Commit | Line | Data |
9baed986 |
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 Windows |
8 | |
9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
10 | |
11 | These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP |
12 | on the Intel x86 and Itanium architectures. |
13 | |
14 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
15 | |
16 | Before you start, you should glance through the README file |
17 | found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution |
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 |
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 |
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. This includes both 32-bit and |
39 | 64-bit Windows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no |
40 | additional software to run (other than what came with your operating |
41 | system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the |
42 | following compilers on the Intel x86 architecture: |
43 | |
7241fd28 |
44 | Borland C++ version 5.02 or later |
45 | Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later |
46 | MinGW with gcc gcc version 2.95.2 or later |
9baed986 |
47 | |
e2736246 |
48 | The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Use version |
49 | 3.2.x or later for the best results with this compiler. |
9baed986 |
50 | |
7241fd28 |
51 | The Microsoft Visual C++ compiler is also now being given away free in |
52 | the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003", and also as part of the ".NET Framework |
53 | SDK". This is the same compiler that ships with "Visual Studio .NET 2003 |
54 | Professional". |
55 | |
9baed986 |
56 | This port can also be built on the Intel IA64 using: |
57 | |
58 | Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools) |
59 | |
60 | The MS Platform SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/. |
61 | |
62 | This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
63 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
64 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
65 | See L<Usage Hints for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this. |
66 | |
67 | =head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32 |
68 | |
69 | =over 4 |
70 | |
71 | =item Make |
72 | |
73 | You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using |
74 | Visual C++ or the Platform SDK tools under Windows NT/2000/XP, nmake |
75 | will work. All other builds need dmake. |
76 | |
77 | dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features |
78 | and parallelability. |
79 | |
80 | A port of dmake for Windows is available from: |
81 | |
82 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip |
83 | |
84 | (This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from |
85 | http://www.wticorp.com/ As of version 4.1PL1, the original |
86 | sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems. |
87 | A patch is included in the above fixed version.) |
88 | |
89 | Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions |
90 | in the README.NOW file). |
91 | |
92 | There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++ |
93 | compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed |
94 | case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named |
95 | with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked |
96 | to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again. |
97 | For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files, resulting in |
98 | needless recompiles every time dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you |
99 | may use the script "sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is |
100 | available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution. |
101 | |
102 | =item Command Shell |
103 | |
104 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the |
105 | popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. |
106 | If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd |
107 | shell. |
108 | |
109 | The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the |
110 | "command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to |
111 | use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x. |
112 | |
113 | The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP, using the cmd shell. |
114 | |
115 | Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The |
116 | build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. |
117 | |
118 | =item Borland C++ |
119 | |
120 | If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake. |
121 | (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not |
122 | work for MakeMaker builds.) |
123 | |
124 | See L</"Make"> above. |
125 | |
126 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ |
127 | |
128 | The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. |
129 | You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere |
00808b83 |
130 | like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin. |
131 | This will set your build environment. |
9baed986 |
132 | |
133 | You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however, |
134 | you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name |
135 | under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment |
136 | and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The |
137 | latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default |
138 | make for building extensions using MakeMaker. |
139 | |
7241fd28 |
140 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 |
141 | |
142 | This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship with |
143 | Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain everything |
144 | necessary to build Perl. |
145 | |
146 | You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC |
147 | SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries and rc.exe, and |
148 | ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and nmake.exe. Note that the latter |
149 | (which also includes the free compiler and linker) requires the ".NET |
150 | Framework Redistributable" to be installed first. This can be downloaded and |
151 | installed separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway. |
152 | |
153 | These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at |
154 | http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en |
155 | |
156 | Note that the "Platform SDK February 2003" download requires Internet Explorer |
157 | 5.0 to function. Alternatively, the very latest version at the time of writing |
158 | (called "Windows XP Service Pack 2 Platform SDK RC2") is now available as an |
159 | ISO-9660 CD image file and does not require IE5 to be downloaded but will only |
160 | work on Windows XP. |
161 | |
162 | According to the download pages the Toolkit and the .NET Framework SDK are only |
163 | supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003, so trying to use these tools on Windows |
164 | 95/98/ME and even Windows NT probably won't work. |
165 | |
166 | Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET Framework SDK. |
167 | Setup your environment as follows (assuming default installation locations |
168 | were chosen): |
169 | |
170 | SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin |
171 | SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include |
172 | SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib |
173 | |
174 | Several required files will still be missing: |
175 | |
176 | =over 4 |
177 | |
178 | =item * |
179 | |
180 | cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It is actually |
181 | installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a location such as the |
182 | following: |
183 | |
184 | C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322 |
185 | |
186 | Copy it from there to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin |
187 | |
