |
685 | Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed |
686 | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
687 | io/fs.t 26 11 42.31% 2-5, 7-11, 18, 25 |
688 | lib/io_pipe.t 3 768 6 ?? % ?? |
689 | lib/io_sock.t 3 768 5 ?? % ?? |
690 | op/stat.t 56 5 8.93% 3-4, 20, 35, 39 |
691 | Failed 4/118 test scripts, 96.61% okay. 27/2445 subtests failed, 98.90% okay. |
692 | |
693 | Note that using `make test' target two more tests may fail: C<op/exec:1> |
694 | because of (mis)feature of C<pdksh>, and C<lib/posix:15>, which checks |
695 | that the buffers are not flushed on C<_exit>. |
696 | |
697 | The reasons for failed tests are: |
698 | |
699 | =over 8 |
700 | |
701 | =item F<io/fs.t> |
702 | |
703 | Checks I<file system> operations. Tests: |
704 | |
705 | =over 10 |
706 | |
707 | =item 2-5, 7-11 |
708 | |
709 | Check C<link()> and C<inode count> - nonesuch under OS/2. |
710 | |
711 | =item 18 |
712 | |
713 | Checks C<atime> and C<mtime> of C<stat()> - I could not understand this test. |
714 | |
715 | =item 25 |
716 | |
717 | Checks C<truncate()> on a filehandle just opened for write - I do not |
718 | know why this should or should not work. |
719 | |
720 | =back |
721 | |
722 | =item F<lib/io_pipe.t> |
723 | |
724 | Checks C<IO::Pipe> module. Some feature of B<EMX> - test fork()s with |
725 | dynamic extension loaded - unsupported now. |
726 | |
727 | =item F<lib/io_sock.t> |
728 | |
729 | Checks C<IO::Socket> module. Some feature of B<EMX> - test fork()s |
730 | with dynamic extension loaded - unsupported now. |
731 | |
732 | =item F<op/stat.t> |
733 | |
734 | Checks C<stat()>. Tests: |
735 | |
736 | =over 4 |
737 | |
738 | =item 3 |
739 | |
740 | Checks C<inode count> - nonesuch under OS/2. |
741 | |
742 | =item 4 |
743 | |
744 | Checks C<mtime> and C<ctime> of C<stat()> - I could not understand this test. |
745 | |
746 | =item 20 |
747 | |
748 | Checks C<-x> - determined by the file extension only under OS/2. |
749 | |
750 | =item 35 |
751 | |
752 | Needs F</usr/bin>. |
753 | |
754 | =item 39 |
755 | |
756 | Checks C<-t> of F</dev/null>. Should not fail! |
757 | |
758 | =back |
759 | |
760 | =back |
761 | |
762 | In addition to errors, you should get a lot of warnings. |
763 | |
764 | =over 4 |
765 | |
766 | =item A lot of `bad free' |
767 | |
768 | in databases related to Berkeley DB. This is a confirmed bug of |
769 | DB. You may disable this warnings, see L<"PERL_BADFREE">. |
770 | |
771 | =item Process terminated by SIGTERM/SIGINT |
772 | |
773 | This is a standard message issued by OS/2 applications. *nix |
774 | applications die in silence. It is considered a feature. One can |
775 | easily disable this by appropriate sighandlers. |
776 | |
777 | However the test engine bleeds these message to screen in unexpected |
778 | moments. Two messages of this kind I<should> be present during |
779 | testing. |
780 | |
781 | =item F<*/sh.exe>: ln: not found |
782 | |
783 | =item C<ls>: /dev: No such file or directory |
784 | |
785 | The last two should be self-explanatory. The test suite discovers that |
786 | the system it runs on is not I<that much> *nixish. |
787 | |
788 | =back |
615d1a09 |
789 | |
790 | A lot of `bad free'... in databases, bug in DB confirmed on other |
5243f9ae |
791 | platforms. You may disable it by setting PERL_BADFREE environment variable |
a56dbb1c |
792 | to 1. |
615d1a09 |
793 | |
a56dbb1c |
794 | =head2 Installing the built perl |
615d1a09 |
795 | |
a56dbb1c |
796 | Run |
615d1a09 |
797 | |
a56dbb1c |
798 | make install |
615d1a09 |
799 | |
a56dbb1c |
800 | It would put the generated files into needed locations. Manually put |
801 | F<perl.exe>, F<perl__.exe> and F<perl___.exe> to a location on your |
802 | C<PATH>, F<perl.dll> to a location on your C<LIBPATH>. |
615d1a09 |
803 | |
a56dbb1c |
804 | Run |
