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1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you |
2 | see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is |
3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
4 | |
5 | =head1 NAME |
6 | |
7 | perlwin32 - Perl under 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 | |
44 | Borland C++ version 5.02 or later |
45 | Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later |
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46 | MinGW with gcc gcc version 2.95.2 or later |
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47 | |
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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. |
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50 | |
51 | This port can also be built on the Intel IA64 using: |
52 | |
53 | Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools) |
54 | |
55 | The MS Platform SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/. |
56 | |
57 | This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
58 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
59 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
60 | See L<Usage Hints for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this. |
61 | |
62 | =head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32 |
63 | |
64 | =over 4 |
65 | |
66 | =item Make |
67 | |
68 | You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using |
69 | Visual C++ or the Platform SDK tools under Windows NT/2000/XP, nmake |
70 | will work. All other builds need dmake. |
71 | |
72 | dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features |
73 | and parallelability. |
74 | |
75 | A port of dmake for Windows is available from: |
76 | |
77 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip |
78 | |
79 | (This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from |
80 | http://www.wticorp.com/ As of version 4.1PL1, the original |
81 | sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems. |
82 | A patch is included in the above fixed version.) |
83 | |
84 | Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions |
85 | in the README.NOW file). |
86 | |
87 | There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++ |
88 | compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed |
89 | case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named |
90 | with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked |
91 | to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again. |
92 | For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files, resulting in |
93 | needless recompiles every time dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you |
94 | may use the script "sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is |
95 | available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution. |
96 | |
97 | =item Command Shell |
98 | |
99 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the |
100 | popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. |
101 | If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd |
102 | shell. |
103 | |
104 | The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the |
105 | "command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to |
106 | use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x. |
107 | |
108 | The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP, using the cmd shell. |
109 | |
110 | Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The |
111 | build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. |
112 | |
113 | =item Borland C++ |
114 | |
115 | If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake. |
116 | (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not |
117 | work for MakeMaker builds.) |
118 | |
119 | See L</"Make"> above. |
120 | |
121 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ |
122 | |
123 | The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. |
124 | You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere |
125 | like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment. |
126 | |
127 | You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however, |
128 | you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name |
129 | under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment |
130 | and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The |
131 | latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default |
132 | make for building extensions using MakeMaker. |
133 | |
134 | =item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler |
135 | |
136 | The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building |
137 | Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment" |
138 | shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu. |
139 | |
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140 | =item MinGW release 3 with gcc |
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141 | |
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142 | The latest release of MinGW at the time of writing is 3.1.0, which comes |
143 | with gcc-3.2.3, and can be downloaded here: |
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144 | |
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145 | http://www.mingw.org/ |
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146 | |
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147 | Perl also compiles with earlier releases of gcc (2.95.2 and up). See below |
148 | for notes about using earlier versions of MinGW/gcc. |
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149 | |
150 | You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
151 | |
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152 | =item MinGW release 1 with gcc |
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153 | |
154 | The MinGW-1.1 bundle comes with gcc-2.95.3. |
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155 | |
156 | Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated |
157 | in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment |
158 | variables (usually ran from a batch file). |
159 | |
160 | There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe |
161 | released 7 November 1999: |
162 | |
163 | =over |
164 | |
165 | =item * |
166 | |
167 | It left out a fix for certain command line quotes. To fix this, be sure |
168 | to download and install the file fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above |
169 | ftp location. |
170 | |
171 | =item * |
172 | |
173 | The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may be wrong. If your |
174 | stdio.h has this problem, you will see an exception when running the |
175 | test t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the typedef for fpos_t from |
176 | "long" to "long long" in the file i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h, |
177 | and rebuild. |
178 | |
179 | =back |
180 | |
181 | A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-to-be-outdated) bundle |
182 | of the above package with the mentioned fixes already applied is available |
183 | here: |
184 | |
185 | http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip |
186 | ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip |
187 | |
188 | =back |
189 | |
190 | =head2 Building |
191 | |
192 | =over 4 |
193 | |
194 | =item * |
195 | |
196 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
197 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
198 | versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Platform SDK, and |
199 | a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers. The |
200 | defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using Microsoft Visual |
201 | C++ 6.0 or newer. |
202 | |
203 | =item * |
204 | |
205 | Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change |
206 | the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various |
207 | build flags. These are explained in the makefiles. |
208 | |
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209 | Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with |
210 | INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous |
211 | build. In particular, this may cause problems with the |
212 | lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and |
213 | may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather |
214 | than the one being tested. |
215 | |
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216 | You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that |
217 | CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. |
218 | |
219 | The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ |
