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1 | =head1 NAME |
2 | |
3 | perlport - Writing portable Perl |
4 | |
5 | |
6 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
7 | |
8 | Perl runs on a variety of operating systems. While most of them share |
9 | a lot in common, they also have their own very particular and unique |
10 | features. |
11 | |
12 | This document is meant to help you to find out what constitutes portable |
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13 | Perl code, so that once you have made your decision to write portably, |
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14 | you know where the lines are drawn, and you can stay within them. |
15 | |
16 | There is a tradeoff between taking full advantage of B<a> particular type |
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17 | of computer, and taking advantage of a full B<range> of them. Naturally, |
18 | as you make your range bigger (and thus more diverse), the common |
19 | denominators drop, and you are left with fewer areas of common ground in |
20 | which you can operate to accomplish a particular task. Thus, when you |
21 | begin attacking a problem, it is important to consider which part of the |
22 | tradeoff curve you want to operate under. Specifically, whether it is |
23 | important to you that the task that you are coding needs the full |
24 | generality of being portable, or if it is sufficient to just get the job |
25 | done. This is the hardest choice to be made. The rest is easy, because |
26 | Perl provides lots of choices, whichever way you want to approach your |
27 | problem. |
28 | |
29 | Looking at it another way, writing portable code is usually about |
30 | willfully limiting your available choices. Naturally, it takes discipline |
31 | to do that. |
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32 | |
33 | Be aware of two important points: |
34 | |
35 | =over 4 |
36 | |
37 | =item Not all Perl programs have to be portable |
38 | |
39 | There is no reason why you should not use Perl as a language to glue Unix |
40 | tools together, or to prototype a Macintosh application, or to manage the |
41 | Windows registry. If it makes no sense to aim for portability for one |
42 | reason or another in a given program, then don't bother. |
43 | |
44 | =item The vast majority of Perl B<is> portable |
45 | |
46 | Don't be fooled into thinking that it is hard to create portable Perl |
47 | code. It isn't. Perl tries its level-best to bridge the gaps between |
48 | what's available on different platforms, and all the means available to |
49 | use those features. Thus almost all Perl code runs on any machine |
50 | without modification. But there I<are> some significant issues in |
51 | writing portable code, and this document is entirely about those issues. |
52 | |
53 | =back |
54 | |
55 | Here's the general rule: When you approach a task that is commonly done |
56 | using a whole range of platforms, think in terms of writing portable |
57 | code. That way, you don't sacrifice much by way of the implementation |
58 | choices you can avail yourself of, and at the same time you can give |
59 | your users lots of platform choices. On the other hand, when you have to |
60 | take advantage of some unique feature of a particular platform, as is |
61 | often the case with systems programming (whether for Unix, Windows, |
62 | S<Mac OS>, VMS, etc.), consider writing platform-specific code. |
63 | |
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64 | When the code will run on only two or three operating systems, then you |
65 | may only need to consider the differences of those particular systems. |
66 | The important thing is to decide where the code will run, and to be |
67 | deliberate in your decision. |
68 | |
69 | The material below is separated into three main sections: main issues of |
70 | portability (L<"ISSUES">, platform-specific issues (L<"PLATFORMS">, and |
71 | builtin perl functions that behave differently on various ports |
72 | (L<"FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS">. |
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73 | |
74 | This information should not be considered complete; it includes possibly |
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75 | transient information about idiosyncrasies of some of the ports, almost |
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76 | all of which are in a state of constant evolution. Thus this material |
77 | should be considered a perpetual work in progress |
78 | (E<lt>IMG SRC="yellow_sign.gif" ALT="Under Construction"E<gt>). |
79 | |
80 | |
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81 | |
82 | |
e41182b5 |
83 | =head1 ISSUES |
84 | |
85 | =head2 Newlines |
86 | |
638bc118 |
87 | In most operating systems, lines in files are terminated by newlines. |
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88 | Just what is used as a newline may vary from OS to OS. Unix |
89 | traditionally uses C<\012>, one kind of Windows I/O uses C<\015\012>, |
90 | and S<Mac OS> uses C<\015>. |
91 | |
92 | Perl uses C<\n> to represent the "logical" newline, where what |
93 | is logical may depend on the platform in use. In MacPerl, C<\n> |
94 | always means C<\015>. In DOSish perls, C<\n> usually means C<\012>, but |
95 | when accessing a file in "text" mode, STDIO translates it to (or from) |
96 | C<\015\012>. |
97 | |
98 | Due to the "text" mode translation, DOSish perls have limitations |
99 | of using C<seek> and C<tell> when a file is being accessed in "text" |
100 | mode. Specifically, if you stick to C<seek>-ing to locations you got |
101 | from C<tell> (and no others), you are usually free to use C<seek> and |
102 | C<tell> even in "text" mode. In general, using C<seek> or C<tell> or |
103 | other file operations that count bytes instead of characters, without |
104 | considering the length of C<\n>, may be non-portable. If you use |
105 | C<binmode> on a file, however, you can usually use C<seek> and C<tell> |
106 | with arbitrary values quite safely. |
107 | |
108 | A common misconception in socket programming is that C<\n> eq C<\012> |
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109 | everywhere. When using protocols such as common Internet protocols, |
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110 | C<\012> and C<\015> are called for specifically, and the values of |
111 | the logical C<\n> and C<\r> (carriage return) are not reliable. |
112 | |
113 | print SOCKET "Hi there, client!\r\n"; # WRONG |
114 | print SOCKET "Hi there, client!\015\012"; # RIGHT |
115 | |
116 | [NOTE: this does not necessarily apply to communications that are |
117 | filtered by another program or module before sending to the socket; the |
118 | the most popular EBCDIC webserver, for instance, accepts C<\r\n>, |
119 | which translates those characters, along with all other |
120 | characters in text streams, from EBCDIC to ASCII.] |
121 | |
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122 | However, using C<\015\012> (or C<\cM\cJ>, or C<\x0D\x0A>) can be tedious |
123 | and unsightly, as well as confusing to those maintaining the code. As |
124 | such, the C<Socket> module supplies the Right Thing for those who want it. |
