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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 | |
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7 | perlwin32 - Perl under Win32 |
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8 | |
9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
10 | |
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11 | These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and |
12 | 2000). |
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13 | |
14 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
15 | |
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16 | Before you start, you should glance through the README file |
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17 | found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution |
18 | was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under |
19 | which this software is being distributed. |
20 | |
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21 | Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the |
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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 | |
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29 | You may also want to look at two other options for building |
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30 | a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and |
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31 | README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build |
32 | a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will |
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33 | probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you |
34 | will also need to download and use various other build-time and |
35 | run-time support software described in those files. |
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36 | |
37 | This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" |
38 | port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no |
39 | additional software to run (other than what came with your operating |
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40 | system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the |
41 | following compilers: |
42 | |
43 | Borland C++ version 5.02 or later |
44 | Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later |
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45 | Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better |
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46 | |
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47 | The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Support |
48 | for it is still experimental. (Older versions of GCC are known |
49 | not to work.) |
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50 | |
51 | This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
52 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
53 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
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54 | See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this. |
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55 | |
56 | =head2 Setting Up |
57 | |
58 | =over 4 |
59 | |
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60 | =item Make |
61 | |
62 | You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using |
63 | Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other |
64 | builds need dmake. |
65 | |
66 | dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features |
67 | and parallelability. |
68 | |
69 | A port of dmake for Windows is available from: |
70 | |
71 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip |
72 | |
73 | (This is a fixed version of original dmake sources obtained from |
74 | http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original |
75 | sources did not build as shipped, and had various other problems. |
76 | A patch is included in the above fixed version.) |
77 | |
78 | Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions |
79 | in the README.NOW file). |
80 | |
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81 | =item Command Shell |
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82 | |
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83 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the |
84 | popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. |
85 | If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd |
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86 | shell. |
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87 | |
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88 | The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilites with the |
89 | "command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to |
90 | use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x. |
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91 | |
92 | The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell. |
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93 | |
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94 | Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The |
95 | build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. |
96 | |
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97 | =item Borland C++ |
98 | |
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99 | If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake. |
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100 | (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not |
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101 | work for MakeMaker builds.) |
102 | |
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103 | See L/"Make"> above. |
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104 | |
105 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ |
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106 | |
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107 | The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. |
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108 | You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere |
109 | like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment. |
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110 | |
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111 | You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided: |
112 | you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name |
113 | under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment, |
114 | and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The |
115 | latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default |
116 | make for building extensions using MakeMaker. |
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117 | |
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118 | =item Mingw32 with GCC |
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119 | |
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120 | GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from: |
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121 | |
122 | ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/ |
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123 | |
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124 | The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers. |
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125 | |
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126 | Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated |
127 | in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment |
128 | variables (usually run from a batch file). |
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129 | |
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130 | You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
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131 | |
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132 | =back |
133 | |
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134 | =head2 Building |
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135 | |
136 | =over 4 |
137 | |
138 | =item * |
139 | |
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140 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
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141 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
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142 | versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk" |
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143 | that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake |
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144 | makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler. |
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145 | |
146 | =item * |
147 | |
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148 | Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values |
149 | of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various build |
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150 | flags. These are explained in the makefiles. |
151 | |
152 | You will have to make sure CCTYPE is set correctly, and CCHOME points |
153 | to wherever you installed your compiler. |
154 | |
155 | The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ |
156 | may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists |
157 | and is valid. |
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158 | |
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159 | If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
160 | enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not |
161 | bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions |
162 | on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine |
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163 | is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely |
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164 | available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example: |
165 | "ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the |
166 | name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if |
167 | you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set |
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168 | CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains |
169 | many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different |
170 | implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single, |
171 | self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be |
172 | easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is |
173 | in des_fcrypt.patch. |
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174 | |
175 | Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will |
176 | fail at run time. |
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177 | |
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178 | Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully. |
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179 | |
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180 | =item * |
181 | |
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182 | Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make). |
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183 | |
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184 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
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185 | perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's |
