Fixing PERL5OPT (was Re: Warnings, strict, and CPAN)
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / README.win32
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a9226780 1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
2see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
3specially designed to be readable as is.
4
5=head1 NAME
6
7perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
11These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
122000).
13
14=head1 DESCRIPTION
15
16Before you start, you should glance through the README file
0ab7fa47 17found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution
a9226780 18was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
19which this software is being distributed.
20
21Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
22known limitations of this port.
23
24The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
25only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In
26particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
27"Configure".
28
29You may also want to look at two other options for building
30a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and
0ab7fa47 31README.os2 files, each of which give a different set of rules to
32build a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods
33will probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but
34you will also need to download and use various other build-time and
a9226780 35run-time support software described in those files.
36
37This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
38port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no
39additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
40system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
41following compilers:
42
43 Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
44 Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later
45 Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better
46
47The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Support
48for it is still experimental. (Older versions of GCC are known
49not to work.)
50
51This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
52is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
53able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
54See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
55
56=head2 Setting Up
57
58=over 4
59
60=item Make
61
62You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
63Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other
64builds need dmake.
65
66dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
67and parallelability.
68
69A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
70
71 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
72
0ab7fa47 73(This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from
a9226780 74http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original
0ab7fa47 75sources did not build as shipped and had various other problems.
a9226780 76A patch is included in the above fixed version.)
77
78Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
79in the README.NOW file).
80
81=item Command Shell
82
83Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the
84popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
85If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
86shell.
87
88The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the
89"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to
90use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
91
92The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
93
94Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The
95build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
96
97=item Borland C++
98
99If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.
0ab7fa47 100(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not
a9226780 101work for MakeMaker builds.)
102
0ab7fa47 103See L</"Make"> above.
a9226780 104
105=item Microsoft Visual C++
106
107The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
0ab7fa47 108You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere
a9226780 109like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
110
0ab7fa47 111You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however,
a9226780 112you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
0ab7fa47 113under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment
a9226780 114and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The
115latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
116make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
117
118=item Mingw32 with GCC
119
120GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
121
122 ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
123
124The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
125
126Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated
127in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment
0ab7fa47 128variables (usually ran from a batch file).
a9226780 129
130The version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999 left out
131a fix for certain command line quotes, so be sure to download and install
132fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe too.
133
134You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
135
136=back
137
138=head2 Building
139
140=over 4
141
142=item *
143
144Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
145This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
146versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
147that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake
148makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.
149
150=item *
151
0ab7fa47 152Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
153the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various
154build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
a9226780 155
0ab7fa47 156You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
157CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
a9226780 158
159The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
160may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists
161and is valid.
162
163If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
164enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not
165bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions
166on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine
167is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely
0ab7fa47 168available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example,
a9226780 169"ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the
170name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if
171you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set
172CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains
173many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different
174implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single,
175self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be
176easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is
177in des_fcrypt.patch.
178
179Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
180fail at run time.
181
182Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
183
184=item *
185
186Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
187
188This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
189perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
190under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
191sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
192
193=back
194
195=head2 Testing
196
197Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
198the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
199
200There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
201Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
202command shell.
203
204Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
205native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
206spaces. So don't do that.
207
208If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
209failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
210
211If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
212arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
213default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
214from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
0ab7fa47 215(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test.
a9226780 216
217Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
218
219=head2 Installation
220
221Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
222built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
223Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
224C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
225C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed,
226you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,
0ab7fa47 227C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
a9226780 228For example:
229
230 set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
231
232If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the
233installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be
234sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:
235
236 set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
237
238=head2 Usage Hints
239
240=over 4
241
242=item Environment Variables
243
244The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
245into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
246using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
247
248If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
249to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
250to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
251variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
252
253You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
254backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
255
256Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
257values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
258C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
259Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
260following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
261
262 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
263 lib standard library path to add to @INC
264 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
265 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
266 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
267 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
268 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
269
270Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
271of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
272separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
273
274=item File Globbing
275
276By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
277which provides portable globbing.
278
279If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
280filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
281to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
282details.
283
284=item Using perl from the command line
285
286If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
287shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
288with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
289
290The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
291the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
292First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
293COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
294redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
295executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
296command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
297upon which Perl was built.
298
299It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
300runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
301wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
302shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
303using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
0ab7fa47 304character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
305and other special characters in arguments.