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125 | |
126 | use Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf); |
127 | print SOCKET "Hi there, client!$CRLF" # RIGHT |
128 | |
129 | When reading I<from> a socket, remember that the default input record |
130 | separator (C<$/>) is C<\n>, but code like this should recognize C<$/> as |
131 | C<\012> or C<\015\012>: |
132 | |
133 | while (<SOCKET>) { |
134 | # ... |
135 | } |
136 | |
137 | Better: |
138 | |
139 | use Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf); |
140 | local($/) = LF; # not needed if $/ is already \012 |
141 | |
142 | while (<SOCKET>) { |
143 | s/$CR?$LF/\n/; # not sure if socket uses LF or CRLF, OK |
144 | # s/\015?\012/\n/; # same thing |
145 | } |
146 | |
147 | And this example is actually better than the previous one even for Unix |
148 | platforms, because now any C<\015>'s (C<\cM>'s) are stripped out |
149 | (and there was much rejoicing). |
150 | |
151 | |
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152 | =head2 Numbers endianness and Width |
153 | |
154 | Different CPUs store integers and floating point numbers in different |
155 | orders (called I<endianness>) and widths (32-bit and 64-bit being the |
156 | most common). This affects your programs if they attempt to transfer |
157 | numbers in binary format from a CPU architecture to another over some |
158 | channel: either 'live' via network connections or storing the numbers |
159 | to secondary storage such as a disk file. |
160 | |
161 | Conflicting storage orders make utter mess out of the numbers: if a |
162 | little-endian host (Intel, Alpha) stores 0x12345678 (305419896 in |
163 | decimal), a big-endian host (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc, PA) reads it as |
164 | 0x78563412 (2018915346 in decimal). To avoid this problem in network |
165 | (socket) connections use the C<pack()> and C<unpack()> formats C<"n"> |
166 | and C<"N">, the "network" orders, they are guaranteed to be portable. |
167 | |
168 | Different widths can cause truncation even between platforms of equal |
169 | endianness: the platform of shorter width loses the upper parts of the |
170 | number. There is no good solution for this problem except to avoid |
171 | transferring or storing raw binary numbers. |
172 | |
173 | One can circumnavigate both these problems in two ways: either |
174 | transfer and store numbers always in text format, instead of raw |
175 | binary, or consider using modules like C<Data::Dumper> (included in |
176 | the standard distribution as of Perl 5.005) and C<Storable>. |
177 | |
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178 | =head2 Files |
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179 | |
180 | Most platforms these days structure files in a hierarchical fashion. |
181 | So, it is reasonably safe to assume that any platform supports the |
182 | notion of a "path" to uniquely identify a file on the system. Just |
183 | how that path is actually written, differs. |
184 | |
185 | While they are similar, file path specifications differ between Unix, |
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186 | Windows, S<Mac OS>, OS/2, VMS, VOS, S<RISC OS> and probably others. |
187 | Unix, for example, is one of the few OSes that has the idea of a single |
188 | root directory. |
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189 | |
190 | VMS, Windows, and OS/2 can work similarly to Unix with C</> as path |
191 | separator, or in their own idiosyncratic ways (such as having several |
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192 | root directories and various "unrooted" device files such NIL: and |
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193 | LPT:). |
194 | |
195 | S<Mac OS> uses C<:> as a path separator instead of C</>. |
196 | |
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197 | VOS perl can emulate Unix filenames with C</> as path separator. The |
198 | native pathname characters greater-than, less-than, number-sign, and |
199 | percent-sign are always accepted. |
200 | |
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201 | C<RISC OS> perl can emulate Unix filenames with C</> as path |
202 | separator, or go native and use C<.> for path separator and C<:> to |
203 | signal filing systems and disc names. |
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204 | |
205 | As with the newline problem above, there are modules that can help. The |
206 | C<File::Spec> modules provide methods to do the Right Thing on whatever |
207 | platform happens to be running the program. |
208 | |
209 | use File::Spec; |
210 | chdir(File::Spec->updir()); # go up one directory |
211 | $file = File::Spec->catfile( |
212 | File::Spec->curdir(), 'temp', 'file.txt' |
213 | ); |
214 | # on Unix and Win32, './temp/file.txt' |
215 | # on Mac OS, ':temp:file.txt' |
216 | |
217 | File::Spec is available in the standard distribution, as of version |
218 | 5.004_05. |
219 | |
220 | In general, production code should not have file paths hardcoded; making |
221 | them user supplied or from a configuration file is better, keeping in mind |
222 | that file path syntax varies on different machines. |
223 | |
224 | This is especially noticeable in scripts like Makefiles and test suites, |
225 | which often assume C</> as a path separator for subdirectories. |
226 | |
227 | Also of use is C<File::Basename>, from the standard distribution, which |
228 | splits a pathname into pieces (base filename, full path to directory, |
229 | and file suffix). |
230 | |
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231 | Even when on a single platform (if you can call UNIX a single |
232 | platform), remember not to count on the existence or the contents of |
233 | system-specific files, like F</etc/passwd>, F</etc/sendmail.conf>, or |
234 | F</etc/resolv.conf>. For example the F</etc/passwd> may exist but it |
235 | may not contain the encrypted passwords because the system is using |
236 | some form of enhanced security-- or it may not contain all the |
237 | accounts because the system is using NIS. If code does need to rely |
238 | on such a file, include a description of the file and its format in |
239 | the code's documentation, and make it easy for the user to override |
240 | the default location of the file. |
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241 | |
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242 | Do not have two files of the same name with different case, like |
243 | F<test.pl> and <Test.pl>, as many platforms have case-insensitive |
244 | filenames. Also, try not to have non-word characters (except for C<.>) |
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245 | in the names, and keep them to the 8.3 convention, for maximum |
246 | portability. |
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247 | |
248 | Likewise, if using C<AutoSplit>, try to keep the split functions to |
249 | 8.3 naming and case-insensitive conventions; or, at the very least, |
250 | make it so the resulting files have a unique (case-insensitively) |
251 | first 8 characters. |
252 | |
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253 | Don't assume C<E<lt>> won't be the first character of a filename. Always |