615d1a09 |
805 | |
a56dbb1c |
806 | make cmdscripts INSTALLCMDDIR=d:/ir/on/path |
615d1a09 |
807 | |
a56dbb1c |
808 | to convert perl utilities to F<.cmd> files and put them on |
809 | C<PATH>. You need to put F<.EXE>-utilities on path manually. They are |
810 | installed in C<$prefix/bin>, here C<$prefix> is what you gave to |
811 | F<Configure>, see L<Making>. |
812 | |
813 | =head2 C<a.out>-style build |
814 | |
815 | Proceed as above, but make F<perl_.exe> (see L<"perl_.exe">) by |
816 | |
817 | make perl_ |
818 | |
819 | test and install by |
820 | |
821 | make aout_test |
822 | make aout_install |
823 | |
824 | Manually put F<perl_.exe> to a location on your C<PATH>. |
825 | |
826 | Since C<perl_> has the extensions prebuilt, it does not suffer from |
827 | the I<dynamic extensions + fork()> syndrom, thus the failing tests |
828 | look like |
829 | |
830 | Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed |
831 | --------------------------------------------------------------- |
832 | io/fs.t 26 11 42.31% 2-5, 7-11, 18, 25 |
833 | op/stat.t 56 5 8.93% 3-4, 20, 35, 39 |
834 | Failed 2/118 test scripts, 98.31% okay. 16/2445 subtests failed, 99.35% okay. |
835 | |
836 | B<Note.> The build process for C<perl_> I<does not know> about all the |
837 | dependencies, so you should make sure that anything is up-to-date, |
838 | say, by doing |
839 | |
840 | make perl.dll |
841 | |
842 | first. |
843 | |
844 | =head1 Build FAQ |
845 | |
846 | =head2 Some C</> became C<\> in pdksh. |
847 | |
848 | You have a very old pdksh. See L<Prerequisites>. |
849 | |
850 | =head2 C<'errno'> - unresolved external |
851 | |
852 | You do not have MT-safe F<db.lib>. See L<Prerequisites>. |
853 | |
854 | =head2 Problems with C<tr> |
855 | |
856 | reported with very old version of C<tr>. |
857 | |
858 | =head2 Some problem (forget which ;-) |
859 | |
860 | You have an older version of F<perl.dll> on your C<LIBPATH>, which |
861 | broke the build of extensions. |
862 | |
863 | =head2 Library ... not found |
864 | |
865 | You did not run C<omflibs>. See L<Prerequisites>. |
866 | |
867 | =head2 Segfault in make |
868 | |
869 | You use an old version of C<GNU> make. See L<Prerequisites>. |
870 | |
871 | =head1 Specific (mis)features of OS/2 port |
872 | |
873 | =head2 C<setpriority>, C<getpriority> |
874 | |
875 | Note that these functions are compatible with *nix, not with the older |
876 | ports of '94 - 95. The priorities are absolute, go from 32 to -95, |
877 | lower is quickier. 0 is the default priority. |
878 | |
879 | =head2 C<system()> |
880 | |
881 | Multi-argument form of C<system()> allows an additional numeric |
882 | argument. The meaning of this argument is described in |
883 | L<OS2::Process>. |
884 | |
885 | =head2 Additional modules: |
615d1a09 |
886 | |
a56dbb1c |
887 | L<OS2::Process>, L<OS2::REXX>, L<OS2::PrfDB>, L<OS2::ExtAttr>. This |
888 | modules provide access to additional numeric argument for C<system>, |
889 | to DLLs having functions with REXX signature and to REXX runtime, to |
890 | OS/2 databases in the F<.INI> format, and to Extended Attributes. |
615d1a09 |
891 | |
a56dbb1c |
892 | Two additional extensions by Andread Kaiser, C<OS2::UPM>, and |
893 | C<OS2::FTP>, are included into my ftp directory, mirrored on CPAN. |
615d1a09 |
894 | |
a56dbb1c |
895 | =head2 Prebuilt methods: |
615d1a09 |
896 | |
a56dbb1c |
897 | =over 4 |
615d1a09 |
898 | |
a56dbb1c |
899 | =item C<File::Copy::syscopy> |
615d1a09 |
900 | |
a56dbb1c |
901 | used by C<File::Copy::copy>, see L<File::Copy/copy>. |
615d1a09 |
902 | |
a56dbb1c |
903 | =item C<DynaLoader::mod2fname> |
615d1a09 |
904 | |
a56dbb1c |
905 | used by C<DynaLoader> for DLL name mungling. |
615d1a09 |
906 | |
a56dbb1c |
907 | =item C<Cwd::current_drive()> |
615d1a09 |
908 | |
a56dbb1c |