306
307The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
308quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
309based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and
310passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to
311prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can
312put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and
313enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and
314the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by
315the C runtime.
a9226780 316
317The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
318double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
0ab7fa47 319be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
320the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make
321this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
322been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears
323to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
324line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
325the caret as a quote character).
a9226780 326
327Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
328
329This prints two doublequotes:
330
331 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
332
333This does the same:
334
335 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
336
337This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
338
339 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
340
341This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
342
343 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
344
345This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
346
347 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
348
349This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
350
351 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
352
353This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
354
355 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
356
357This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
358
359 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
360
361
362Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
363is left as an exercise to the reader :)
364
365One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
366Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
367that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
368therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
369Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
370quoted.
371
372=item Building Extensions
373
374The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
375of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
376Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
377
378Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
379in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
380http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
381porting modules that don't readily build.
382
383Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
384be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
385
386 perl Makefile.PL
387 $MAKE
388 $MAKE test
389 $MAKE install
390
391where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
392use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
0ab7fa47 393may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
a9226780 394fail), but most serious ones do.
395
396It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
397ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
0ab7fa47 398either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
a9226780 399old version of nmake reportedly available from:
400
401 ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
402
403Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
404CPAN:
405
406 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
407
408You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
409
410Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
411depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
412important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
413
414 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
415 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
416 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
417 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
418
419If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
420edit Config.pm to fix it.
421
422If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
423C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
424the compiler for command-line compilation.
425
426If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
427why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
428it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
429that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
430utility.
431
432=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
433
434The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
435as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
436programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
437This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
438perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
439However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
440behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
441compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
442be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
443alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
444
445Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
0ab7fa47 446about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
447powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
448*/*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
4494) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
450entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
a9226780 451
452 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
453 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
454 use File::DosGlob;
455 @ARGV = map {
456 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
457 @g ? @g : $_;
458 } @ARGV;
459 1;
460 ^Z
461 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
462 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
463 p4view/perl/perl.c
464 p4view/perl/perlio.c
465 p4view/perl/perly.c
466 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
467 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
468 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
469 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
470 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
471 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
472
473Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
474Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
475set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
476to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
477environment.
478
479If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
480command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
481binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
482what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
483done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
484
485=item Win32 Specific Extensions
486
487A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
488from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
489be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
490native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
491have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
0ab7fa47 492extensions typically do not support those tools either and, therefore,
a9226780 493cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
494
495To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
496ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
497all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
498CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
499support. This bundle is available at:
500
501 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
502
503See the README in that distribution for building and installation
504instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
505same location.
506
507=item Running Perl Scripts
508
509Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
510indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
511Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
512executables.
513
514Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
515Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
516to use this to execute perl scripts:
517
518=over 8
519
520=item 1
521
522There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
523work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two
524commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
5254.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
526up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't
527perl-ready? :).
528
529=item 2
530
531Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
532reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
533old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
534regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
535makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
536perl scripts into batch files. For example:
537
538 pl2bat foo.pl
539
540will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
541.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
542
543If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
544"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
545refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
546sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
5474DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
0ab7fa47 5484NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
a9226780 549startup file to enable this to work.
550
551=item 3
552
553Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
554so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
555run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
556original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
557if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
558avoids both problems is possible.
559
560A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
561to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
562if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
563executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
564by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
565runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
566With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
567than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
568the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
569links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
570
571Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
572"runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
573Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
574
575=back
576
577=item Miscellaneous Things
578
579A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
580able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
581system.
582
583C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
584in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
585like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
586have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
587"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
588"foo".
589
590If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
591bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
592find a mailer on your system).
593
594=back
595
596=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
597
3789aae2 598Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
599set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
600the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
601the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
602Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
603as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
604files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
605or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
606updating it). The build does complete with
607
608 set PERLIO=perlio
609
610but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
611
a9226780 612Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
613L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
614surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
615in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
0ab7fa47 616that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport>
a9226780 617for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
618
619Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
620in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
621
622Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
623behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
624
625Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
626doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
627or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
628implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
629Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
630variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
631currently be considered unsupported.
632
633Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
634you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
635by C<perl -V>.
636
637=head1 AUTHORS
638
639=over 4
640
13a2d996 641=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
a9226780 642
13a2d996 643=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
a9226780 644
3789aae2 645=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
a9226780 646
647=back
648
649This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
650
651=head1 SEE ALSO
652
653L<perl>
654
655=head1 HISTORY
656
657This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
658and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
659at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
660since then.
661
662Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
663
664GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
665
666Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
667
668Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
669
670Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
671
3789aae2 672Last updated: 22 November 2000
a9226780 673
674=cut