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254 | use C<E<lt>> explicitly to open a file for reading: |
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255 | |
256 | open(FILE, "<$existing_file") or die $!; |
257 | |
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258 | |
259 | =head2 System Interaction |
260 | |
261 | Not all platforms provide for the notion of a command line, necessarily. |
262 | These are usually platforms that rely on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) |
263 | for user interaction. So a program requiring command lines might not work |
264 | everywhere. But this is probably for the user of the program to deal |
265 | with. |
266 | |
267 | Some platforms can't delete or rename files that are being held open by |
268 | the system. Remember to C<close> files when you are done with them. |
269 | Don't C<unlink> or C<rename> an open file. Don't C<tie> to or C<open> a |
270 | file that is already tied to or opened; C<untie> or C<close> first. |
271 | |
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272 | Don't open the same file more than once at a time for writing, as some |
273 | operating systems put mandatory locks on such files. |
274 | |
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275 | Don't count on a specific environment variable existing in C<%ENV>. |
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276 | Don't count on C<%ENV> entries being case-sensitive, or even |
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277 | case-preserving. |
278 | |
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279 | Don't count on signals. |
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280 | |
281 | Don't count on filename globbing. Use C<opendir>, C<readdir>, and |
282 | C<closedir> instead. |
283 | |
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284 | Don't count on per-program environment variables, or per-program current |
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285 | directories. |
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286 | |
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287 | |
288 | =head2 Interprocess Communication (IPC) |
289 | |
290 | In general, don't directly access the system in code that is meant to be |
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291 | portable. That means, no C<system>, C<exec>, C<fork>, C<pipe>, C<``>, |
292 | C<qx//>, C<open> with a C<|>, nor any of the other things that makes being |
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293 | a Unix perl hacker worth being. |
294 | |
295 | Commands that launch external processes are generally supported on |
296 | most platforms (though many of them do not support any type of forking), |
297 | but the problem with using them arises from what you invoke with them. |
298 | External tools are often named differently on different platforms, often |
299 | not available in the same location, often accept different arguments, |
300 | often behave differently, and often represent their results in a |
301 | platform-dependent way. Thus you should seldom depend on them to produce |
302 | consistent results. |
303 | |
304 | One especially common bit of Perl code is opening a pipe to sendmail: |
305 | |
306 | open(MAIL, '|/usr/lib/sendmail -t') or die $!; |
307 | |
308 | This is fine for systems programming when sendmail is known to be |
309 | available. But it is not fine for many non-Unix systems, and even |
310 | some Unix systems that may not have sendmail installed. If a portable |
311 | solution is needed, see the C<Mail::Send> and C<Mail::Mailer> modules |
312 | in the C<MailTools> distribution. C<Mail::Mailer> provides several |
313 | mailing methods, including mail, sendmail, and direct SMTP |
314 | (via C<Net::SMTP>) if a mail transfer agent is not available. |
315 | |
316 | The rule of thumb for portable code is: Do it all in portable Perl, or |
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317 | use a module (that may internally implement it with platform-specific |
318 | code, but expose a common interface). |
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319 | |
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320 | The UNIX System V IPC (C<msg*(), sem*(), shm*()>) is not available |
321 | even in all UNIX platforms. |
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322 | |
323 | =head2 External Subroutines (XS) |
324 | |
325 | XS code, in general, can be made to work with any platform; but dependent |
326 | libraries, header files, etc., might not be readily available or |
327 | portable, or the XS code itself might be platform-specific, just as Perl |
328 | code might be. If the libraries and headers are portable, then it is |
329 | normally reasonable to make sure the XS code is portable, too. |
330 | |
331 | There is a different kind of portability issue with writing XS |
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332 | code: availability of a C compiler on the end-user's system. C brings |
333 | with it its own portability issues, and writing XS code will expose you to |
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334 | some of those. Writing purely in perl is a comparatively easier way to |
335 | achieve portability. |
336 | |
337 | |
338 | =head2 Standard Modules |
339 | |
340 | In general, the standard modules work across platforms. Notable |
341 | exceptions are C<CPAN.pm> (which currently makes connections to external |
342 | programs that may not be available), platform-specific modules (like |
343 | C<ExtUtils::MM_VMS>), and DBM modules. |
344 | |
345 | There is no one DBM module that is available on all platforms. |
346 | C<SDBM_File> and the others are generally available on all Unix and DOSish |
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347 | ports, but not in MacPerl, where only C<NBDM_File> and C<DB_File> are |
348 | available. |
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349 | |
350 | The good news is that at least some DBM module should be available, and |
351 | C<AnyDBM_File> will use whichever module it can find. Of course, then |
352 | the code needs to be fairly strict, dropping to the lowest common |
353 | denominator (e.g., not exceeding 1K for each record). |
354 | |
355 | |
356 | =head2 Time and Date |
357 | |
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358 | The system's notion of time of day and calendar date is controlled in |
359 | widely different ways. Don't assume the timezone is stored in C<$ENV{TZ}>, |
360 | and even if it is, don't assume that you can control the timezone through |
361 | that variable. |
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362 | |
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363 | Don't assume that the epoch starts at 00:00:00, January 1, 1970, |
364 | because that is OS-specific. Better to store a date in an unambiguous |
365 | representation. The ISO 8601 standard defines YYYY-MM-DD as the date |
366 | format. A text representation (like C<1 Jan 1970>) can be easily |
367 | converted into an OS-specific value using a module like |
368 | C<Date::Parse>. An array of values, such as those returned by |
