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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 pod/perlpod.pod) which is |
3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
4 | |
5 | =head1 NAME |
6 | |
7 | perlwin32 - Perl under Win32 |
8 | |
9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
10 | |
11 | These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and |
12 | 2000). |
13 | |
14 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
15 | |
16 | Before you start, you should glance through the README file |
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17 | found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution |
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18 | was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under |
19 | which this software is being distributed. |
20 | |
21 | Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the |
22 | known limitations of this port. |
23 | |
24 | The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is |
25 | only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In |
26 | particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about |
27 | "Configure". |
28 | |
29 | You may also want to look at two other options for building |
30 | a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and |
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31 | README.os2 files, each of which give a different set of rules to |
32 | build a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods |
33 | will probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but |
34 | you will also need to download and use various other build-time and |
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35 | run-time support software described in those files. |
36 | |
37 | This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" |
38 | port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no |
39 | additional software to run (other than what came with your operating |
40 | system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the |
41 | following compilers: |
42 | |
43 | Borland C++ version 5.02 or later |
44 | Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later |
45 | Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better |
46 | |
47 | The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Support |
48 | for it is still experimental. (Older versions of GCC are known |
49 | not to work.) |
50 | |
51 | This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
52 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
53 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
54 | See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this. |
55 | |
56 | =head2 Setting Up |
57 | |
58 | =over 4 |
59 | |
60 | =item Make |
61 | |
62 | You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using |
63 | Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other |
64 | builds need dmake. |
65 | |
66 | dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features |
67 | and parallelability. |
68 | |
69 | A port of dmake for Windows is available from: |
70 | |
71 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip |
72 | |
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73 | (This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from |
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74 | http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original |
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75 | sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems. |
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76 | A patch is included in the above fixed version.) |
77 | |
78 | Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions |
79 | in the README.NOW file). |
80 | |
81 | =item Command Shell |
82 | |
83 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the |
84 | popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. |
85 | If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd |
86 | shell. |
87 | |
88 | The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the |
89 | "command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to |
90 | use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x. |
91 | |
92 | The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell. |
93 | |
94 | Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The |
95 | build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. |
96 | |
97 | =item Borland C++ |
98 | |
99 | If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake. |
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100 | (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not |
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101 | work for MakeMaker builds.) |
102 | |
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103 | See L</"Make"> above. |
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104 | |
105 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ |
106 | |
107 | The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. |
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108 | You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere |
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109 | like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment. |
110 | |
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111 | You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however, |
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112 | you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name |
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113 | under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment |
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114 | and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The |
115 | latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default |
116 | make for building extensions using MakeMaker. |
117 | |
118 | =item Mingw32 with GCC |
119 | |
120 | GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from: |
121 | |
122 | ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/ |
123 | |
124 | The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers. |
125 | |
126 | Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated |
127 | in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment |
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128 | variables (usually ran from a batch file). |
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129 | |
130 | The version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999 left out |
131 | a fix for certain command line quotes, so be sure to download and install |
132 | fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe too. |
133 | |
134 | You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
135 | |
136 | =back |
137 | |
138 | =head2 Building |
139 | |
140 | =over 4 |
141 | |
142 | =item * |
143 | |
144 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
145 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
146 | versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk" |
147 | that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake |
148 | makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler. |
149 | |
150 | =item * |
151 | |
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152 | Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change |
153 | the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various |
154 | build flags. These are explained in the makefiles. |
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155 | |
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156 | You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that |
157 | CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. |
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158 | |
159 | The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ |
160 | may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists |
161 | and is valid. |
162 | |
163 | If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
164 | enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not |
165 | bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions |
166 | on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine |
167 | is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely |
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168 | available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example, |
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169 | "ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the |
170 | name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if |
171 | you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set |
172 | CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains |
173 | many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different |
174 | implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single, |
175 | self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be |
176 | easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is |
177 | in des_fcrypt.patch. |
178 | |
179 | Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will |
180 | fail at run time. |
181 | |
182 | Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully. |
183 | |
184 | =item * |
185 | |
186 | Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make). |
187 | |
188 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
189 | perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's |
190 | under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make |
191 | sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
192 | |
193 | =back |
194 | |
195 | =head2 Testing |
196 | |
197 | Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from |
198 | the testsuite (many tests will be skipped). |
199 | |
200 | There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or |
201 | Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior |
202 | command shell. |
203 | |
204 | Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the |
205 | native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains |
206 | spaces. So don't do that. |
207 | |
208 | If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see |
209 | failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. |
210 | |
211 | If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t |
212 | arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system |
213 | default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages |
214 | from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory |
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215 | (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test. |
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216 | |
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217 | If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you're risking |
218 | to face a problem with finding incorrect header files. Don't be surprised |
219 | when during compiling perl extension "Tk" you will fail because both perl |
