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68dc0745 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
5aabfad6 7perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
68dc0745 8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
63f87e49 11These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
122000).
68dc0745 13
14=head1 DESCRIPTION
15
3fe9a6f1 16Before you start, you should glance through the README file
68dc0745 17found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution
18was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
19which this software is being distributed.
20
f7c603cb 21Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
68dc0745 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
7bac28a0 29You may also want to look at two other options for building
873b149f 30a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and
3e3baf6d 31README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build
32a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will
7bac28a0 33probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you
34will also need to download and use various other build-time and
35run-time support software described in those files.
68dc0745 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
9036c72f 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
5db10396 45 Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better
9036c72f 46
5db10396 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.)
5aabfad6 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.
c90c0ff4 54See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
68dc0745 55
56=head2 Setting Up
57
58=over 4
59
63f87e49 60=item Make
61
62You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
63Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other
64builds need dmake.
65
66dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
67and parallelability.
68
69A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
70
71 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
72
73(This is a fixed version of original dmake sources obtained from
74http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original
75sources did not build as shipped, and had various other problems.
76A patch is included in the above fixed version.)
77
78Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
79in the README.NOW file).
80
3e3baf6d 81=item Command Shell
68dc0745 82
26618a56 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
63f87e49 86shell.
26618a56 87
a2293a43 88The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the
63f87e49 89"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to
90use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
8ec44883 91
92The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
68dc0745 93
a8deba26 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
3e3baf6d 97=item Borland C++
98
63f87e49 99If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.
3e3baf6d 100(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not
26618a56 101work for MakeMaker builds.)
102
63f87e49 103See L/"Make"> above.
3e3baf6d 104
105=item Microsoft Visual C++
68dc0745 106
8ec44883 107The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
9036c72f 108You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere
109like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
68dc0745 110
26618a56 111You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided:
112you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
113under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment,
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.
3e3baf6d 117
5db10396 118=item Mingw32 with GCC
9036c72f 119
5db10396 120GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
9036c72f 121
122 ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
68dc0745 123
5db10396 124The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
68dc0745 125
7a1f88ac 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
128variables (usually run from a batch file).
68dc0745 129
4375e838 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
63f87e49 134You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
ee4d903c 135
68dc0745 136=back
137
137443ea 138=head2 Building
68dc0745 139
140=over 4
141
142=item *
143
68dc0745 144Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
137443ea 145This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
8ec44883 146versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
9036c72f 147that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake
63f87e49 148makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.
68dc0745 149
150=item *
151
9036c72f 152Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values
153of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various build
63f87e49 154flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
155
156You will have to make sure CCTYPE is set correctly, and CCHOME points
157to wherever you installed your compiler.
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.
9036c72f 162
26618a56 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
58231d39 167is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely
26618a56 168available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example:
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
2d77217b 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.
26618a56 178
179Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
180fail at run time.
c90c0ff4 181
63f87e49 182Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
9036c72f 183
68dc0745 184=item *
185
9036c72f 186Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
68dc0745 187
137443ea 188This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
63f87e49 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.
156a3eb7 192
68dc0745 193=back
194
195=head2 Testing
196
9036c72f 197Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
807d88e1 198the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
68dc0745 199
532fa798 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.
807d88e1 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.
68dc0745 207
328c22fc 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
a8deba26 211If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
3e3baf6d 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
215(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test.
216
217Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
68dc0745 218
137443ea 219=head2 Installation
220
9036c72f 221Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
26618a56 222built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
223Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
9036c72f 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,
227C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
228For example:
229
63f87e49 230 set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
9036c72f 231
63f87e49 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%
137443ea 237
7bac28a0 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
26618a56 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>.
7bac28a0 255
9a40db4d 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
4ea817c6 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-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
267 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
9a40db4d 268 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
269
270Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
4ea817c6 271of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
9a40db4d 272separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
7bac28a0 273
3e3baf6d 274=item File Globbing
275
63f87e49 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
dfb634a9 282details.
3e3baf6d 283
7bac28a0 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
63f87e49 288with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
7bac28a0 289
290The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is
291the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard
292expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be
293quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only
294(useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to
295protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The
296Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
297quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
298based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and
299passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used
300to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up.
301You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with
302a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes.
303The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the
304argument will be stripped by the shell.
305
306The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted
307by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes
308will protect those three file redirection characters, but the
309single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this
310type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
311been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get
312stripped by the shell also).