369 | C<localtime>, can be converted to an OS-specific representation using |
370 | C<Time::Local>. |
371 | |
372 | |
373 | =head2 Character sets and character encoding |
374 | |
375 | Assume very little about character sets. Do not assume anything about |
376 | the numerical values (C<ord()>, C<chr()>) of characters. Do not |
377 | assume that the alphabetic characters are encoded contiguously (in |
378 | numerical sense). Do no assume anything about the ordering of the |
379 | characters. The lowercase letters may come before or after the |
380 | uppercase letters, the lowercase and uppercase may be interlaced so |
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381 | that both 'a' and 'A' come before the 'b', the accented and other |
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382 | international characters may be interlaced so that E<auml> comes |
383 | before the 'b'. |
384 | |
385 | |
386 | =head2 Internationalisation |
387 | |
388 | If you may assume POSIX (a rather large assumption, that: in practise |
389 | that means UNIX) you may read more about the POSIX locale system from |
390 | L<perllocale>. The locale system at least attempts to make things a |
391 | little bit more portable or at least more convenient and |
392 | native-friendly for non-English users. The system affects character |
393 | sets and encoding, and date and time formatting, among other things. |
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394 | |
395 | |
396 | =head2 System Resources |
397 | |
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398 | If your code is destined for systems with severely constrained (or |
399 | missing!) virtual memory systems then you want to be I<especially> mindful |
400 | of avoiding wasteful constructs such as: |
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401 | |
402 | # NOTE: this is no longer "bad" in perl5.005 |
403 | for (0..10000000) {} # bad |
404 | for (my $x = 0; $x <= 10000000; ++$x) {} # good |
405 | |
406 | @lines = <VERY_LARGE_FILE>; # bad |
407 | |
408 | while (<FILE>) {$file .= $_} # sometimes bad |
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409 | $file = join('', <FILE>); # better |
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410 | |
411 | The last two may appear unintuitive to most people. The first of those |
412 | two constructs repeatedly grows a string, while the second allocates a |
413 | large chunk of memory in one go. On some systems, the latter is more |
414 | efficient that the former. |
415 | |
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416 | |
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417 | =head2 Security |
418 | |
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419 | Most multi-user platforms provide basic levels of security that is usually |
420 | felt at the file-system level. Other platforms usually don't |
421 | (unfortunately). Thus the notion of user id, or "home" directory, or even |
422 | the state of being logged-in, may be unrecognizable on many platforms. If |
423 | you write programs that are security conscious, it is usually best to know |
424 | what type of system you will be operating under, and write code explicitly |
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425 | for that platform (or class of platforms). |
426 | |
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427 | |
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428 | =head2 Style |
429 | |
430 | For those times when it is necessary to have platform-specific code, |
431 | consider keeping the platform-specific code in one place, making porting |
432 | to other platforms easier. Use the C<Config> module and the special |
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433 | variable C<$^O> to differentiate platforms, as described in |
434 | L<"PLATFORMS">. |
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435 | |
436 | |
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437 | =head1 CPAN Testers |
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438 | |
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439 | Modules uploaded to CPAN are tested by a variety of volunteers on |
440 | different platforms. These CPAN testers are notified by mail of each |
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441 | new upload, and reply to the list with PASS, FAIL, NA (not applicable to |
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442 | this platform), or UNKNOWN (unknown), along with any relevant notations. |
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443 | |
444 | The purpose of the testing is twofold: one, to help developers fix any |
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445 | problems in their code that crop up because of lack of testing on other |
446 | platforms; two, to provide users with information about whether or not |
447 | a given module works on a given platform. |
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448 | |
449 | =over 4 |
450 | |
451 | =item Mailing list: cpan-testers@perl.org |
452 | |
453 | =item Testing results: C<http://www.connect.net/gbarr/cpan-test/> |
454 | |
455 | =back |
456 | |
457 | |
458 | =head1 PLATFORMS |
459 | |
460 | As of version 5.002, Perl is built with a C<$^O> variable that |
461 | indicates the operating system it was built on. This was implemented |
462 | to help speed up code that would otherwise have to C<use Config;> and |
463 | use the value of C<$Config{'osname'}>. Of course, to get |
464 | detailed information about the system, looking into C<%Config> is |
465 | certainly recommended. |
466 | |
467 | =head2 Unix |
468 | |
469 | Perl works on a bewildering variety of Unix and Unix-like platforms (see |
470 | e.g. most of the files in the F<hints/> directory in the source code kit). |
471 | On most of these systems, the value of C<$^O> (hence C<$Config{'osname'}>, |
472 | too) is determined by lowercasing and stripping punctuation from the first |
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473 | field of the string returned by typing C<uname -a> (or a similar command) |
474 | at the shell prompt. Here, for example, are a few of the more popular |
475 | Unix flavors: |
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476 | |
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477 | uname $^O $Config{'archname'} |
478 | ------------------------------------------- |
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479 | AIX aix aix |
480 | FreeBSD freebsd freebsd-i386 |
481 | Linux linux i386-linux |
482 | HP-UX hpux PA-RISC1.1 |
483 | IRIX irix irix |
484 | OSF1 dec_osf alpha-dec_osf |
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485 | SunOS solaris sun4-solaris |
486 | SunOS solaris i86pc-solaris |
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487 | SunOS4 sunos sun4-sunos |
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488 | |
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489 | Note that because the C<$Config{'archname'}> may depend on the hardware |
490 | architecture it may vary quite a lot, much more than the C<$^O>. |
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491 | |
492 | =head2 DOS and Derivatives |
493 | |
494 | Perl has long been ported to PC style microcomputers running under |