188 | =item * |
189 | |
190 | lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with the /lib |
191 | option also works, so create a batch file called lib.bat in |
192 | C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin containing: |
193 | |
194 | @echo off |
195 | link /lib %* |
196 | |
197 | This will work as long as "lib.exe" is invoked simply as "lib" (which it is |
198 | during the Perl build process). |
199 | |
200 | =item * |
201 | |
202 | setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if the USE_SETARGV |
203 | option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies this object file in source form |
204 | in C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and |
205 | internal.h from there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using |
206 | |
207 | cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c |
208 | |
209 | Then copy setargv.obj to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\lib |
210 | |
211 | =back |
212 | |
213 | Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that |
214 | file to comment-out CCTYPE = MSVC60 (since that enables delay-loading of the |
215 | Winsock DLL which the free toolkit does not support) and to set CCHOME, |
216 | CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above. |
217 | |
9baed986 |
218 | =item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler |
219 | |
220 | The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building |
221 | Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment" |
222 | shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu. |
223 | |
e2736246 |
224 | =item MinGW release 3 with gcc |
9baed986 |
225 | |
7241fd28 |
226 | The latest release of MinGW at the time of writing is 3.1.0, which contains |
227 | gcc-3.2.3. It can be downloaded here: |
9baed986 |
228 | |
e2736246 |
229 | http://www.mingw.org/ |
7c5b6093 |
230 | |
e2736246 |
231 | Perl also compiles with earlier releases of gcc (2.95.2 and up). See below |
232 | for notes about using earlier versions of MinGW/gcc. |
9baed986 |
233 | |
234 | You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
235 | |
e2736246 |
236 | =item MinGW release 1 with gcc |
7c5b6093 |
237 | |
4a7adf4c |
238 | The MinGW-1.1 bundle contains gcc-2.95.3. |
9baed986 |
239 | |
240 | Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated |
241 | in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment |
242 | variables (usually ran from a batch file). |
243 | |
244 | There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe |
245 | released 7 November 1999: |
246 | |
247 | =over |
248 | |
249 | =item * |
250 | |
251 | It left out a fix for certain command line quotes. To fix this, be sure |
252 | to download and install the file fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above |
253 | ftp location. |
254 | |
255 | =item * |
256 | |
257 | The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may be wrong. If your |
258 | stdio.h has this problem, you will see an exception when running the |
259 | test t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the typedef for fpos_t from |
260 | "long" to "long long" in the file i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h, |
261 | and rebuild. |
262 | |
263 | =back |
264 | |
265 | A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-to-be-outdated) bundle |
266 | of the above package with the mentioned fixes already applied is available |
267 | here: |
268 | |
269 | http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip |
270 | ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip |
271 | |
272 | =back |
273 | |
274 | =head2 Building |
275 | |
276 | =over 4 |
277 | |
278 | =item * |
279 | |
280 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
281 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
282 | versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Platform SDK, and |
283 | a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers. The |
00808b83 |
284 | defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using MinGW/gcc. |
9baed986 |
285 | |
286 | =item * |
287 | |
288 | Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change |
289 | the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various |
290 | build flags. These are explained in the makefiles. |
291 | |
2b1846f4 |
292 | Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with |
293 | INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous |
294 | build. In particular, this may cause problems with the |
295 | lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and |
296 | may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather |
297 | than the one being tested. |
298 | |
9baed986 |
299 | You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that |
300 | CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. |
301 | |
302 | The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ |
303 | may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists |
304 | and is valid. |
305 | |
306 | If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
4ace4afb |
307 | enable the appropriate option in the makefile. A ready-to-use version |
308 | of fcrypt.c, based on the version originally written by Eric Young at |
309 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/, is bundled with the |
00808b83 |
310 | distribution and CRYPT_SRC is set to use it. |
4ace4afb |
311 | Alternatively, if you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
312 | you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. |
9baed986 |
313 | Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will |
314 | fail at run time. |
315 | |
316 | Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully. |
317 | |
318 | =item * |
319 | |
320 | Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make). |
321 | |
322 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
78a7c709 |
323 | perl59.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's |
9baed986 |
324 | under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make |
325 | sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
326 | |
327 | =back |
328 | |
329 | =head2 Testing Perl on Win32 |
330 | |
331 | Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from |
332 | the testsuite (many tests will be skipped). |
333 | |
334 | There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT/2000/XP. |
335 | Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior command shell. |
336 | |
337 | Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the |
338 | native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains |
339 | spaces. So don't do that. |
340 | |
341 | If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see |
342 | failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. |
343 | |
344 | If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t |
345 | arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system |
346 | default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages |
347 | from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory |
348 | (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test. |
349 | |
350 | If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into |
351 | problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For |
352 | example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk |
353 | contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler |
354 | (v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an |
355 | option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland |
356 | search algorithm to locate header files. |
357 | |
a6a21311 |
358 | If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for |
359 | C<link()> related tests (I<op/write.t>, I<op/stat.t> ...). Testing on |
360 | NTFS avoids these errors. |
361 | |
362 | Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not |