186 | under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make |
187 | sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
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188 | |
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189 | =back |
190 | |
191 | =head2 Testing |
192 | |
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193 | Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from |
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194 | the testsuite (many tests will be skipped). |
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195 | |
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196 | No tests should typically fail when running Windows NT 4.0. Under Windows |
197 | 2000, test 22 in lib/open3.t is known to fail (cause still unknown). Many |
198 | tests will fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior command shell. |
199 | |
200 | Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the |
201 | native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains |
202 | spaces. So don't do that. |
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203 | |
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204 | If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see |
205 | failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. |
206 | |
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207 | If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t |
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208 | arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system |
209 | default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages |
210 | from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory |
211 | (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test. |
212 | |
213 | Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
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214 | |
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215 | =head2 Installation |
216 | |
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217 | Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly |
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218 | built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the |
219 | Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under |
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220 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
221 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed, |
222 | you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable, |
223 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>. |
224 | For example: |
225 | |
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226 | set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% |
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227 | |
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228 | If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the |
229 | installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be |
230 | sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance: |
231 | |
232 | set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH% |
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233 | |
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234 | =head2 Usage Hints |
235 | |
236 | =over 4 |
237 | |
238 | =item Environment Variables |
239 | |
240 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
241 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
242 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
243 | |
244 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
245 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
246 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
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247 | variables you can set in L<perlrun>. |
248 | |
249 | You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and |
250 | backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. |
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251 | |
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252 | Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default |
253 | values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from |
254 | C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. |
255 | Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the |
256 | following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set: |
257 | |
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258 | lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC |
259 | lib standard library path to add to @INC |
260 | sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC |
261 | sitelib site library path to add to @INC |
262 | vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC |
263 | vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC |
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264 | PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" |
265 | |
266 | Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version |
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267 | of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be |
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268 | separated with semicolons, as usual on win32. |
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269 | |
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270 | =item File Globbing |
271 | |
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272 | By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension, |
273 | which provides portable globbing. |
274 | |
275 | If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS |
276 | filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob |
277 | to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for |
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278 | details. |
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279 | |
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280 | =item Using perl from the command line |
281 | |
282 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
283 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
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284 | with what Windows offers by way of a command shell. |
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285 | |
286 | The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is |
287 | the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard |
288 | expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be |
289 | quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only |
290 | (useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to |
291 | protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The |
292 | Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
293 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
294 | based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and |
295 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used |
296 | to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. |
297 | You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with |
298 | a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. |
299 | The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the |
300 | argument will be stripped by the shell. |
301 | |
302 | The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted |
303 | by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes |
304 | will protect those three file redirection characters, but the |
305 | single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this |
306 | type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
307 | been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get |
308 | stripped by the shell also). |
309 | |
310 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
311 | |
312 | This prints two doublequotes: |
313 | |
314 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
315 | |
316 | This does the same: |
317 | |
318 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
319 | |
320 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
321 | |
322 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
323 | |
324 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
325 | |
326 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
327 | |
328 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
329 | |
330 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
331 | |
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332 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
333 | |
334 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
335 | |
336 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
337 | |
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338 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
339 | |
340 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
341 | |
342 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
343 | |
344 | |
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345 | Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x |
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346 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
347 | |
348 | =item Building Extensions |
349 | |
350 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
351 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
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352 | Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN. |
353 | |
354 | Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work |
355 | in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at |
356 | http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into |
357 | porting modules that don't readily build. |
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358 | |
359 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
360 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
361 | |
362 | perl Makefile.PL |
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363 | $MAKE |
364 | $MAKE test |
365 | $MAKE install |
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366 | |
ee4d903c |
367 | where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to |
368 | use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions |
369 | may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or |
370 | fail), but most serious ones do. |
371 | |
372 | It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and |
373 | ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can |
374 | either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an |
375 | old version of nmake reportedly available from: |
376 | |
377 | ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe |
378 | |
379 | Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from |
380 | CPAN: |
381 | |
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382 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz |
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383 | |
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384 | You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. |
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385 | |
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386 | Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax |
387 | depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is |
388 | important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: |
389 | |
390 | make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax |
391 | make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax |
392 | any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax |
393 | (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) |
394 | |
395 | If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, |
396 | edit Config.pm to fix it. |
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397 | |
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398 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported |
399 | C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for |
400 | the compiler for command-line compilation. |
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401 | |
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402 | If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for |
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403 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
404 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
405 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
406 | utility. |
407 | |
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408 | =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion |
409 | |
410 | The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such |
411 | as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to |
412 | programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. |
413 | This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, |
414 | perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. |
415 | However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the |
416 | behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the |
417 | compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may |
418 | be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an |
419 | alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. |
420 | |
421 | Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things |
422 | about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful, |
423 | because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c |
424 | 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can |
425 | extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely |
426 | different kinds of wildcard expansion). |
427 | |
428 | C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm |
429 | # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't |
430 | use File::DosGlob; |
431 | @ARGV = map { |
432 | my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; |
433 | @g ? @g : $_; |
434 | } @ARGV; |
435 | 1; |
436 | ^Z |
437 | C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild |
438 | C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c |
439 | p4view/perl/perl.c |
440 | p4view/perl/perlio.c |
441 | p4view/perl/perly.c |
442 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
443 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
444 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
445 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
446 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
447 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
448 | |
449 | Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create |
450 | Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to |
451 | set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion |
452 | to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup |
453 | environment. |
454 | |
455 | If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's |
456 | command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting |
457 | binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be |
458 | what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion |
459 | done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. |
460 | |
c90c0ff4 |
461 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
462 | |
463 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
464 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
465 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
466 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
467 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
468 | extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore |
469 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
470 | |
471 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
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472 | ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
473 | all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from |
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474 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
475 | support. This bundle is available at: |
476 | |
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477 | http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip |
c90c0ff4 |
478 | |
479 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
480 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
481 | same location. |
482 | |
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483 | =item Running Perl Scripts |
484 | |
485 | Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to |
486 | indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. |
487 | Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are |
488 | executables. |
489 | |
490 | Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on |
491 | Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods |
492 | to use this to execute perl scripts: |
493 | |
494 | =over 8 |
495 | |
496 | =item 1 |
497 | |
498 | There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will |
499 | work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two |
500 | commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT |
501 | 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this |
502 | up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't |
503 | perl-ready? :). |
504 | |
505 | =item 2 |
506 | |
507 | Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are |
508 | reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the |
509 | old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a |
510 | regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process |
511 | makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap |
512 | perl scripts into batch files. For example: |
513 | |
514 | pl2bat foo.pl |
515 | |
516 | will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any |
517 | .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. |
518 | |
519 | If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that |
520 | "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to |
521 | refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make |
522 | sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, |
523 | 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their |
524 | 4NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT |
525 | startup file to enable this to work. |
526 | |
527 | =item 3 |
528 | |
529 | Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, |
530 | so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not |
531 | run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the |
532 | original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive |
533 | if the originals get updated often. A different approach that |
534 | avoids both problems is possible. |
535 | |
536 | A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied |
537 | to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, |
538 | if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is |
539 | executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply |
540 | by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively |
541 | runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". |
542 | With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location |
543 | than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on |
544 | the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic |
545 | links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". |
546 | |
547 | Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type |
548 | "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) |
549 | Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH |
550 | |
551 | =back |
552 | |
7bac28a0 |
553 | =item Miscellaneous Things |
554 | |
555 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
556 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
557 | system. |
558 | |
559 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
560 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
561 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
562 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
563 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
564 | "foo". |
565 | |
566 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
567 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
568 | find a mailer on your system). |
569 | |
570 | =back |
571 | |
68dc0745 |
572 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
573 | |
63f87e49 |
574 | Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in |
575 | L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid |
576 | surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl |
577 | in other operating environments or if you intend to write code |
578 | that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport> |
579 | for a reasonably definitive list of these differences. |
6890e559 |
580 | |
63f87e49 |
581 | Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly |
582 | in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">. |
68dc0745 |
583 | |
63f87e49 |
584 | Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
585 | behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list. |
68dc0745 |
586 | |
3e3baf6d |
587 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it |
f7c603cb |
588 | doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> |
589 | or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most |
590 | implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled. |
591 | Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag |
592 | variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should |
593 | currently be considered unsupported. |
68dc0745 |
594 | |
68dc0745 |
595 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
596 | you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced |
597 | by C<perl -V>. |
598 | |
599 | =head1 AUTHORS |
600 | |
601 | =over 4 |
602 | |
3e3baf6d |
603 | Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> |
68dc0745 |
604 | |
6e238990 |
605 | Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt> |
68dc0745 |
606 | |
3e3baf6d |
607 | Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt> |
68dc0745 |
608 | |
609 | =back |
610 | |
f7c603cb |
611 | This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy. |
612 | |
68dc0745 |
613 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
614 | |
615 | L<perl> |
616 | |
617 | =head1 HISTORY |
618 | |
619 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
620 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
5db10396 |
621 | at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks |
622 | since then. |
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623 | |
3e3baf6d |
624 | Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy). |
625 | |
9a40db4d |
626 | GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). |
627 | |
80252599 |
628 | Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
629 | |
5db10396 |
630 | Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
68dc0745 |
631 | |
5db10396 |
632 | Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl). |
633 | |
807d88e1 |
634 | Last updated: 22 March 2000 |
3e3baf6d |
635 | |
5db10396 |
636 | =cut |