495 | systems like PC-DOS, MS-DOS, OS/2, and most Windows platforms you can |
496 | bring yourself to mention (except for Windows CE, if you count that). |
497 | Users familiar with I<COMMAND.COM> and/or I<CMD.EXE> style shells should |
498 | be aware that each of these file specifications may have subtle |
499 | differences: |
500 | |
501 | $filespec0 = "c:/foo/bar/file.txt"; |
502 | $filespec1 = "c:\\foo\\bar\\file.txt"; |
503 | $filespec2 = 'c:\foo\bar\file.txt'; |
504 | $filespec3 = 'c:\\foo\\bar\\file.txt'; |
505 | |
506 | System calls accept either C</> or C<\> as the path separator. However, |
507 | many command-line utilities of DOS vintage treat C</> as the option |
508 | prefix, so they may get confused by filenames containing C</>. Aside |
509 | from calling any external programs, C</> will work just fine, and |
510 | probably better, as it is more consistent with popular usage, and avoids |
511 | the problem of remembering what to backwhack and what not to. |
512 | |
0a47030a |
513 | The DOS FAT filesystem can only accommodate "8.3" style filenames. Under |
e41182b5 |
514 | the "case insensitive, but case preserving" HPFS (OS/2) and NTFS (NT) |
0a47030a |
515 | filesystems you may have to be careful about case returned with functions |
e41182b5 |
516 | like C<readdir> or used with functions like C<open> or C<opendir>. |
517 | |
518 | DOS also treats several filenames as special, such as AUX, PRN, NUL, CON, |
519 | COM1, LPT1, LPT2 etc. Unfortunately these filenames won't even work |
520 | if you include an explicit directory prefix, in some cases. It is best |
521 | to avoid such filenames, if you want your code to be portable to DOS |
522 | and its derivatives. |
523 | |
524 | Users of these operating systems may also wish to make use of |
525 | scripts such as I<pl2bat.bat> or I<pl2cmd> as appropriate to |
526 | put wrappers around your scripts. |
527 | |
528 | Newline (C<\n>) is translated as C<\015\012> by STDIO when reading from |
529 | and writing to files. C<binmode(FILEHANDLE)> will keep C<\n> translated |
530 | as C<\012> for that filehandle. Since it is a noop on other systems, |
531 | C<binmode> should be used for cross-platform code that deals with binary |
532 | data. |
533 | |
534 | The C<$^O> variable and the C<$Config{'archname'}> values for various |
535 | DOSish perls are as follows: |
536 | |
537 | OS $^O $Config{'archname'} |
538 | -------------------------------------------- |
539 | MS-DOS dos |
540 | PC-DOS dos |
541 | OS/2 os2 |
542 | Windows 95 MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 |
543 | Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 |
544 | Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-alpha |
545 | Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-ppc |
546 | |
547 | Also see: |
548 | |
549 | =over 4 |
550 | |
551 | =item The djgpp environment for DOS, C<http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/> |
552 | |
553 | =item The EMX environment for DOS, OS/2, etc. C<emx@iaehv.nl>, |
554 | C<http://www.juge.com/bbs/Hobb.19.html> |
555 | |
556 | =item Build instructions for Win32, L<perlwin32>. |
557 | |
558 | =item The ActiveState Pages, C<http://www.activestate.com/> |
559 | |
560 | =back |
561 | |
562 | |
dd9f0070 |
563 | =head2 S<Mac OS> |
e41182b5 |
564 | |
565 | Any module requiring XS compilation is right out for most people, because |
566 | MacPerl is built using non-free (and non-cheap!) compilers. Some XS |
567 | modules that can work with MacPerl are built and distributed in binary |
0a47030a |
568 | form on CPAN. See I<MacPerl: Power and Ease> and L<"CPAN Testers"> |
569 | for more details. |
e41182b5 |
570 | |
571 | Directories are specified as: |
572 | |
573 | volume:folder:file for absolute pathnames |
574 | volume:folder: for absolute pathnames |
575 | :folder:file for relative pathnames |
576 | :folder: for relative pathnames |
577 | :file for relative pathnames |
578 | file for relative pathnames |
579 | |
580 | Files in a directory are stored in alphabetical order. Filenames are |
581 | limited to 31 characters, and may include any character except C<:>, |
582 | which is reserved as a path separator. |
583 | |
0a47030a |
584 | Instead of C<flock>, see C<FSpSetFLock> and C<FSpRstFLock> in the |
585 | C<Mac::Files> module. |
e41182b5 |
586 | |
587 | In the MacPerl application, you can't run a program from the command line; |
588 | programs that expect C<@ARGV> to be populated can be edited with something |
589 | like the following, which brings up a dialog box asking for the command |
590 | line arguments. |
591 | |
592 | if (!@ARGV) { |
593 | @ARGV = split /\s+/, MacPerl::Ask('Arguments?'); |
594 | } |
595 | |
596 | A MacPerl script saved as a droplet will populate C<@ARGV> with the full |
597 | pathnames of the files dropped onto the script. |
598 | |
599 | Mac users can use programs on a kind of command line under MPW (Macintosh |
600 | Programmer's Workshop, a free development environment from Apple). |
601 | MacPerl was first introduced as an MPW tool, and MPW can be used like a |
602 | shell: |
603 | |
604 | perl myscript.plx some arguments |
605 | |
606 | ToolServer is another app from Apple that provides access to MPW tools |
0a47030a |
607 | from MPW and the MacPerl app, which allows MacPerl programs to use |
e41182b5 |
608 | C<system>, backticks, and piped C<open>. |
609 | |
610 | "S<Mac OS>" is the proper name for the operating system, but the value |
611 | in C<$^O> is "MacOS". To determine architecture, version, or whether |
612 | the application or MPW tool version is running, check: |
613 | |
614 | $is_app = $MacPerl::Version =~ /App/; |
615 | $is_tool = $MacPerl::Version =~ /MPW/; |
616 | ($version) = $MacPerl::Version =~ /^(\S+)/; |
617 | $is_ppc = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'MacPPC'; |
618 | $is_68k = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'Mac68K'; |
619 | |
0a47030a |
620 | S<Mac OS X>, to be based on NeXT's OpenStep OS, will be able to run |
621 | MacPerl natively (in the Blue Box, and even in the Yellow Box, once some |
622 | changes to the toolbox calls are made), but Unix perl will also run |
623 | natively. |
e41182b5 |
624 | |
625 | Also see: |
626 | |
627 | =over 4 |
628 | |
629 | =item The MacPerl Pages, C<http://www.ptf.com/macperl/>. |
630 | |
631 | =item The MacPerl mailing list, C<mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch>. |
632 | |
633 | =back |
634 | |
635 | |
636 | =head2 VMS |
637 | |
638 | Perl on VMS is discussed in F<vms/perlvms.pod> in the perl distribution. |
0a47030a |
639 | Note that perl on VMS can accept either VMS- or Unix-style file |
e41182b5 |
640 | specifications as in either of the following: |
641 | |
642 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM |
643 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" /sys$login/login.com |
644 | |
645 | but not a mixture of both as in: |
646 | |
647 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" sys$login:/login.com |
648 | Can't open sys$login:/login.com: file specification syntax error |
649 | |
650 | Interacting with Perl from the Digital Command Language (DCL) shell |
651 | often requires a different set of quotation marks than Unix shells do. |
