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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 NT (versions |
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12 | 3.51 or 4.0), using Visual C++ (versions 2.0 through 5.0). Currently, |
13 | this port may also build under Windows95, but you can expect problems |
14 | stemming from the unmentionable command shell that infests that |
15 | platform. Note this caveat is only about B<building> perl. Once |
16 | built, you should be able to B<use> it on either Win32 platform (modulo |
17 | the problems arising from the inferior command shell). |
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18 | |
19 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
20 | |
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21 | Before you start, you should glance through the README file |
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22 | found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution |
23 | was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under |
24 | which this software is being distributed. |
25 | |
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26 | Also make sure you read the L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> section below for the |
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27 | known limitations of this port. |
28 | |
29 | The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is |
30 | only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In |
31 | particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about |
32 | "Configure". |
33 | |
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34 | You may also want to look at two other options for building |
35 | a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin32 and |
36 | README.os2 files, which give a different set of rules to build a |
37 | Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will |
38 | probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you |
39 | will also need to download and use various other build-time and |
40 | run-time support software described in those files. |
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41 | |
42 | This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" |
43 | port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no |
44 | additional software to run (other than what came with your operating |
45 | system). Currently, this port is only capable of using Microsoft's |
46 | Visual C++ compiler. The ultimate goal is to support the other major |
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47 | compilers that can generally be used to build Win32 applications. |
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48 | |
49 | This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
50 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
51 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
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52 | See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this. |
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53 | |
54 | =head2 Setting Up |
55 | |
56 | =over 4 |
57 | |
58 | =item * |
59 | |
60 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. In particular, do |
61 | *not* use the 4DOS/NT shell. The Makefile has commands that are not |
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62 | compatible with that shell. The Makefile also has known |
63 | incompatibilites with the default shell that comes with Windows95, |
64 | so building under Windows95 should be considered "unsupported". |
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65 | |
66 | =item * |
67 | |
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68 | If you did not choose to always initialize the Visual C++ compilation |
69 | environment variables when you installed Visual C++ on your system, you |
70 | will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere like |
71 | C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment. |
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72 | |
73 | =item * |
74 | |
75 | Depending on how you extracted the distribution, you have to make sure |
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76 | some of the files are writable by you. The easiest way to make sure of |
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77 | this is to execute: |
78 | |
79 | attrib -R *.* /S |
80 | |
81 | from the perl toplevel directory. You don't I<have> to do this if you |
82 | used the right tools to extract the files in the standard distribution, |
83 | but it doesn't hurt to do so. |
84 | |
85 | =back |
86 | |
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87 | =head2 Building |
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88 | |
89 | =over 4 |
90 | |
91 | =item * |
92 | |
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93 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
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94 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
95 | versions of NMAKE that come with Visual C++ ver. 2.0 and above. |
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96 | |
97 | =item * |
98 | |
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99 | Edit the Makefile and change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP |
100 | if you want perl to be installed in a location other than "C:\PERL". |
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101 | |
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102 | If you want to build a perl capable of running on the Windows95 |
103 | platform, you will have to uncomment the line that sets "RUNTIME=-MT". |
104 | (The default settings use the Microsoft-recommended -MD option for |
105 | compiling, which uses the DLL version of the C RunTime Library. There |
106 | currently exists a bug in the Microsoft CRTL that causes failure of |
107 | the socket calls only on the Windows95 platform. This bug cannot be |
108 | worked around if the DLL version of the CRTL is used, which is why you |
109 | need to enable the -MT flag.) Perl compiled with -MT can be used on |
110 | both Windows NT and Windows95. |
111 | |
112 | If you are using Visual C++ ver. 2.0, uncomment the line that |
113 | sets "CCTYPE=MSVC20". |
114 | |
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115 | =item * |
116 | |
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117 | Type "nmake". |
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118 | |
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119 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
120 | perl.dll, and perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and various other |
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121 | extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for |
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122 | any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
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123 | |