220 | and tk contain a header file with same name - "patchlevel.h". The latest |
221 | Borland compilers are free of this misbehaviour, and they even invented |
222 | option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility as "Use old Borland |
223 | search algorithm to locate header files". |
224 | |
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225 | Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
226 | |
227 | =head2 Installation |
228 | |
229 | Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly |
230 | built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the |
231 | Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under |
232 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
233 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed, |
234 | you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable, |
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235 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>. |
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236 | For example: |
237 | |
238 | set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% |
239 | |
240 | If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the |
241 | installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be |
242 | sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance: |
243 | |
244 | set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH% |
245 | |
246 | =head2 Usage Hints |
247 | |
248 | =over 4 |
249 | |
250 | =item Environment Variables |
251 | |
252 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
253 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
254 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
255 | |
256 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
257 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
258 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
259 | variables you can set in L<perlrun>. |
260 | |
261 | You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and |
262 | backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. |
263 | |
264 | Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default |
265 | values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from |
266 | C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. |
267 | Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the |
268 | following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set: |
269 | |
270 | lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC |
271 | lib standard library path to add to @INC |
272 | sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC |
273 | sitelib site library path to add to @INC |
274 | vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC |
275 | vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC |
276 | PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" |
277 | |
278 | Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version |
279 | of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be |
280 | separated with semicolons, as usual on win32. |
281 | |
282 | =item File Globbing |
283 | |
284 | By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension, |
285 | which provides portable globbing. |
286 | |
287 | If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS |
288 | filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob |
289 | to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for |
290 | details. |
291 | |
292 | =item Using perl from the command line |
293 | |
294 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
295 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
296 | with what Windows offers by way of a command shell. |
297 | |
298 | The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that |
299 | the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it. |
300 | First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and |
301 | COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle |
302 | redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the |
303 | executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining |
304 | command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library |
305 | upon which Perl was built. |
306 | |
307 | It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C |
308 | runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so |
309 | wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the |
310 | shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are |
311 | using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote |
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312 | character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces |
313 | and other special characters in arguments. |
314 | |
315 | The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
316 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
317 | based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and |
318 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to |
319 | prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can |
320 | put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and |
321 | enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and |
322 | the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by |
323 | the C runtime. |
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324 | |
325 | The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by |
326 | double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always |
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327 | be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or |
328 | the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make |
329 | this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
330 | been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears |
331 | to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command |
332 | line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat |
333 | the caret as a quote character). |
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334 | |
335 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
336 | |
337 | This prints two doublequotes: |
338 | |
339 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
340 | |
341 | This does the same: |
342 | |
343 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
344 | |
345 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
346 | |
347 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
348 | |
349 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
350 | |
351 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
352 | |
353 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
354 | |
355 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
356 | |
357 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
358 | |
359 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
360 | |
361 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
362 | |
363 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
364 | |
365 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
366 | |
367 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
368 | |
369 | |
370 | Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x |
371 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
372 | |
373 | One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for |
374 | Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating |
375 | that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is |
376 | therefore important to always double any % characters which you want |
377 | Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are |
378 | quoted. |
379 | |
380 | =item Building Extensions |
381 | |
382 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
383 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
384 | Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN. |
385 | |
386 | Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work |
387 | in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at |
388 | http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into |
389 | porting modules that don't readily build. |
390 | |
391 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
392 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
393 | |
394 | perl Makefile.PL |
395 | $MAKE |
396 | $MAKE test |
397 | $MAKE install |
398 | |
399 | where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to |
400 | use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions |
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401 | may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or |
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402 | fail), but most serious ones do. |
403 | |
404 | It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and |
405 | ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can |
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406 | either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an |
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407 | old version of nmake reportedly available from: |
408 | |
409 | ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe |
410 | |
411 | Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from |
412 | CPAN: |
413 | |
414 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz |
415 | |
416 | You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
417 | |
418 | Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax |
419 | depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is |
420 | important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: |
421 | |
422 | make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax |
423 | make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax |
424 | any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax |
425 | (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) |
426 | |
427 | If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, |
428 | edit Config.pm to fix it. |
429 | |
430 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported |
431 | C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for |
432 | the compiler for command-line compilation. |
433 | |
434 | If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for |
435 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
436 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
437 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
438 | utility. |
439 | |
440 | =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion |
441 | |
442 | The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such |
443 | as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to |
444 | programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. |
445 | This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, |
446 | perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. |
447 | However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the |
448 | behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the |
449 | compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may |
450 | be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an |