652 | For example: |
653 | |
654 | $ perl -e "print ""Hello, world.\n""" |
655 | Hello, world. |
656 | |
657 | There are a number of ways to wrap your perl scripts in DCL .COM files if |
658 | you are so inclined. For example: |
659 | |
660 | $ write sys$output "Hello from DCL!" |
661 | $ if p1 .eqs. "" |
662 | $ then perl -x 'f$environment("PROCEDURE") |
663 | $ else perl -x - 'p1 'p2 'p3 'p4 'p5 'p6 'p7 'p8 |
664 | $ deck/dollars="__END__" |
665 | #!/usr/bin/perl |
666 | |
667 | print "Hello from Perl!\n"; |
668 | |
669 | __END__ |
670 | $ endif |
671 | |
672 | Do take care with C<$ ASSIGN/nolog/user SYS$COMMAND: SYS$INPUT> if your |
673 | perl-in-DCL script expects to do things like C<$read = E<lt>STDINE<gt>;>. |
674 | |
675 | Filenames are in the format "name.extension;version". The maximum |
676 | length for filenames is 39 characters, and the maximum length for |
677 | extensions is also 39 characters. Version is a number from 1 to |
678 | 32767. Valid characters are C</[A-Z0-9$_-]/>. |
679 | |
680 | VMS' RMS filesystem is case insensitive and does not preserve case. |
681 | C<readdir> returns lowercased filenames, but specifying a file for |
b8099c3d |
682 | opening remains case insensitive. Files without extensions have a |
e41182b5 |
683 | trailing period on them, so doing a C<readdir> with a file named F<A.;5> |
0a47030a |
684 | will return F<a.> (though that file could be opened with |
685 | C<open(FH, 'A')>). |
e41182b5 |
686 | |
f34d0673 |
687 | RMS had an eight level limit on directory depths from any rooted logical |
dd9f0070 |
688 | (allowing 16 levels overall) prior to VMS 7.2. Hence |
689 | C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8]> is a valid directory specification but |
690 | C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9]> is not. F<Makefile.PL> authors might |
691 | have to take this into account, but at least they can refer to the former |
f34d0673 |
692 | as C</PERL_ROOT/lib/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/>. |
e41182b5 |
693 | |
0a47030a |
694 | The C<VMS::Filespec> module, which gets installed as part of the build |
695 | process on VMS, is a pure Perl module that can easily be installed on |
696 | non-VMS platforms and can be helpful for conversions to and from RMS |
697 | native formats. |
e41182b5 |
698 | |
699 | What C<\n> represents depends on the type of file that is open. It could |
700 | be C<\015>, C<\012>, C<\015\012>, or nothing. Reading from a file |
701 | translates newlines to C<\012>, unless C<binmode> was executed on that |
702 | handle, just like DOSish perls. |
703 | |
704 | TCP/IP stacks are optional on VMS, so socket routines might not be |
705 | implemented. UDP sockets may not be supported. |
706 | |
707 | The value of C<$^O> on OpenVMS is "VMS". To determine the architecture |
708 | that you are running on without resorting to loading all of C<%Config> |
709 | you can examine the content of the C<@INC> array like so: |
710 | |
711 | if (grep(/VMS_AXP/, @INC)) { |
712 | print "I'm on Alpha!\n"; |
713 | } elsif (grep(/VMS_VAX/, @INC)) { |
714 | print "I'm on VAX!\n"; |
715 | } else { |
716 | print "I'm not so sure about where $^O is...\n"; |
717 | } |
718 | |
719 | Also see: |
720 | |
721 | =over 4 |
722 | |
723 | =item L<perlvms.pod> |
724 | |
725 | =item vmsperl list, C<vmsperl-request@newman.upenn.edu> |
726 | |
727 | Put words C<SUBSCRIBE VMSPERL> in message body. |
728 | |
729 | =item vmsperl on the web, C<http://www.sidhe.org/vmsperl/index.html> |
730 | |
731 | =back |
732 | |
733 | |
495c5fdc |
734 | =head2 VOS |
735 | |
736 | Perl on VOS is discussed in F<README.vos> in the perl distribution. |
737 | Note that perl on VOS can accept either VOS- or Unix-style file |
738 | specifications as in either of the following: |
739 | |
740 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" >system>notices |
741 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" /system/notices |
742 | |
743 | or even a mixture of both as in: |
744 | |
745 | $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" >system/notices |
746 | |
747 | Note that even though VOS allows the slash character to appear in object |
748 | names, because the VOS port of Perl interprets it as a pathname |
749 | delimiting character, VOS files, directories, or links whose names |
750 | contain a slash character cannot be processed. Such files must be |
751 | renamed before they can be processed by Perl. |
752 | |
753 | The following C functions are unimplemented on VOS, any any attempt by |
754 | Perl to use them will result in a fatal error message and an immediate |
755 | exit from Perl: dup, do_aspawn, do_spawn, execlp, execl, execvp, fork, |
756 | waitpid. Once these functions become available in the VOS POSIX.1 |
757 | implementation, you can either recompile and rebind Perl, or you can |
758 | download a newer port from ftp.stratus.com. |
759 | |
760 | The value of C<$^O> on VOS is "VOS". To determine the architecture that |
761 | you are running on without resorting to loading all of C<%Config> you |
762 | can examine the content of the C<@INC> array like so: |
763 | |
764 | if (grep(/VOS/, @INC)) { |
765 | print "I'm on a Stratus box!\n"; |
766 | } else { |
767 | print "I'm not on a Stratus box!\n"; |
768 | die; |
769 | } |
770 | |
771 | if (grep(/860/, @INC)) { |
772 | print "This box is a Stratus XA/R!\n"; |
773 | } elsif (grep(/7100/, @INC)) { |
774 | print "This box is a Stratus HP 7100 or 8000!\n"; |
775 | } elsif (grep(/8000/, @INC)) { |
776 | print "This box is a Stratus HP 8000!\n"; |
777 | } else { |
778 | print "This box is a Stratus 68K...\n"; |
779 | } |
780 | |
781 | Also see: |
782 | |
783 | =over 4 |
784 | |
785 | =item L<README.vos> |
786 | |
787 | =item VOS mailing list |
788 | |
789 | There is no specific mailing list for Perl on VOS. You can post |
790 | comments to the comp.sys.stratus newsgroup, or subscribe to the general |
791 | Stratus mailing list. Send a letter with "Subscribe Info-Stratus" in |
792 | the message body to majordomo@list.stratagy.com. |
793 | |
794 | =item VOS Perl on the web at C<http://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/vos.html> |
795 | |
796 | =back |
797 | |
798 | |
e41182b5 |
799 | =head2 EBCDIC Platforms |
800 | |
801 | Recent versions of Perl have been ported to platforms such as OS/400 on |
7c5ffed3 |
802 | AS/400 minicomputers as well as OS/390 & VM/ESA for IBM Mainframes. Such |
803 | computers use EBCDIC character sets internally (usually Character Code |
804 | Set ID 00819 for OS/400 and IBM-1047 for OS/390 & VM/ESA). Note that on |
805 | the mainframe perl currently works under the "Unix system services |
806 | for OS/390" (formerly known as OpenEdition) and VM/ESA OpenEdition. |
e41182b5 |
807 | |
7c5ffed3 |
808 | As of R2.5 of USS for OS/390 and Version 2.3 of VM/ESA these Unix |
809 | sub-systems do not support the C<#!> shebang trick for script invocation. |
810 | Hence, on OS/390 and VM/ESA perl scripts can be executed with a header |
811 | similar to the following simple script: |
e41182b5 |
812 | |
813 | : # use perl |
814 | eval 'exec /usr/local/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}' |
815 | if 0; |
816 | #!/usr/local/bin/perl # just a comment really |
817 | |