124 | =back |
125 | |
126 | =head2 Testing |
127 | |
128 | Type "nmake test". This will run most of the tests from the |
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129 | testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and but no test should fail). |
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130 | |
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131 | If some tests do fail, it may be because you are using a different command |
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132 | shell than the native "cmd.exe". |
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133 | |
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134 | Please report any failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
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135 | |
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136 | =head2 Installation |
137 | |
138 | Type "nmake install". This will put the newly built perl and the |
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139 | libraries under "C:\perl" (actually whatever you set C<INST_TOP> to |
140 | in the Makefile). It will also install the pod documentation under |
141 | C<$INST_TOP\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
142 | C<$INST_TOP\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed, set your |
143 | PATH environment variable to "C:\perl\bin" (or C<$INST_TOP\bin>, if you |
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144 | changed the default as above). |
145 | |
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146 | =head2 Usage Hints |
147 | |
148 | =over 4 |
149 | |
150 | =item Environment Variables |
151 | |
152 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
153 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
154 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
155 | |
156 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
157 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
158 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
159 | variables you can set in the perlrun podpage. |
160 | |
161 | Sometime in the future, some of the configuration information |
162 | for perl will be moved into the Windows registry. |
163 | |
164 | =item Using perl from the command line |
165 | |
166 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
167 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
168 | with what Windows NT offers by way of a command shell. |
169 | |
170 | The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is |
171 | the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard |
172 | expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be |
173 | quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only |
174 | (useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to |
175 | protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The |
176 | Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
177 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
178 | based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and |
179 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used |
180 | to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. |
181 | You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with |
182 | a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. |
183 | The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the |
184 | argument will be stripped by the shell. |
185 | |
186 | The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted |
187 | by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes |
188 | will protect those three file redirection characters, but the |
189 | single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this |
190 | type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
191 | been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get |
192 | stripped by the shell also). |
193 | |
194 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
195 | |
196 | This prints two doublequotes: |
197 | |
198 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
199 | |
200 | This does the same: |
201 | |
202 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
203 | |
204 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
205 | |
206 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
207 | |
208 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
209 | |
210 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
211 | |
212 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
213 | |
214 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
215 | |
216 | This prints "foo" and writes "bar" to the file "blurch": |
217 | |
218 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch |
219 | |
220 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
221 | |
222 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
223 | |
224 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
225 | |
226 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" |& less |
227 | |
228 | This does the same thing as the above: |
229 | |
230 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
231 | |
232 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
233 | |
234 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
235 | |
236 | |
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237 | Discovering the usage of the "command.com" shell on Windows95 |
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238 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
239 | |
240 | =item Building Extensions |
241 | |
242 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
243 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
244 | Look in http://www.perl.com/ for more information on CPAN. |
245 | |
246 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
247 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
248 | |
249 | perl Makefile.PL |
250 | nmake |
251 | nmake test |
252 | nmake install |
253 | |
254 | Note the NMAKE that comes with Visual C++ is required. Some |
255 | extensions may not provide a testsuite (so "nmake test" |
256 | may not do anything, or fail), but most serious ones do. |
257 | |
258 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need a C compiler (Visual C++ |
259 | versions 2.0 and above are currently supported). You must make sure |
260 | you have set up the environment for the compiler for command-line |
261 | compilation. |
262 | |
263 | If a module does not build for some reason, carefully look at |
264 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
265 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
266 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
267 | utility. |
268 | |
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269 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
270 | |
271 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
272 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
273 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