363 | have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils |
364 | include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows |
365 | ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to |
366 | avoid these errors. |
367 | |
9baed986 |
368 | Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
369 | |
370 | =head2 Installation of Perl on Win32 |
371 | |
372 | Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly |
373 | built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the |
374 | Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under |
00808b83 |
375 | C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
376 | C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html>. |
9baed986 |
377 | |
00808b83 |
378 | To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to |
379 | your PATH environment variable: C<$INST_TOP\bin>, e.g. |
9baed986 |
380 | |
00808b83 |
381 | set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH% |
9baed986 |
382 | |
00808b83 |
383 | If you opted to uncomment C<INST_VER> and C<INST_ARCH> in the makefile |
384 | then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you will |
385 | need to add two new PATH components instead: C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin> and |
386 | C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME>, e.g. |
387 | |
388 | set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% |
9baed986 |
389 | |
390 | =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32 |
391 | |
392 | =over 4 |
393 | |
394 | =item Environment Variables |
395 | |
396 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
397 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
398 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
399 | |
400 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
401 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
402 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
403 | variables you can set in L<perlrun>. |
404 | |
405 | You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and |
406 | backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. |
407 | |
408 | Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default |
409 | values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from |
410 | C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. |
411 | Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the |
412 | following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set: |
413 | |
414 | lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC |
415 | lib standard library path to add to @INC |
416 | sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC |
417 | sitelib site library path to add to @INC |
418 | vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC |
419 | vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC |
420 | PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" |
421 | |
422 | Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version |
423 | of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be |
424 | separated with semicolons, as usual on win32. |
425 | |
426 | =item File Globbing |
427 | |
428 | By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension, |
429 | which provides portable globbing. |
430 | |
431 | If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS |
432 | filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob |
433 | to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for |
434 | details. |
435 | |
436 | =item Using perl from the command line |
437 | |
438 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
439 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
440 | with what Windows offers by way of a command shell. |
441 | |
442 | The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that |
443 | the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it. |
444 | First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and |
445 | COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle |
446 | redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the |
447 | executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining |
448 | command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library |
449 | upon which Perl was built. |
450 | |
451 | It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C |
452 | runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so |
453 | wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the |
454 | shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are |
455 | using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote |
456 | character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces |
457 | and other special characters in arguments. |
458 | |
459 | The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
460 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
461 | based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and |
462 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to |
463 | prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can |
464 | put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and |
465 | enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and |
466 | the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by |
467 | the C runtime. |
468 | |
00808b83 |
469 | The file redirection characters "E<lt>", "E<gt>", and "|" can be quoted by |
9baed986 |
470 | double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always |
471 | be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or |
472 | the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make |
473 | this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
474 | been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears |
475 | to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command |
476 | line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat |
477 | the caret as a quote character). |
478 | |
479 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
480 | |
481 | This prints two doublequotes: |
482 | |
483 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
484 | |
485 | This does the same: |
486 | |
487 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
488 | |
489 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
490 | |
491 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
492 | |
493 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
494 | |
495 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
496 | |
497 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
498 | |
499 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
500 | |
501 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
502 | |
503 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
504 | |
505 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
506 | |
507 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
508 | |
509 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
510 | |
511 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
512 | |
513 | |
514 | Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x |
515 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
516 | |
517 | One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for |
518 | Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating |
519 | that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is |
520 | therefore important to always double any % characters which you want |
521 | Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are |
522 | quoted. |
523 | |
524 | =item Building Extensions |
525 | |
526 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
527 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
528 | Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN. |
529 | |
530 | Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work |
531 | in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at |
532 | http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into |
