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acfe0abc 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
17found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution
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
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
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 for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this.
55
56=head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32
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
73(This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from
74http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original
75sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems.
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
81There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++
82compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed
83case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named
84with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked
85to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again.
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 "sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is
89available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution.
90
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.
110(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not
111work for MakeMaker builds.)
112
113See L</"Make"> above.
114
115=item Microsoft Visual C++
116
117The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
118You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere
119like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
120
121You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however,
122you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
123under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment
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
134You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
135
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
140variables (usually ran from a batch file).
141
142There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe
143released 7 November 1999:
144
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
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
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.
189
190You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
191CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
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
202available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example,
203"ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/"). 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
213An easier alternative may be to get the pre-patched and ready-to-use
214fcrypt.c that can be found here:
215
216 http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
217 ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
218
219Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
220fail at run time.
221
222Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
223
224=item *
225
226Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
227
228This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
229perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
230under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
231sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
232
233=back
234
235=head2 Testing Perl on Win32
236
237Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
238the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
239
240There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
241Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
242command shell.
243
244Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
245native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
246spaces. So don't do that.
247
248If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
249failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
250
251If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
252arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
253default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
254from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
255(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test.
256
257If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into
258problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For
259example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk
260contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler
261(v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an
262option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland
263search algorithm to locate header files.
264
265Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
266
267=head2 Installation of Perl on Win32
268
269Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
270built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
271Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
272C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
273C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed,
274you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,
275C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
276For example:
277
278 set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
279
280If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the
281installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be
282sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:
283
284 set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
285
286=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
287
288=over 4
289
290=item Environment Variables
291
292The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
293into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
294using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
295
296If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
297to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
298to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
299variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
300
301You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
302backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
303
304Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
305values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
306C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
307Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
308following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
309
310 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
311 lib standard library path to add to @INC
312 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
313 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
314 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
315 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
316 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
317
318Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
319of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
320separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
321
322=item File Globbing
323
324By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
325which provides portable globbing.
326
327If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
328filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
329to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
330details.
331
332=item Using perl from the command line
333
334If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
335shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
336with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
337
338The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
339the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
340First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
341COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
342redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
343executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
344command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
345upon which Perl was built.
346
347It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
348runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
349wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
350shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
351using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
352character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
353and other special characters in arguments.
354
355The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
356quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
357based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and
358passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to
359prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can
360put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and
361enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and
362the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by
363the C runtime.
364
365The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
366double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
367be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
368the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make
369this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
370been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears
371to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
372line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
373the caret as a quote character).
374
375Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
376
377This prints two doublequotes:
378
379 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
380
381This does the same:
382
383 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
384
385This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
386
387 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
388
389This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
390
391 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
392
393This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
394
395 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
396
397This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
398
399 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
400
401This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
402
403 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
404
405This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
406
407 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
408
409
410Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
411is left as an exercise to the reader :)
412
413One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
414Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
415that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
416therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
417Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
418quoted.
419
420=item Building Extensions
421
422The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
423of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
424Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
425
426Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
427in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
428http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
429porting modules that don't readily build.
430
431Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
432be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
433
434 perl Makefile.PL
435 $MAKE
436 $MAKE test
437 $MAKE install
438
439where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
440use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
441may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
442fail), but most serious ones do.
443
444It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
445ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
446either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
447old version of nmake reportedly available from:
448
449 ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
450
451Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
452CPAN:
453
454 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
455
456You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
457
458Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
459depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
460important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
461
462 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
463 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
464 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
465 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
466
467If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
468edit Config.pm to fix it.
469
470If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
471C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
472the compiler for command-line compilation.
473
474If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
475why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
476it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
477that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
478utility.
479
480=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
481
482The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
483as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
484programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
485This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
486perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
487However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
488behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
489compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
490be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
491alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
492
493Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
494about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
495powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
496*/*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
4974) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
498entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
499
500 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
501 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
502 use File::DosGlob;
503 @ARGV = map {
504 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
505 @g ? @g : $_;
506 } @ARGV;
507 1;
508 ^Z
509 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
510 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
511 p4view/perl/perl.c
512 p4view/perl/perlio.c
513 p4view/perl/perly.c
514 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
515 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
516 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
517 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
518 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
519 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
520
521Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
522Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
523set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
524to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
525environment.
526
527If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
528command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
529binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
530what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
531done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
532
533=item Win32 Specific Extensions
534
535A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
536from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
537be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
538native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
539have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
540extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore,
541cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
542
543To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
544ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
545all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
546CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
547support. This bundle is available at:
548
549 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
550
551See the README in that distribution for building and installation
552instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
553same location.
554
555=item Running Perl Scripts
556
557Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
558indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
559Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
560executables.
561
562Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
563Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
564to use this to execute perl scripts:
565
566=over 8
567
568=item 1
569
570There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
571work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two
572commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
5734.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
574up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't
575perl-ready? :).
576
577=item 2
578
579Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
580reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
581old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
582regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
583makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
584perl scripts into batch files. For example:
585
586 pl2bat foo.pl
587
588will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
589.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
590
591If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
592"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
593refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
594sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
5954DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
5964NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
597startup file to enable this to work.
598
599=item 3
600
601Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
602so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
603run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
604original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
605if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
606avoids both problems is possible.
607
608A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
609to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
610if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
611executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
612by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
613runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
614With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
615than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
616the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
617links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
618
619Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
620"runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
621Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
622
623=back
624
625=item Miscellaneous Things
626
627A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
628able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
629system.
630
631C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
632in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
633like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
634have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
635"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
636"foo".
637
638If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
639bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
640find a mailer on your system).
641
642=back
643
644=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
645
646Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
647set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
648the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
649the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
650Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
651as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
652files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
653or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
654updating it). The build does complete with
655
656 set PERLIO=perlio
657
658but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
659
660Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
661L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
662surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
663in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
664that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport>
665for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
666
667Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
668in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
669
670Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
671behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
672
673Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
674doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
675or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
676implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
677Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
678variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
679currently be considered unsupported.
680
681Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
682you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
683by C<perl -V>.
684
685=head1 AUTHORS
686
687=over 4
688
689=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
690
691=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
692
693=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
694
695=back
696
697This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
698
699=head1 SEE ALSO
700
701L<perl>
702
703=head1 HISTORY
704
705This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
706and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
707at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
708since then.
709
710Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
711
712GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
713
714Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
715
716Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
717
718Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
719
720Last updated: 1 April 2001
721
722=cut