909 | Self explanatory. |
615d1a09 |
910 | |
a56dbb1c |
911 | =item C<Cwd::sys_chdir(name)> |
615d1a09 |
912 | |
a56dbb1c |
913 | leaves drive as it is. |
615d1a09 |
914 | |
a56dbb1c |
915 | =item C<Cwd::change_drive(name)> |
615d1a09 |
916 | |
615d1a09 |
917 | |
a56dbb1c |
918 | =item C<Cwd::sys_is_absolute(name)> |
615d1a09 |
919 | |
a56dbb1c |
920 | means has drive letter and is_rooted. |
615d1a09 |
921 | |
a56dbb1c |
922 | =item C<Cwd::sys_is_rooted(name)> |
615d1a09 |
923 | |
a56dbb1c |
924 | means has leading C<[/\\]> (maybe after a drive-letter:). |
615d1a09 |
925 | |
a56dbb1c |
926 | =item C<Cwd::sys_is_relative(name)> |
615d1a09 |
927 | |
a56dbb1c |
928 | means changes with current dir. |
615d1a09 |
929 | |
a56dbb1c |
930 | =item C<Cwd::sys_cwd(name)> |
615d1a09 |
931 | |
a56dbb1c |
932 | Interface to cwd from B<EMX>. Used by C<Cwd::cwd>. |
615d1a09 |
933 | |
a56dbb1c |
934 | =item C<Cwd::sys_abspath(name, dir)> |
615d1a09 |
935 | |
a56dbb1c |
936 | Really really odious function to implement. Returns absolute name of |
937 | file which would have C<name> if CWD were C<dir>. C<Dir> defaults to the |
938 | current dir. |
615d1a09 |
939 | |
a56dbb1c |
940 | =item C<Cwd::extLibpath([type]) |
615d1a09 |
941 | |
a56dbb1c |
942 | Get current value of extended library search path. If C<type> is |
943 | present and I<true>, works with END_LIBPATH, otherwise with |
944 | C<BEGIN_LIBPATH>. |
615d1a09 |
945 | |
a56dbb1c |
946 | =item C<Cwd::extLibpath_set( path [, type ] )> |
615d1a09 |
947 | |
a56dbb1c |
948 | Set current value of extended library search path. If C<type> is |
949 | present and I<true>, works with END_LIBPATH, otherwise with |
950 | C<BEGIN_LIBPATH>. |
615d1a09 |
951 | |
a56dbb1c |
952 | =back |
615d1a09 |
953 | |
a56dbb1c |
954 | (Note that some of these may be moved to different libraries - |
955 | eventually). |
615d1a09 |
956 | |
615d1a09 |
957 | |
a56dbb1c |
958 | =head2 Misfeatures |
615d1a09 |
959 | |
a56dbb1c |
960 | =over 4 |
615d1a09 |
961 | |
a56dbb1c |
962 | =item |
615d1a09 |
963 | |
a56dbb1c |
964 | Since <lockf> is present in B<EMX>, but is not functional, the same is |
965 | true for perl. |
615d1a09 |
966 | |
a56dbb1c |
967 | =item |
615d1a09 |
968 | |
a56dbb1c |
969 | Since F<sh.exe> is used for globbing (see L<perlfunc/glob>), the bugs |
970 | of F<sh.exe> plague perl as well. |
615d1a09 |
971 | |
a56dbb1c |
972 | In particular, uppercase letters do not work in C<[...]>-patterns with |
973 | the current C<pdksh>. |
615d1a09 |
974 | |
a56dbb1c |
975 | =back |
615d1a09 |
976 | |
a56dbb1c |
977 | =head1 Perl flavors |
615d1a09 |
978 | |
a56dbb1c |
979 | Because of ideosyncrasies of OS/2 one cannot have all the eggs in the |
980 | same basket (though C<EMX> environment tries hard to overcome this |
981 | limitations, so the situation may somehow improve). There are 4 |
982 | executables for Perl provided by the distribution: |
615d1a09 |
983 | |
a56dbb1c |
984 | =head2 F<perl.exe> |
615d1a09 |
985 | |
a56dbb1c |
986 | The main workhorse. This is a chimera executable: it is compiled as an |
987 | C<a.out>-style executable, but is linked with C<omf>-style dynamic |
988 | library F<perl.dll>, and with dynamic B<CRT> DLL. This executable is a |
989 | C<VIO> application. |
990 | |
991 | It can load perl dynamic extensions, and it can fork(). Unfortunately, |
992 | currently it cannot fork() with dynamic extensions loaded. |
993 | |
994 | B<Note.> Keep in mind that fork() is needed to open a pipe to yourself. |
995 | |
996 | =head2 F<perl_.exe> |
997 | |
998 | This is a statically linked C<a.out>-style executable. It can fork(), |
999 | but cannot load dynamic Perl extensions. The supplied executable has a |
1000 | lot of extensions prebuilt, thus there are situations when it can |
1001 | perform tasks not possible using F<perl.exe>, like fork()ing when |