533 | porting modules that don't readily build. |
534 | |
535 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
536 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
537 | |
538 | perl Makefile.PL |
539 | $MAKE |
540 | $MAKE test |
541 | $MAKE install |
542 | |
543 | where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to |
544 | use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions |
545 | may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or |
546 | fail), but most serious ones do. |
547 | |
548 | It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and |
549 | ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can |
550 | either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an |
551 | old version of nmake reportedly available from: |
552 | |
cb9857f1 |
553 | http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe |
9baed986 |
554 | |
555 | Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from |
556 | CPAN. |
557 | |
558 | http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/ |
559 | |
560 | You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
561 | |
562 | Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax |
563 | depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is |
564 | important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: |
565 | |
566 | make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax |
567 | make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax |
568 | any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax |
569 | (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) |
570 | |
571 | If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, |
572 | edit Config.pm to fix it. |
573 | |
574 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported |
575 | C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for |
576 | the compiler for command-line compilation. |
577 | |
578 | If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for |
579 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
580 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
581 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
582 | utility. |
583 | |
584 | =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion |
585 | |
586 | The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such |
587 | as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to |
588 | programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. |
589 | This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, |
590 | perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. |
591 | However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the |
592 | behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the |
593 | compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may |
594 | be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an |
595 | alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. |
596 | |
597 | Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things |
598 | about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more |
599 | powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like |
600 | */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and |
601 | 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even |
602 | entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion). |
603 | |
604 | C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm |
605 | # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't |
606 | use File::DosGlob; |
607 | @ARGV = map { |
608 | my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; |
609 | @g ? @g : $_; |
610 | } @ARGV; |
611 | 1; |
612 | ^Z |
613 | C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild |
614 | C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c |
615 | p4view/perl/perl.c |
616 | p4view/perl/perlio.c |
617 | p4view/perl/perly.c |
618 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
619 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
620 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
621 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
622 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
623 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
624 | |
625 | Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create |
626 | Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to |
627 | set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion |
628 | to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup |
629 | environment. |
630 | |
631 | If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's |
632 | command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting |
633 | binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be |
634 | what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion |
635 | done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. |
636 | |
637 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
638 | |
639 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
640 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
641 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
642 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
643 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
644 | extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore, |
645 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
646 | |
647 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
648 | ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
00808b83 |
649 | all of the ActiveState extensions and several other Win32 extensions from |
9baed986 |
650 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
651 | support. This bundle is available at: |
652 | |
00808b83 |
653 | http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Win32/libwin32-0.191.zip |
9baed986 |
654 | |
655 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
656 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
657 | same location. |
658 | |
659 | =item Notes on 64-bit Windows |
660 | |
661 | Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium |
662 | architecture. |
663 | |
664 | The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the |
665 | norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are |
666 | both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition, |
667 | there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast, |
668 | the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int> |
669 | as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of |
670 | 64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of |
671 | addressability. |
672 | |
673 | 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86 |
674 | binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build |
675 | of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build |
676 | a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother: |
677 | |
00808b83 |
678 | =over |
679 | |
9baed986 |
680 | =item * |
681 | |
682 | A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on |
683 | Itanium hardware. |
684 | |
685 | =item * |
686 | |
687 | There is no 2GB limit on process size. |
688 | |
689 | =item * |
690 | |
691 | Perl automatically provides large file support when built under |
692 | 64-bit Windows. |
693 | |
694 | =item * |
695 | |
696 | Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application. |
697 | |
698 | =back |
699 | |
00808b83 |
700 | =back |
701 | |
9baed986 |
702 | =head2 Running Perl Scripts |
703 | |
704 | Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to |
705 | indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. |
706 | Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are |
707 | executables. |
708 | |
709 | Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on |
710 | Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods |
711 | to use this to execute perl scripts: |
712 | |
713 | =over 8 |
