Test case for #10433/#10424.
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / README.win32
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a9226780 1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
2see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
3specially designed to be readable as is.
4
5=head1 NAME
6
7perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
11These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
122000).
13
14=head1 DESCRIPTION
15
16Before you start, you should glance through the README file
0ab7fa47 17found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution
a9226780 18was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
19which this software is being distributed.
20
21Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
22known limitations of this port.
23
24The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
25only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In
26particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
27"Configure".
28
29You may also want to look at two other options for building
30a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and
0ab7fa47 31README.os2 files, each of which give a different set of rules to
32build a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods
33will probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but
34you will also need to download and use various other build-time and
a9226780 35run-time support software described in those files.
36
37This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
38port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no
39additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
40system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
41following 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
47The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Support
48for it is still experimental. (Older versions of GCC are known
49not to work.)
50
51This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
52is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
53able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
54See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
55
56=head2 Setting Up
57
58=over 4
59
60=item Make
61
62You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
63Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other
64builds need dmake.
65
66dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
67and parallelability.
68
69A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
70
71 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
72
0ab7fa47 73(This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from
a9226780 74http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original
0ab7fa47 75sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems.
a9226780 76A patch is included in the above fixed version.)
77
78Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
79in the README.NOW file).
80
3b48d85d 81There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++
a7486cbb 82compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed
3b48d85d 83case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named
a7486cbb 84with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked
3b48d85d 85to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again.
a7486cbb 86For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files, resulting in
87needless recompiles everytime dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you
88may use the script "sncfnmcs.pl" after a successful build. It is
89available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution.
3b48d85d 90
a9226780 91=item Command Shell
92
93Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the
94popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
95If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
96shell.
97
98The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the
99"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to
100use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
101
102The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
103
104Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The
105build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
106
107=item Borland C++
108
109If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.
0ab7fa47 110(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not
a9226780 111work for MakeMaker builds.)
112
0ab7fa47 113See L</"Make"> above.
a9226780 114
115=item Microsoft Visual C++
116
117The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
0ab7fa47 118You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere
a9226780 119like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
120
0ab7fa47 121You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however,
a9226780 122you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
0ab7fa47 123under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment
a9226780 124and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The
125latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
126make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
127
128=item Mingw32 with GCC
129
130GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
131
132 ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
133
a7486cbb 134You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
135
a9226780 136The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
137
138Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated
139in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment
0ab7fa47 140variables (usually ran from a batch file).
a9226780 141
a7486cbb 142There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe
143released 7 November 1999:
a9226780 144
a7486cbb 145=over
146
147=item *
148
149It left out a fix for certain command line quotes. To fix this, be sure
150to download and install the file fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above
151ftp location.
152
153=item *
154
155The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may be wrong. If your
156stdio.h has this problem, you will see an exception when running the
157test t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the typedef for fpos_t from
158"long" to "long long" in the file i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h,
159and rebuild.
160
161=back
162
163A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-to-be-outdated) bundle
164of the above package with the mentioned fixes already applied is available
165here:
166
167 http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
168 ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
a9226780 169
170=back
171
172=head2 Building
173
174=over 4
175
176=item *
177
178Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
179This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
180versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
181that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake
182makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.
183
184=item *
185
0ab7fa47 186Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
187the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various
188build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
a9226780 189
0ab7fa47 190You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
191CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
a9226780 192
193The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
194may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists
195and is valid.
196
197If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
198enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not
199bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions
200on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine
201is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely
0ab7fa47 202available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example,
a9226780 203"ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the
204name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if
205you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set
206CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains
207many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different
208implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single,
209self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be
210easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is
211in des_fcrypt.patch.
212
213Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
214fail at run time.
215
216Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
217
218=item *
219
220Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
221
222This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
223perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
224under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
225sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
226
227=back
228
229=head2 Testing
230
231Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
232the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
233
234There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
235Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
236command shell.
237
238Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
239native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
240spaces. So don't do that.
241
242If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
243failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
244
245If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
246arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
247default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
248from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
0ab7fa47 249(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test.
a9226780 250
a7486cbb 251If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into
252problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For
253example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk
254contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler
255(v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an
256option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland
257search algorithm to locate header files.
cbebf344 258
a9226780 259Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
260
261=head2 Installation
262
263Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
264built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
265Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
266C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
267C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed,
268you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,
0ab7fa47 269C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
a9226780 270For example:
271
272 set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
273
274If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the
275installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be
276sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:
277
278 set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
279
280=head2 Usage Hints
281
282=over 4
283
284=item Environment Variables
285
286The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
287into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
288using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
289
290If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
291to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
292to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
293variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
294
295You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
296backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
297
298Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
299values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
300C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
301Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
302following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
303
304 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
305 lib standard library path to add to @INC
306 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
307 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
308 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
309 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
310 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
311
312Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
313of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
314separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
315
316=item File Globbing
317
318By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
319which provides portable globbing.