1002 | having some standard extension loaded. This executable is a C<VIO> |
1003 | application. |
1004 | |
1005 | B<Note.> A better behaviour could be obtained from C<perl.exe> if it |
1006 | were statically linked with standard I<Perl extensions>, but |
1007 | dynamically linked with the I<Perl DLL> and C<CRT> DLL. Then it would |
1008 | be able to fork() with standard extensions, I<and> would be able to |
1009 | dynamically load arbitrary extensions. Some changes to Makefiles and |
1010 | hint files should be necessary to achieve this. |
1011 | |
1012 | I<This is also the only executable with does not require OS/2.> The |
1013 | friends locked into C<M$> world would appreciate the fact that this |
1014 | executable runs under DOS, Win0.31, Win0.95 and WinNT with an |
1015 | appropriate extender. See L<"Other OSes">. |
1016 | |
1017 | =head2 F<perl__.exe> |
1018 | |
1019 | This is the same executable as <perl___.exe>, but it is a C<PM> |
1020 | application. |
1021 | |
1022 | B<Note.> Usually C<STDIN>, C<STDERR>, and C<STDOUT> of a C<PM> |
1023 | application are redirected to C<nul>. However, it is possible to see |
1024 | them if you start C<perl__.exe> from a PM program which emulates a |
1025 | console window, like I<Shell mode> of C<Emacs> or C<EPM>. Thus it I<is |
1026 | possible> to use Perl debugger (see L<perldebug>) to debug your PM |
1027 | application. |
1028 | |
1029 | This flavor is required if you load extensions which use C<PM>, like |
1030 | the forthcoming C<Perl/Tk>. |
1031 | |
1032 | =head2 F<perl___.exe> |
1033 | |
1034 | This is an C<omf>-style executable which is dynamically linked to |
1035 | F<perl.dll> and C<CRT> DLL. I know no advantages of this executable |
1036 | over C<perl.exe>, but it cannot fork() at all. Well, one advantage is |
1037 | that the build process is not so convoluted as with C<perl.exe>. |
1038 | |
1039 | It is a C<VIO> application. |
1040 | |
1041 | =head2 Why strange names? |
1042 | |
1043 | Since Perl processes the C<#!>-line (cf. |
1044 | L<perlrun/DESCRIPTION>, L<perlrun/Switches>, |
1045 | L<perldiag/"Not a perl script">, |
1046 | L<perldiag/"No Perl script found in input">), it should know when a |
1047 | program I<is a Perl>. There is some naming convention which allows |
1048 | Perl to distinguish correct lines from wrong ones. The above names are |
1049 | almost the only names allowed by this convension which do not contain |
1050 | digits (which have absolutely different semantics). |
1051 | |
1052 | =head2 Why dynamic linking? |
1053 | |
1054 | Well, having several executables dynamically linked to the same huge |
1055 | library has its advantages, but this would not substantiate the |
1056 | additional work to make it compile. The reason is stupid-but-quick |
1057 | "hard" dynamic linking used by OS/2. |
1058 | |
1059 | The address tables of DLLs are patches only once, when they are |
1060 | loaded. The addresses of entry points into DLLs are guarantied to be |
1061 | the same for all programs which use the same DLL, which reduces the |
1062 | amount of runtime patching - once DLL is loaded, its code is |
1063 | read-only. |
1064 | |
1065 | While this allows some performance advantages, this makes life |
1066 | terrible for developpers, since the above scheme makes it impossible |
1067 | for a DLL to be resolved to a symbol in the .EXE file, since this |
1068 | would need a DLL to have different relocations tables for the |
1069 | executables which use it. |
1070 | |
1071 | However, a Perl extension is forced to use some symbols from the perl |
1072 | executable, say to know how to find the arguments provided on the perl |
1073 | internal evaluation stack. The solution is that the main code of |
1074 | interpreter should be contained in a DLL, and the F<.EXE> file just loads |