451 | alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. |
452 | |
453 | Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things |
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454 | about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more |
455 | powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like |
456 | */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and |
457 | 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even |
458 | entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion). |
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459 | |
460 | C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm |
461 | # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't |
462 | use File::DosGlob; |
463 | @ARGV = map { |
464 | my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; |
465 | @g ? @g : $_; |
466 | } @ARGV; |
467 | 1; |
468 | ^Z |
469 | C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild |
470 | C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c |
471 | p4view/perl/perl.c |
472 | p4view/perl/perlio.c |
473 | p4view/perl/perly.c |
474 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
475 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
476 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
477 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
478 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
479 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
480 | |
481 | Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create |
482 | Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to |
483 | set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion |
484 | to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup |
485 | environment. |
486 | |
487 | If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's |
488 | command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting |
489 | binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be |
490 | what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion |
491 | done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. |
492 | |
493 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
494 | |
495 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
496 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
497 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
498 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
499 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
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500 | extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore, |
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501 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
502 | |
503 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
504 | ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
505 | all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from |
506 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
507 | support. This bundle is available at: |
508 | |
509 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip |
510 | |
511 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
512 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
513 | same location. |
514 | |
515 | =item Running Perl Scripts |
516 | |
517 | Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to |
518 | indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. |
519 | Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are |
520 | executables. |
521 | |
522 | Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on |
523 | Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods |
524 | to use this to execute perl scripts: |
525 | |
526 | =over 8 |
527 | |
528 | =item 1 |
529 | |
530 | There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will |
531 | work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two |
532 | commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT |
533 | 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this |
534 | up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't |
535 | perl-ready? :). |
536 | |
537 | =item 2 |
538 | |
539 | Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are |
540 | reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the |
541 | old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a |
542 | regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process |
543 | makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap |
544 | perl scripts into batch files. For example: |
545 | |
546 | pl2bat foo.pl |
547 | |
548 | will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any |
549 | .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. |
550 | |
551 | If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that |
552 | "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to |
553 | refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make |
554 | sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, |
555 | 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their |
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556 | 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT |
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557 | startup file to enable this to work. |
558 | |
559 | =item 3 |
560 | |
561 | Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, |
562 | so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not |
563 | run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the |
564 | original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive |
565 | if the originals get updated often. A different approach that |
566 | avoids both problems is possible. |
567 | |
568 | A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied |
569 | to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, |
570 | if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is |
571 | executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply |
572 | by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively |
573 | runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". |
574 | With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location |
575 | than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on |
576 | the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic |
577 | links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". |
578 | |
579 | Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type |
580 | "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) |
581 | Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH |
582 | |
583 | =back |
584 | |
585 | =item Miscellaneous Things |
586 | |
587 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
588 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
589 | system. |
590 | |
591 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
592 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
593 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
594 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
595 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
596 | "foo". |
597 | |
598 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
599 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
600 | find a mailer on your system). |
601 | |
602 | =back |
603 | |
604 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
605 | |
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606 | Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if |
607 | set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications |
608 | the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the |
609 | the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly. |
610 | Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages |
611 | as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure |
612 | files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious, |
613 | or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl |
614 | updating it). The build does complete with |
615 | |
616 | set PERLIO=perlio |
617 | |
618 | but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues. |
619 | |
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620 | Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in |
621 | L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid |
622 | surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl |
623 | in other operating environments or if you intend to write code |
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624 | that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport> |
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625 | for a reasonably definitive list of these differences. |
626 | |
627 | Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly |
628 | in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">. |
629 | |
630 | Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
631 | behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list. |
632 | |
633 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it |
634 | doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> |
635 | or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most |
636 | implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled. |
637 | Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag |
638 | variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should |
639 | currently be considered unsupported. |
640 | |
641 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
642 | you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced |
643 | by C<perl -V>. |
644 | |
645 | =head1 AUTHORS |
646 | |
647 | =over 4 |
648 | |
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649 | =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> |
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650 | |
13a2d996 |
651 | =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt> |
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652 | |
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653 | =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt> |
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654 | |
655 | =back |
656 | |
657 | This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy. |
658 | |
659 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
660 | |
661 | L<perl> |
662 | |
663 | =head1 HISTORY |
664 | |
665 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
666 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
667 | at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks |
668 | since then. |
669 | |
670 | Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy). |
671 | |
672 | GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). |
673 | |
674 | Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
675 | |
676 | Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
677 | |
678 | Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl). |
679 | |
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680 | Last updated: 22 November 2000 |
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681 | |
682 | =cut |