320
321If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
322filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
323to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
324details.
325
326=item Using perl from the command line
327
328If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
329shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
330with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
331
332The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
333the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
334First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
335COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
336redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
337executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
338command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
339upon which Perl was built.
340
341It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
342runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
343wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
344shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
345using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
0ab7fa47 346character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
347and other special characters in arguments.
348
349The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
350quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
351based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and
352passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to
353prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can
354put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and
355enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and
356the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by
357the C runtime.
a9226780 358
359The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
360double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
0ab7fa47 361be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
362the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make
363this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
364been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears
365to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
366line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
367the caret as a quote character).
a9226780 368
369Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
370
371This prints two doublequotes:
372
373 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
374
375This does the same:
376
377 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
378
379This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
380
381 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
382
383This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
384
385 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
386
387This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
388
389 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
390
391This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
392
393 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
394
395This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
396
397 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
398
399This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
400
401 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
402
403
404Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
405is left as an exercise to the reader :)
406
407One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
408Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
409that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
410therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
411Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
412quoted.
413
414=item Building Extensions
415
416The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
417of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
418Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
419
420Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
421in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
422http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
423porting modules that don't readily build.
424
425Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
426be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
427
428 perl Makefile.PL
429 $MAKE
430 $MAKE test
431 $MAKE install
432
433where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
434use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
0ab7fa47 435may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
a9226780 436fail), but most serious ones do.
437
438It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
439ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
0ab7fa47 440either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
a9226780 441old version of nmake reportedly available from:
442
443 ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
444
445Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
446CPAN:
447
448 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
449
450You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
451
452Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
453depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
454important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
455
456 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
457 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
458 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
459 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
460
461If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
462edit Config.pm to fix it.
463
464If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
465C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
466the compiler for command-line compilation.
467
468If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
469why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
470it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
471that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
472utility.
473
474=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
475
476The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
477as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
478programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
479This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
480perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
481However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
482behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
483compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
484be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
485alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
486
487Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
0ab7fa47 488about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
489powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
490*/*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
4914) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
492entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
a9226780 493
494 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
495 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
496 use File::DosGlob;
497 @ARGV = map {
498 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
499 @g ? @g : $_;
500 } @ARGV;
501 1;
502 ^Z
503 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
504 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
505 p4view/perl/perl.c
506 p4view/perl/perlio.c
507 p4view/perl/perly.c
508 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
509 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
510 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
511 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
512 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
513 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
514
515Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
516Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
517set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
518to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
519environment.
520
521If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
522command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
523binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
524what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
525done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
526
527=item Win32 Specific Extensions
528
529A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
530from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
531be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
532native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
533have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
0ab7fa47 534extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore,
a9226780 535cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
536
537To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
538ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
539all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
540CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
541support. This bundle is available at:
542
543 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
544
545See the README in that distribution for building and installation
546instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
547same location.
548
549=item Running Perl Scripts
550
551Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
552indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
553Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
554executables.
555
556Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
557Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
558to use this to execute perl scripts:
559
560=over 8
561
562=item 1
563
564There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
565work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two
566commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
5674.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
568up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't
569perl-ready? :).
570
571=item 2
572
573Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
574reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
575old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
576regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
577makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
578perl scripts into batch files. For example:
579
580 pl2bat foo.pl
581
582will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
583.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
584
585If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
586"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
587refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
588sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
5894DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
0ab7fa47 5904NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
a9226780 591startup file to enable this to work.
592
593=item 3
594
595Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
596so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
597run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
598original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
599if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
600avoids both problems is possible.
601
602A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
603to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
604if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
605executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
606by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
607runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
608With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
609than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
610the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
611links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
612
613Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
614"runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
615Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
616
617=back
618
619=item Miscellaneous Things
620
621A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
622able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
623system.
624
625C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
626in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
627like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
628have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
629"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
630"foo".
631
632If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
633bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
634find a mailer on your system).
635
636=back
637
638=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
639
3789aae2 640Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
641set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
642the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
643the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
644Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
645as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
646files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
647or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
648updating it). The build does complete with
b5ab5069 649
3789aae2 650 set PERLIO=perlio
651
652but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
653
a9226780 654Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
655L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
656surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
657in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
0ab7fa47 658that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport>
a9226780 659for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
660
661Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
662in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
663
664Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
665behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
666
667Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
668doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
669or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
670implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
671Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
672variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
673currently be considered unsupported.
674
675Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
676you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
677by C<perl -V>.
678
679=head1 AUTHORS
680
681=over 4
682
13a2d996 683=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
a9226780 684
13a2d996 685=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
a9226780 686
3789aae2 687=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
a9226780 688
689=back
690
691This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
692
693=head1 SEE ALSO
694
695L<perl>
696
697=head1 HISTORY
698
699This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
700and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
701at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
702since then.
703
704Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
705
706GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
707
708Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
709
710Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
711
712Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
713
a7486cbb 714Last updated: 1 April 2001
a9226780 715
716=cut