1075 | this DLL into memory and supplies command-arguments. |
1076 | |
1077 | This I<greately> increases the load time for the application (as well as |
1078 | the number of problems during compilation). Since interpreter is in a DLL, |
1079 | the C<CRT> is basically forced to reside in a DLL as well (otherwise |
1080 | extensions would not be able to use C<CRT>). |
1081 | |
1082 | =head2 Why chimera build? |
1083 | |
1084 | Current C<EMX> environment does not allow DLLs compiled using Unixish |
1085 | C<a.out> format to export symbols for data. This forces C<omf>-style |
1086 | compile of F<perl.dll>. |
1087 | |
1088 | Current C<EMX> environment does not allow F<.EXE> files compiled in |
1089 | C<omf> format to fork(). fork() is needed for exactly three Perl |
1090 | operations: |
1091 | |
1092 | =over 4 |
1093 | |
1094 | =item explicit fork() |
1095 | |
1096 | in the script, and |
1097 | |
1098 | =item open FH, "|-" |
1099 | |
1100 | =item open FH, "-|" |
1101 | |
1102 | opening pipes to itself. |
1103 | |
1104 | =back |
1105 | |
1106 | While these operations are not questions of life and death, a lot of |
1107 | useful scripts use them. This forces C<a.out>-style compile of |
1108 | F<perl.exe>. |
1109 | |
1110 | |
1111 | =head1 ENVIRONMENT |
1112 | |
1113 | Here we list environment variables with are either OS/2-specific, or |
1114 | are more important under OS/2 than under other OSes. |
1115 | |
1116 | =head2 C<PERLLIB_PREFIX> |
1117 | |
1118 | Specific for OS/2. Should have the form |
1119 | |
1120 | path1;path2 |
1121 | |
1122 | or |
1123 | |
1124 | path1 path2 |
1125 | |
1126 | If the beginning of some prebuilt path matches F<path1>, it is |
1127 | substituted with F<path2>. |
1128 | |
1129 | Should be used if the perl library is moved from the default |
1130 | location in preference to C<PERL(5)LIB>, since this would not leave wrong |
1131 | entries in <@INC>. |
1132 | |
1133 | =head2 C<PERL_BADLANG> |
1134 | |
1135 | If 1, perl ignores setlocale() failing. May be useful with some |
1136 | strange I<locale>s. |
1137 | |
1138 | =head2 C<PERL_BADFREE> |
1139 | |
1140 | If 1, perl would not warn of in case of unwarranted free(). May be |
1141 | useful in conjunction with the module DB_File, since Berkeley DB |
1142 | memory handling code is buggy. |
1143 | |
1144 | =head2 C<PERL_SH_DIR> |
1145 | |
1146 | Specific for OS/2. Gives the directory part of the location for |
1147 | F<sh.exe>. |
1148 | |
1149 | =head2 C<TMP> or C<TEMP> |
1150 | |
1151 | Specific for OS/2. Used as storage place for temporary files, most |
1152 | notably C<-e> scripts. |
1153 | |
1154 | =head1 Evolution |
1155 | |
1156 | Here we list major changes which could make you by surprise. |
1157 | |
1158 | =head2 Priorities |
1159 | |
1160 | C<setpriority> and C<getpriority> are not compatible with earlier |
1161 | ports by Andreas Kaiser. See C<"setpriority, getpriority">. |
1162 | |
1163 | =head2 DLL name mungling |
1164 | |
1165 | With the release 5.003_01 the dynamically loadable libraries |
1166 | should be rebuilt. In particular, DLLs are now created with the names |
1167 | which contain a checksum, thus allowing workaround for OS/2 scheme of |
1168 | caching DLLs. |
1169 | |
1170 | =head2 Threading |
1171 | |
1172 | As of release 5.003_01 perl is linked to multithreaded C<CRT> |
1173 | DLL. Perl itself is not multithread-safe, as is not perl |
1174 | malloc(). However, extensions may use multiple thread on their own |
1175 | risk. |
1176 | |
1177 | Needed to compile C<Perl/Tk> for C<XFreeOS/2> out-of-the-box. |
1178 | |
1179 | =head2 Calls to external programs |
1180 | |
1181 | Due to a popular demand the perl external program calling has been |
1182 | changed wrt Andread Kaiser's port. I<If> perl needs to call an |