818 | print "Hello from perl!\n"; |
819 | |
820 | On these platforms, bear in mind that the EBCDIC character set may have |
0a47030a |
821 | an effect on what happens with some perl functions (such as C<chr>, |
822 | C<pack>, C<print>, C<printf>, C<ord>, C<sort>, C<sprintf>, C<unpack>), as |
823 | well as bit-fiddling with ASCII constants using operators like C<^>, C<&> |
824 | and C<|>, not to mention dealing with socket interfaces to ASCII computers |
e41182b5 |
825 | (see L<"NEWLINES">). |
826 | |
827 | Fortunately, most web servers for the mainframe will correctly translate |
828 | the C<\n> in the following statement to its ASCII equivalent (note that |
7c5ffed3 |
829 | C<\r> is the same under both Unix and OS/390 & VM/ESA): |
e41182b5 |
830 | |
831 | print "Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n"; |
832 | |
833 | The value of C<$^O> on OS/390 is "os390". |
834 | |
7c5ffed3 |
835 | The value of C<$^O> on VM/ESA is "vmesa". |
e41182b5 |
836 | Some simple tricks for determining if you are running on an EBCDIC |
837 | platform could include any of the following (perhaps all): |
838 | |
839 | if ("\t" eq "\05") { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; } |
840 | |
841 | if (ord('A') == 193) { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; } |
842 | |
843 | if (chr(169) eq 'z') { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; } |
844 | |
845 | Note that one thing you may not want to rely on is the EBCDIC encoding |
0a47030a |
846 | of punctuation characters since these may differ from code page to code |
847 | page (and once your module or script is rumoured to work with EBCDIC, |
848 | folks will want it to work with all EBCDIC character sets). |
e41182b5 |
849 | |
850 | Also see: |
851 | |
852 | =over 4 |
853 | |
854 | =item perl-mvs list |
855 | |
856 | The perl-mvs@perl.org list is for discussion of porting issues as well as |
857 | general usage issues for all EBCDIC Perls. Send a message body of |
858 | "subscribe perl-mvs" to majordomo@perl.org. |
859 | |
0a47030a |
860 | =item AS/400 Perl information at C<http://as400.rochester.ibm.com/> |
e41182b5 |
861 | |
862 | =back |
863 | |
b8099c3d |
864 | |
865 | =head2 Acorn RISC OS |
866 | |
0a47030a |
867 | As Acorns use ASCII with newlines (C<\n>) in text files as C<\012> like |
868 | Unix and Unix filename emulation is turned on by default, it is quite |
869 | likely that most simple scripts will work "out of the box". The native |
870 | filing system is modular, and individual filing systems are free to be |
871 | case-sensitive or insensitive, and are usually case-preserving. Some |
872 | native filing systems have name length limits which file and directory |
873 | names are silently truncated to fit - scripts should be aware that the |
874 | standard disc filing system currently has a name length limit of B<10> |
875 | characters, with up to 77 items in a directory, but other filing systems |
876 | may not impose such limitations. |
b8099c3d |
877 | |
878 | Native filenames are of the form |
879 | |
880 | Filesystem#Special_Field::DiscName.$.Directory.Directory.File |
dd9f0070 |
881 | |
b8099c3d |
882 | where |
883 | |
884 | Special_Field is not usually present, but may contain . and $ . |
885 | Filesystem =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_]| |
886 | DsicName =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_/]| |
887 | $ represents the root directory |
888 | . is the path separator |
889 | @ is the current directory (per filesystem but machine global) |
890 | ^ is the parent directory |
891 | Directory and File =~ m|[^\0- "\.\$\%\&:\@\\^\|\177]+| |
892 | |
893 | The default filename translation is roughly C<tr|/.|./|;> |
894 | |
895 | Note that C<"ADFS::HardDisc.$.File" ne 'ADFS::HardDisc.$.File'> and that |
0a47030a |
896 | the second stage of C<$> interpolation in regular expressions will fall |
897 | foul of the C<$.> if scripts are not careful. |
898 | |
899 | Logical paths specified by system variables containing comma-separated |
900 | search lists are also allowed, hence C<System:Modules> is a valid |
901 | filename, and the filesystem will prefix C<Modules> with each section of |
902 | C<System$Path> until a name is made that points to an object on disc. |
903 | Writing to a new file C<System:Modules> would only be allowed if |
904 | C<System$Path> contains a single item list. The filesystem will also |
905 | expand system variables in filenames if enclosed in angle brackets, so |
906 | C<E<lt>System$DirE<gt>.Modules> would look for the file |
907 | S<C<$ENV{'System$Dir'} . 'Modules'>>. The obvious implication of this is |
908 | that B<fully qualified filenames can start with C<E<lt>E<gt>> and should |
909 | be protected when C<open> is used for input. |
b8099c3d |
910 | |
911 | Because C<.> was in use as a directory separator and filenames could not |
912 | be assumed to be unique after 10 characters, Acorn implemented the C |
913 | compiler to strip the trailing C<.c> C<.h> C<.s> and C<.o> suffix from |
914 | filenames specified in source code and store the respective files in |
915 | subdirectories named after the suffix. Hence files are translated: |
916 | |
917 | foo.h h.foo |
918 | C:foo.h C:h.foo (logical path variable) |
919 | sys/os.h sys.h.os (C compiler groks Unix-speak) |
920 | 10charname.c c.10charname |
921 | 10charname.o o.10charname |
922 | 11charname_.c c.11charname (assuming filesystem truncates at 10) |
923 | |
924 | The Unix emulation library's translation of filenames to native assumes |
0a47030a |
925 | that this sort of translation is required, and allows a user defined list |
926 | of known suffixes which it will transpose in this fashion. This may |
927 | appear transparent, but consider that with these rules C<foo/bar/baz.h> |
928 | and C<foo/bar/h/baz> both map to C<foo.bar.h.baz>, and that C<readdir> and |
929 | C<glob> cannot and do not attempt to emulate the reverse mapping. Other |
930 | C<.>s in filenames are translated to C</>. |
931 | |
932 | As implied above the environment accessed through C<%ENV> is global, and |
933 | the convention is that program specific environment variables are of the |
934 | form C<Program$Name>. Each filing system maintains a current directory, |
935 | and the current filing system's current directory is the B<global> current |
936 | directory. Consequently, sociable scripts don't change the current |
937 | directory but rely on full pathnames, and scripts (and Makefiles) cannot |
938 | assume that they can spawn a child process which can change the current |
939 | directory without affecting its parent (and everyone else for that |
940 | matter). |
941 | |
942 | As native operating system filehandles are global and currently are |
943 | allocated down from 255, with 0 being a reserved value the Unix emulation |
944 | library emulates Unix filehandles. Consequently, you can't rely on |
945 | passing C<STDIN>, C<STDOUT>, or C<STDERR> to your children. |
946 | |
947 | The desire of users to express filenames of the form |
948 | C<E<lt>Foo$DirE<gt>.Bar> on the command line unquoted causes problems, |
949 | too: C<``> command output capture has to perform a guessing game. It |
950 | assumes that a string C<E<lt>[^E<lt>E<gt>]+\$[^E<lt>E<gt>]E<gt>> is a |