220 | may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists |
221 | and is valid. |
222 | |
223 | If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
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224 | enable the appropriate option in the makefile. A ready-to-use version |
225 | of fcrypt.c, based on the version originally written by Eric Young at |
226 | ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/, is bundled with the |
227 | distribution. Set CRYPT_SRC to fcrypt.c to use this version. |
228 | Alternatively, if you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
229 | you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. |
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230 | Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will |
231 | fail at run time. |
232 | |
233 | Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully. |
234 | |
235 | =item * |
236 | |
237 | Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make). |
238 | |
239 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
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240 | perl59.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's |
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241 | under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make |
242 | sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
243 | |
244 | =back |
245 | |
246 | =head2 Testing Perl on Win32 |
247 | |
248 | Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from |
249 | the testsuite (many tests will be skipped). |
250 | |
251 | There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT/2000/XP. |
252 | Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior command shell. |
253 | |
254 | Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the |
255 | native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains |
256 | spaces. So don't do that. |
257 | |
258 | If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see |
259 | failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. |
260 | |
261 | If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t |
262 | arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system |
263 | default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages |
264 | from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory |
265 | (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test. |
266 | |
267 | If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into |
268 | problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For |
269 | example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk |
270 | contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler |
271 | (v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an |
272 | option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland |
273 | search algorithm to locate header files. |
274 | |
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275 | If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for |
276 | C<link()> related tests (I<op/write.t>, I<op/stat.t> ...). Testing on |
277 | NTFS avoids these errors. |
278 | |
279 | Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not |
280 | have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils |
281 | include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows |
282 | ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to |
283 | avoid these errors. |
284 | |
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285 | Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
286 | |
287 | =head2 Installation of Perl on Win32 |
288 | |
289 | Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly |
290 | built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the |
291 | Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under |
292 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
293 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed, |
294 | you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable, |
295 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>. |
296 | For example: |
297 | |
298 | set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% |
299 | |
300 | If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the |
301 | installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be |
302 | sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance: |
303 | |
304 | set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH% |
305 | |
306 | =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32 |
307 | |
308 | =over 4 |
309 | |
310 | =item Environment Variables |
311 | |
312 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
313 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
314 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
315 | |
316 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
317 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
318 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
319 | variables you can set in L<perlrun>. |
320 | |
321 | You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and |
322 | backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. |
323 | |
324 | Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default |
325 | values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from |
326 | C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. |
327 | Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the |
328 | following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set: |
329 | |
330 | lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC |
331 | lib standard library path to add to @INC |
332 | sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC |
333 | sitelib site library path to add to @INC |
334 | vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC |
335 | vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC |
336 | PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" |
337 | |
338 | Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version |
339 | of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be |
340 | separated with semicolons, as usual on win32. |
341 | |
342 | =item File Globbing |
343 | |
344 | By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension, |
345 | which provides portable globbing. |
346 | |
347 | If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS |
348 | filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob |
349 | to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for |
350 | details. |
351 | |
352 | =item Using perl from the command line |
353 | |
354 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
355 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
356 | with what Windows offers by way of a command shell. |
357 | |
358 | The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that |
359 | the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it. |
360 | First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and |
361 | COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle |
362 | redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the |
363 | executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining |
364 | command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library |
365 | upon which Perl was built. |
366 | |
367 | It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C |
368 | runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so |
369 | wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the |
370 | shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are |
371 | using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote |
372 | character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces |
373 | and other special characters in arguments. |
374 | |
375 | The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
376 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
377 | based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and |
378 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to |
379 | prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can |
380 | put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and |
381 | enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and |
382 | the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by |
383 | the C runtime. |
384 | |
385 | The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by |
386 | double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always |
387 | be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or |
388 | the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make |
389 | this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
390 | been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears |
391 | to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command |
392 | line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat |
393 | the caret as a quote character). |
394 | |
395 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
396 | |
397 | This prints two doublequotes: |
398 | |
399 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
400 | |
401 | This does the same: |
402 | |
403 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
404 | |
405 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
406 | |
407 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
408 | |
409 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
410 | |
411 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
412 | |
413 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
414 | |
415 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
416 | |
417 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
418 | |
419 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
420 | |
421 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
422 | |
423 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
424 | |
425 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
426 | |
427 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
428 | |
429 | |
430 | Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x |
431 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
432 | |
433 | One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for |
434 | Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating |
435 | that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is |
436 | therefore important to always double any % characters which you want |
437 | Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are |
438 | quoted. |
439 | |
440 | =item Building Extensions |
441 | |
442 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
443 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
444 | Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN. |
445 | |
446 | Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work |
447 | in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at |
448 | http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into |
449 | porting modules that don't readily build. |
450 | |
451 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
452 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
453 | |
454 | perl Makefile.PL |
455 | $MAKE |
456 | $MAKE test |
457 | $MAKE install |
458 | |
459 | where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to |
460 | use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions |
461 | may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or |
462 | fail), but most serious ones do. |
463 | |
464 | It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and |
465 | ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can |
466 | either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an |
467 | old version of nmake reportedly available from: |
468 | |
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469 | http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe |
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470 | |
471 | Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from |
472 | CPAN. |
473 | |
474 | http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/ |
475 | |
476 | You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
477 | |
478 | Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax |
479 | depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is |
480 | important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: |
481 | |
482 | make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax |
483 | make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax |
484 | any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax |
485 | (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) |
486 | |
487 | If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, |
488 | edit Config.pm to fix it. |
489 | |
490 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported |
491 | C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for |
492 | the compiler for command-line compilation. |
493 | |
494 | If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for |
495 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
496 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
497 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
498 | utility. |
499 | |
500 | =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion |
501 | |
502 | The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such |
503 | as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to |
504 | programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. |
505 | This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, |
506 | perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. |
507 | However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the |
508 | behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the |
509 | compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may |
510 | be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an |
511 | alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. |
512 | |
513 | Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things |
514 | about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more |
515 | powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like |
516 | */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and |
517 | 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even |
518 | entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion). |
519 | |
520 | C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm |
521 | # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't |
522 | use File::DosGlob; |
523 | @ARGV = map { |
524 | my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; |
525 | @g ? @g : $_; |
526 | } @ARGV; |
527 | 1; |
528 | ^Z |
529 | C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild |
530 | C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c |
531 | p4view/perl/perl.c |
532 | p4view/perl/perlio.c |
533 | p4view/perl/perly.c |
534 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
535 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
536 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
537 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
538 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
539 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
540 | |
541 | Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create |
542 | Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to |
543 | set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion |
544 | to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup |
545 | environment. |
546 | |
547 | If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's |
548 | command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting |
549 | binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be |
550 | what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion |
551 | done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. |
552 | |
553 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
554 | |
555 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
556 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
557 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
558 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
559 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
560 | extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore, |
561 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
562 | |
563 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
564 | ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
565 | all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from |
566 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
567 | support. This bundle is available at: |
568 | |
569 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.18.zip |
570 | |
571 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
572 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
573 | same location. |
574 | |
575 | =item Notes on 64-bit Windows |
576 | |
577 | Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium |
578 | architecture. |
579 | |
580 | The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the |
581 | norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are |
582 | both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition, |
583 | there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast, |
584 | the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int> |
585 | as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of |