714 | |
715 | =item 1 |
716 | |
717 | There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will |
718 | work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two |
719 | commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT |
720 | 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this |
721 | up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't |
722 | perl-ready? :). |
723 | |
724 | =item 2 |
725 | |
726 | Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are |
727 | reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the |
728 | old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a |
729 | regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process |
730 | makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap |
731 | perl scripts into batch files. For example: |
732 | |
733 | pl2bat foo.pl |
734 | |
735 | will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any |
736 | .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. |
737 | |
738 | If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that |
739 | "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to |
740 | refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make |
741 | sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, |
742 | 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their |
743 | 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT |
744 | startup file to enable this to work. |
745 | |
746 | =item 3 |
747 | |
748 | Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, |
749 | so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not |
750 | run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the |
751 | original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive |
752 | if the originals get updated often. A different approach that |
753 | avoids both problems is possible. |
754 | |
755 | A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied |
756 | to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, |
757 | if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is |
758 | executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply |
759 | by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively |
760 | runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". |
761 | With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location |
762 | than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on |
763 | the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic |
764 | links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". |
765 | |
766 | Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type |
767 | "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) |
768 | Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH |
769 | |
00808b83 |
770 | =back |
771 | |
772 | =head2 Miscellaneous Things |
9baed986 |
773 | |
774 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
775 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
776 | system. |
777 | |
778 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
779 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
780 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
781 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
782 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
783 | "foo". |
784 | |
13ee867e |
785 | One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk> |
786 | is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line |
787 | window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy |
788 | of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl> |
789 | executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly |
790 | the same as normal C<perl> on Win32, except that options like C<-h> |
791 | don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to). |
792 | |
9baed986 |
793 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
794 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
795 | find a mailer on your system). |
796 | |
9baed986 |
797 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
798 | |
799 | Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if |
800 | set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications |
801 | the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the |
802 | the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly. |
803 | Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages |
804 | as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure |
805 | files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious, |
806 | or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl |
807 | updating it). The build does complete with |
808 | |
809 | set PERLIO=perlio |
810 | |
811 | but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues. |
812 | |
813 | Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in |
814 | L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid |
815 | surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl |
816 | in other operating environments or if you intend to write code |
00808b83 |
817 | that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport> |
9baed986 |
818 | for a reasonably definitive list of these differences. |
819 | |
820 | Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly |
821 | in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">. |
822 | |
823 | Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
824 | behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list. |
036c1c1e |
825 | Perl requires Winsock2 to be installed on the system. If you're |
826 | running Win95, you can download Winsock upgrade from here: |
827 | |
828 | http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WUAdminTools/S_WUNetworkingTools/W95Sockets2/Default.asp |
829 | |
830 | Later OS versions already include Winsock2 support. |
9baed986 |
831 | |
832 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it |
833 | doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> |
834 | or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most |
835 | implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled. |
836 | Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag |
837 | variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should |
838 | currently be considered unsupported. |
839 | |
840 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
00808b83 |
841 | you may find to E<lt>F<perlbug@perl.org>E<gt>, along with the output |
842 | produced by C<perl -V>. |
9baed986 |
843 | |
e84ac4e2 |
844 | =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
845 | |
846 | The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark |
847 | of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission. |
848 | |
9baed986 |
849 | =head1 AUTHORS |
850 | |
851 | =over 4 |
852 | |
853 | =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> |
854 | |
855 | =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt> |
856 | |
857 | =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt> |
858 | |
859 | =back |
860 | |
861 | This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy. |
862 | |
863 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
864 | |
865 | L<perl> |
866 | |
867 | =head1 HISTORY |
868 | |
869 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
870 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
871 | at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks |
872 | since then. |
873 | |
874 | Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy). |
875 | |
876 | GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). |
877 | |
878 | Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
879 | |
880 | Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
881 | |
882 | Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl). |
883 | |
884 | Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp). |
885 | |
00808b83 |
886 | Last updated: 30 July 2004 |
9baed986 |
887 | |
888 | =cut |