1183 | external program I<via shell>, the F<f:/bin/sh.exe> will be called, or |
1184 | whatever is the override, see L<"PERL_SH_DIR">. |
1185 | |
1186 | Thus means that you need to get some copy of a F<sh.exe> as well (I |
1187 | use one from pdksh). The drive F: above is set up automatically during |
1188 | the build to a correct value on the builder machine, but is |
1189 | overridable at runtime, |
1190 | |
1191 | B<Reasons:> a consensus on C<perl5-porters> was that perl should use |
1192 | one non-overridable shell per platform. The obvious choices for OS/2 |
1193 | are F<cmd.exe> and F<sh.exe>. Having perl build itself would be impossible |
1194 | with F<cmd.exe> as a shell, thus I picked up C<sh.exe>. Thus assures almost |
1195 | 100% compatibility with the scripts coming from *nix. |
1196 | |
1197 | B<Disadvantages:> currently F<sh.exe> of C<pdksh> calls external programs |
1198 | via fork()/exec(), and there is I<no> functioning exec() on |
1199 | OS/2. exec() is emulated by EMX by asyncroneous call while the caller |
1200 | waits for child completion (to pretend that the pid did not change). This |
1201 | means that 1 I<extra> copy of F<sh.exe> is made active via fork()/exec(), |
1202 | which may lead to some resources taken from the system (even if we do |
1203 | not count extra work needed for fork()ing). |
1204 | |
1205 | One can always start F<cmd.exe> explicitely via |
1206 | |
1207 | system 'cmd', '/c', 'mycmd', 'arg1', 'arg2', ... |
1208 | |
1209 | If you need to use F<cmd.exe>, and do not want to hand-edit thousends of your |
1210 | scripts, the long-term solution proposed on p5-p is to have a directive |
1211 | |
1212 | use OS2::Cmd; |
1213 | |
1214 | which will override system(), exec(), C<``>, and |
1215 | C<open(,'...|')>. With current perl you may override only system(), |
1216 | readpipe() - the explicit version of C<``>, and maybe exec(). The code |
1217 | will substitute the one-argument call to system() by |
1218 | C<CORE::system('cmd.exe', '/c', shift)>. |
1219 | |
1220 | If you have some working code for C<OS2::Cmd>, please send it to me, |
1221 | I will include it into distribution. I have no need for such a module, so |
1222 | cannot test it. |
1223 | |
1224 | =cut |
1225 | |
1226 | OS/2 extensions |
1227 | ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ |
1228 | I include 3 extensions by Andread Kaiser, OS2::REXX, OS2::UPM, and OS2::FTP, |
1229 | into my ftp directory, mirrored on CPAN. I made |
1230 | some minor changes needed to compile them by standard tools. I cannot |
1231 | test UPM and FTP, so I will appreciate your feedback. Other extensions |
1232 | there are OS2::ExtAttr, OS2::PrfDB for tied access to EAs and .INI |
1233 | files - and maybe some other extensions at the time you read it. |
1234 | |
1235 | Note that OS2 perl defines 2 pseudo-extension functions |
1236 | OS2::Copy::copy and DynaLoader::mod2fname. |
1237 | |
1238 | The -R switch of older perl is deprecated. If you need to call a REXX code |
1239 | which needs access to variables, include the call into a REXX compartment |
1240 | created by |
1241 | REXX_call {...block...}; |
1242 | |
1243 | Two new functions are supported by REXX code, |
1244 | REXX_eval 'string'; |
1245 | REXX_eval_with 'string', REXX_function_name => \&perl_sub_reference; |
1246 | |
1247 | If you have some other extensions you want to share, send the code to |
1248 | me. At least two are available: tied access to EA's, and tied access |
1249 | to system databases. |
615d1a09 |
1250 | |
a56dbb1c |
1251 | =head1 AUTHOR |
615d1a09 |
1252 | |
a56dbb1c |
1253 | Ilya Zakharevich, ilya@math.ohio-state.edu |
615d1a09 |
1254 | |
a56dbb1c |
1255 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
615d1a09 |
1256 | |
a56dbb1c |
1257 | perl(1). |
615d1a09 |
1258 | |
a56dbb1c |
1259 | =cut |
615d1a09 |
1260 | |