586 | 64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of |
587 | addressability. |
588 | |
589 | 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86 |
590 | binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build |
591 | of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build |
592 | a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother: |
593 | |
594 | =item * |
595 | |
596 | A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on |
597 | Itanium hardware. |
598 | |
599 | =item * |
600 | |
601 | There is no 2GB limit on process size. |
602 | |
603 | =item * |
604 | |
605 | Perl automatically provides large file support when built under |
606 | 64-bit Windows. |
607 | |
608 | =item * |
609 | |
610 | Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application. |
611 | |
612 | =back |
613 | |
614 | =head2 Running Perl Scripts |
615 | |
616 | Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to |
617 | indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. |
618 | Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are |
619 | executables. |
620 | |
621 | Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on |
622 | Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods |
623 | to use this to execute perl scripts: |
624 | |
625 | =over 8 |
626 | |
627 | =item 1 |
628 | |
629 | There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will |
630 | work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two |
631 | commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT |
632 | 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this |
633 | up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't |
634 | perl-ready? :). |
635 | |
636 | =item 2 |
637 | |
638 | Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are |
639 | reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the |
640 | old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a |
641 | regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process |
642 | makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap |
643 | perl scripts into batch files. For example: |
644 | |
645 | pl2bat foo.pl |
646 | |
647 | will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any |
648 | .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. |
649 | |
650 | If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that |
651 | "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to |
652 | refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make |
653 | sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, |
654 | 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their |
655 | 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT |
656 | startup file to enable this to work. |
657 | |
658 | =item 3 |
659 | |
660 | Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, |
661 | so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not |
662 | run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the |
663 | original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive |
664 | if the originals get updated often. A different approach that |
665 | avoids both problems is possible. |
666 | |
667 | A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied |
668 | to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, |
669 | if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is |
670 | executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply |
671 | by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively |
672 | runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". |
673 | With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location |
674 | than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on |
675 | the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic |
676 | links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". |
677 | |
678 | Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type |
679 | "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) |
680 | Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH |
681 | |
682 | =item Miscellaneous Things |
683 | |
684 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
685 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
686 | system. |
687 | |
688 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
689 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
690 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
691 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
692 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
693 | "foo". |
694 | |
13ee867e |
695 | One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk> |
696 | is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line |
697 | window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy |
698 | of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl> |
699 | executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly |
700 | the same as normal C<perl> on Win32, except that options like C<-h> |
701 | don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to). |
702 | |
9baed986 |
703 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
704 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
705 | find a mailer on your system). |
706 | |
707 | =back |
708 | |
709 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
710 | |
711 | Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if |
712 | set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications |
713 | the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the |
714 | the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly. |
715 | Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages |
716 | as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure |
717 | files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious, |
718 | or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl |
719 | updating it). The build does complete with |
720 | |
721 | set PERLIO=perlio |
722 | |
723 | but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues. |
724 | |
725 | Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in |
726 | L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid |
727 | surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl |
728 | in other operating environments or if you intend to write code |
729 | that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport> |
730 | for a reasonably definitive list of these differences. |
731 | |
732 | Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly |
733 | in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">. |
734 | |
735 | Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
736 | behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list. |
737 | |
738 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it |
739 | doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> |
740 | or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most |
741 | implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled. |
742 | Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag |
743 | variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should |
744 | currently be considered unsupported. |
745 | |
746 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
747 | you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced |
748 | by C<perl -V>. |
749 | |
e84ac4e2 |
750 | =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
751 | |
752 | The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark |
753 | of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission. |
754 | |
9baed986 |
755 | =head1 AUTHORS |
756 | |
757 | =over 4 |
758 | |
759 | =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> |
760 | |
761 | =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt> |
762 | |
763 | =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt> |
764 | |
765 | =back |
766 | |
767 | This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy. |
768 | |
769 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
770 | |
771 | L<perl> |
772 | |
773 | =head1 HISTORY |
774 | |
775 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
776 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
777 | at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks |
778 | since then. |
779 | |
780 | Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy). |
781 | |
782 | GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). |
783 | |
784 | Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
785 | |
786 | Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
787 | |
788 | Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl). |
789 | |
790 | Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp). |
791 | |
792 | Last updated: 20 April 2002 |
793 | |
794 | =cut |