274 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
275 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
276 | extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore |
277 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
278 | |
279 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
280 | Activeware port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
281 | all of the Activeware extensions and most other Win32 extensions from |
282 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
283 | support. This bundle is available at: |
284 | |
285 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.06.tar.gz |
286 | |
287 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
288 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
289 | same location. |
290 | |
291 | It is expected that authors of Win32 specific extensions will begin |
292 | distributing their work in MakeMaker compatible form subsequent to |
293 | the 5.004 release of perl, at which point the need for a dedicated |
294 | bundle such as the above should diminish. |
295 | |
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296 | =item Miscellaneous Things |
297 | |
298 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
299 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
300 | system. |
301 | |
302 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
303 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
304 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
305 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
306 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
307 | "foo". |
308 | |
309 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
310 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
311 | find a mailer on your system). |
312 | |
313 | =back |
314 | |
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315 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
316 | |
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317 | This port has not been tested as extensively as we'd like, and |
318 | therefore should be considered beta quality software. You should |
319 | expect changes in virtually all of these areas: build process, |
320 | installation structure, supported utilities/modules, and supported |
321 | perl functionality. In particular, functionality specific to the |
322 | Win32 environment may ultimately be supported as either core modules |
323 | or extensions. This means that you should be prepared to recompile |
324 | extensions when binary incompatibilites arise due to changes in the |
325 | internal structure of the code. |
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326 | |
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327 | If you have had prior exposure to Perl on Unix platforms, you will notice |
328 | this port exhibits behavior different from what is documented. Most of the |
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329 | differences fall under one of these categories. We do not consider |
330 | any of them to be serious limitations (especially when compared to the |
331 | limited nature of some of the Win32 OSes themselves :) |
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332 | |
333 | =over 8 |
334 | |
335 | =item * |
336 | |
337 | C<stat()> and C<lstat()> functions may not behave as documented. They |
338 | may return values that bear no resemblance to those reported on Unix |
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339 | platforms, and some fields (like the the one for inode) may be completely |
340 | bogus. |
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341 | |
342 | =item * |
343 | |
344 | The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>, C<exec()>, |
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345 | C<dump()>, C<chown()>, C<link()>, C<symlink()>, C<chroot()>, |
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346 | C<setpgrp()>, C<getpgrp()>, C<setpriority()>, C<getpriority()>, |
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347 | C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>, C<flock()>. This list is possibly very |
348 | incomplete. |
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349 | |
350 | =item * |
351 | |
352 | Various C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
353 | behave as on Unix platforms. |
354 | |
355 | =item * |
356 | |
357 | The four-argument C<select()> call is only supported on sockets. |
358 | |
359 | =item * |
360 | |
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361 | C<$?> ends up with the exitstatus of the subprocess (this is different |
362 | from Unix, where the exitstatus is actually given by "$? >> 8"). |
363 | Failure to spawn() the subprocess is indicated by setting $? to |
364 | "255<<8". This is subject to change. |
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365 | |
366 | =item * |
367 | |
368 | Building modules available on CPAN is mostly supported, but this |
369 | hasn't been tested much yet. Expect strange problems, and be |
370 | prepared to deal with the consequences. |
371 | |
372 | =item * |
373 | |
374 | C<utime()>, C<times()> and process-related functions may not |
375 | behave as described in the documentation, and some of the |
376 | returned values or effects may be bogus. |
377 | |
378 | =item * |
379 | |
380 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms. |
381 | |
382 | =item * |
383 | |
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384 | File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms. In particular, |
385 | globbing does not understand wildcards in the pathname component, |
386 | but only in the filename component. In other words, something like |
387 | "print <*/*.pl>" will not print all the perl scripts in all the |
388 | subdirectories one level under the current one (like it does on |
389 | UNIX platforms). |
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390 | |
391 | =back |
392 | |
393 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
394 | you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced |
395 | by C<perl -V>. |
396 | |
397 | =head1 AUTHORS |
398 | |
399 | =over 4 |
400 | |
401 | =item Gary Ng <F<71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>> |
402 | |
403 | =item Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@umich.edu>> |
404 | |
405 | =item Nick Ing-Simmons <F<nick@ni-s.u-net.com>> |
406 | |
407 | =back |
408 | |
409 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
410 | |
411 | L<perl> |
412 | |
413 | =head1 HISTORY |
414 | |
415 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
416 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
417 | at the time. |
418 | |
419 | Nick Ing-Simmons and Gurusamy Sarathy have made numerous and |
420 | sundry hacks since then. |
421 | |
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422 | Last updated: 15 May 1997 |
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423 | |
424 | =cut |