313
314Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
315
316This prints two doublequotes:
317
318 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
319
320This does the same:
321
322 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
323
324This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
325
326 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
327
328This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
329
330 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
331
332This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
333
334 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
335
7bac28a0 336This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
337
338 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
339
340This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
341
7bac28a0 342 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
343
344This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
345
346 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
347
348
63f87e49 349Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
7bac28a0 350is left as an exercise to the reader :)
351
352=item Building Extensions
353
354The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
355of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
63f87e49 356Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
357
358Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
359in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
360http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
361porting modules that don't readily build.
7bac28a0 362
363Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
364be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
365
366 perl Makefile.PL
3e3baf6d 367 $MAKE
368 $MAKE test
369 $MAKE install
7bac28a0 370
ee4d903c 371where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
372use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
373may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or
374fail), but most serious ones do.
375
376It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
377ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
378either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an
379old version of nmake reportedly available from:
380
381 ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
382
383Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
384CPAN:
385
63f87e49 386 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
ee4d903c 387
63f87e49 388You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
4ea817c6 389
ee4d903c 390Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
391depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
392important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
393
394 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
395 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
396 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
397 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
398
399If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
400edit Config.pm to fix it.
7bac28a0 401
3e3baf6d 402If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
403C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
404the compiler for command-line compilation.
7bac28a0 405
3e3baf6d 406If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
7bac28a0 407why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
408it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
409that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
410utility.
411
9cde0e7f 412=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
413
414The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
415as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
416programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
417This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
418perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
419However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
420behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
421compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
422be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
423alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
424
425Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
426about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful,
427because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c
4283) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can
429extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely
430different kinds of wildcard expansion).
431
432 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
433 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
434 use File::DosGlob;
435 @ARGV = map {
436 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
437 @g ? @g : $_;
438 } @ARGV;
439 1;
440 ^Z
441 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
442 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
443 p4view/perl/perl.c
444 p4view/perl/perlio.c
445 p4view/perl/perly.c
446 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
447 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
448 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
449 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
450 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
451 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
452
453Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
454Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
455set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
456to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
457environment.
458
459If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
460command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
461binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
462what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
463done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
464
c90c0ff4 465=item Win32 Specific Extensions
466
467A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
468from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
469be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
470native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
471have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
472extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore
473cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
474
475To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
9036c72f 476ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
477all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
c90c0ff4 478CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
479support. This bundle is available at:
480
63f87e49 481 http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
c90c0ff4 482
483See the README in that distribution for building and installation
484instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
485same location.
486
156a3eb7 487=item Running Perl Scripts
488
489Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
490indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
491Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
492executables.
493
494Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
495Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
496to use this to execute perl scripts:
497
498=over 8
499
500=item 1
501
502There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
503work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two
504commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
5054.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
506up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't
507perl-ready? :).
508
509=item 2
510
511Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
512reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
513old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
514regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
515makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
516perl scripts into batch files. For example:
517
518 pl2bat foo.pl
519
520will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
521.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
522
523If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
524"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
525refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
526sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
5274DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
5284NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
529startup file to enable this to work.
530
531=item 3
532
533Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
534so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
535run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
536original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
537if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
538avoids both problems is possible.
539
540A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
541to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
542if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
543executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
544by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
545runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
546With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
547than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
548the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
549links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
550
551Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
552"runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
553Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
554
555=back
556
7bac28a0 557=item Miscellaneous Things
558
559A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
560able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
561system.
562
563C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
564in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
565like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
566have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
567"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
568"foo".
569
570If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
571bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
572find a mailer on your system).
573
574=back
575
68dc0745 576=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
577
63f87e49 578Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
579L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
580surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
581in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
582that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport>
583for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
6890e559 584
63f87e49 585Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
586in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
68dc0745 587
63f87e49 588Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
589behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
68dc0745 590
3e3baf6d 591Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
f7c603cb 592doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
593or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
594implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
595Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
596variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
597currently be considered unsupported.
68dc0745 598
68dc0745 599Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
600you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
601by C<perl -V>.
602
603=head1 AUTHORS
604
605=over 4
606
3e3baf6d 607Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
68dc0745 608
6e238990 609Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
68dc0745 610
3e3baf6d 611Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>
68dc0745 612
613=back
614
f7c603cb 615This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
616
68dc0745 617=head1 SEE ALSO
618
619L<perl>
620
621=head1 HISTORY
622
623This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
624and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
5db10396 625at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
626since then.
68dc0745 627
3e3baf6d 628Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
629
9a40db4d 630GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
631
80252599 632Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
633
5db10396 634Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
68dc0745 635
5db10396 636Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
637
807d88e1 638Last updated: 22 March 2000
3e3baf6d 639
5db10396 640=cut