951 | reference to an environment variable, whereas anything else involving |
952 | C<E<lt>> or C<E<gt>> is redirection, and generally manages to be 99% |
953 | right. Of course, the problem remains that scripts cannot rely on any |
954 | Unix tools being available, or that any tools found have Unix-like command |
955 | line arguments. |
956 | |
957 | Extensions and XS are, in theory, buildable by anyone using free tools. |
958 | In practice, many don't, as users of the Acorn platform are used to binary |
959 | distribution. MakeMaker does run, but no available make currently copes |
960 | with MakeMaker's makefiles; even if/when this is fixed, the lack of a |
961 | Unix-like shell can cause problems with makefile rules, especially lines |
962 | of the form C<cd sdbm && make all>, and anything using quoting. |
b8099c3d |
963 | |
964 | "S<RISC OS>" is the proper name for the operating system, but the value |
965 | in C<$^O> is "riscos" (because we don't like shouting). |
966 | |
967 | Also see: |
968 | |
969 | =over 4 |
970 | |
971 | =item perl list |
972 | |
973 | =back |
974 | |
975 | |
e41182b5 |
976 | =head2 Other perls |
977 | |
b8099c3d |
978 | Perl has been ported to a variety of platforms that do not fit into any of |
979 | the above categories. Some, such as AmigaOS, BeOS, QNX, and Plan 9, have |
0a47030a |
980 | been well-integrated into the standard Perl source code kit. You may need |
b8099c3d |
981 | to see the F<ports/> directory on CPAN for information, and possibly |
0a47030a |
982 | binaries, for the likes of: aos, atari, lynxos, riscos, Tandem Guardian, |
983 | vos, I<etc.> (yes we know that some of these OSes may fall under the Unix |
984 | category, but we are not a standards body.) |
e41182b5 |
985 | |
986 | See also: |
987 | |
988 | =over 4 |
989 | |
990 | =item Atari, Guido Flohr's page C<http://stud.uni-sb.de/~gufl0000/> |
991 | |
992 | =item HP 300 MPE/iX C<http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/perlix.html> |
993 | |
994 | =item Novell Netware |
995 | |
0a47030a |
996 | A free perl5-based PERL.NLM for Novell Netware is available from |
e41182b5 |
997 | C<http://www.novell.com/> |
998 | |
999 | =back |
1000 | |
1001 | |
1002 | =head1 FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS |
1003 | |
1004 | Listed below are functions unimplemented or implemented differently on |
1005 | various platforms. Following each description will be, in parentheses, a |
1006 | list of platforms that the description applies to. |
1007 | |
1008 | The list may very well be incomplete, or wrong in some places. When in |
1009 | doubt, consult the platform-specific README files in the Perl source |
1010 | distribution, and other documentation resources for a given port. |
1011 | |
0a47030a |
1012 | Be aware, moreover, that even among Unix-ish systems there are variations. |
e41182b5 |
1013 | |
1014 | For many functions, you can also query C<%Config>, exported by default |
1015 | from C<Config.pm>. For example, to check if the platform has the C<lstat> |
0a47030a |
1016 | call, check C<$Config{'d_lstat'}>. See L<Config.pm> for a full |
1017 | description of available variables. |
e41182b5 |
1018 | |
1019 | |
1020 | =head2 Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions |
1021 | |
1022 | =over 8 |
1023 | |
1024 | =item -X FILEHANDLE |
1025 | |
1026 | =item -X EXPR |
1027 | |
1028 | =item -X |
1029 | |
1030 | C<-r>, C<-w>, and C<-x> have only a very limited meaning; directories |
1031 | and applications are executable, and there are no uid/gid |
1032 | considerations. C<-o> is not supported. (S<Mac OS>) |
1033 | |
1034 | C<-r>, C<-w>, C<-x>, and C<-o> tell whether or not file is accessible, |
1035 | which may not reflect UIC-based file protections. (VMS) |
1036 | |
b8099c3d |
1037 | C<-s> returns the size of the data fork, not the total size of data fork |
1038 | plus resource fork. (S<Mac OS>). |
1039 | |
1040 | C<-s> by name on an open file will return the space reserved on disk, |
1041 | rather than the current extent. C<-s> on an open filehandle returns the |
1042 | current size. (S<RISC OS>) |
1043 | |
e41182b5 |
1044 | C<-R>, C<-W>, C<-X>, C<-O> are indistinguishable from C<-r>, C<-w>, |
b8099c3d |
1045 | C<-x>, C<-o>. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1046 | |
1047 | C<-b>, C<-c>, C<-k>, C<-g>, C<-p>, C<-u>, C<-A> are not implemented. |
1048 | (S<Mac OS>) |
1049 | |
1050 | C<-g>, C<-k>, C<-l>, C<-p>, C<-u>, C<-A> are not particularly meaningful. |
b8099c3d |
1051 | (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1052 | |
1053 | C<-d> is true if passed a device spec without an explicit directory. |
1054 | (VMS) |
1055 | |
1056 | C<-T> and C<-B> are implemented, but might misclassify Mac text files |
0a47030a |
1057 | with foreign characters; this is the case will all platforms, but may |
1058 | affect S<Mac OS> often. (S<Mac OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1059 | |
1060 | C<-x> (or C<-X>) determine if a file ends in one of the executable |
1061 | suffixes. C<-S> is meaningless. (Win32) |
1062 | |
b8099c3d |
1063 | C<-x> (or C<-X>) determine if a file has an executable file type. |
1064 | (S<RISC OS>) |
1065 | |
e41182b5 |
1066 | =item binmode FILEHANDLE |
1067 | |
b8099c3d |
1068 | Meaningless. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1069 | |
1070 | Reopens file and restores pointer; if function fails, underlying |
1071 | filehandle may be closed, or pointer may be in a different position. |
1072 | (VMS) |
1073 | |
1074 | The value returned by C<tell> may be affected after the call, and |
1075 | the filehandle may be flushed. (Win32) |
1076 | |
1077 | =item chmod LIST |
1078 | |
1079 | Only limited meaning. Disabling/enabling write permission is mapped to |
1080 | locking/unlocking the file. (S<Mac OS>) |
1081 | |
1082 | Only good for changing "owner" read-write access, "group", and "other" |
1083 | bits are meaningless. (Win32) |
1084 | |
b8099c3d |
1085 | Only good for changing "owner" and "other" read-write access. (S<RISC OS>) |
1086 | |
495c5fdc |
1087 | Access permissions are mapped onto VOS access-control list changes. (VOS) |
1088 | |
e41182b5 |
1089 | =item chown LIST |
1090 | |
495c5fdc |
1091 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1092 | |
1093 | Does nothing, but won't fail. (Win32) |
1094 | |
1095 | =item chroot FILENAME |
1096 | |
1097 | =item chroot |
1098 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1099 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1100 | |
1101 | =item crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT |
1102 | |
1103 | May not be available if library or source was not provided when building |
b8099c3d |
1104 | perl. (Win32) |
e41182b5 |
1105 | |
495c5fdc |
1106 | Not implemented. (VOS) |
1107 | |
e41182b5 |
1108 | =item dbmclose HASH |
1109 | |
495c5fdc |
1110 | Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1111 | |
1112 | =item dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MODE |
1113 | |
495c5fdc |
1114 | Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1115 | |
1116 | =item dump LABEL |
1117 | |
b8099c3d |
1118 | Not useful. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1119 | |
1120 | Not implemented. (Win32) |
1121 | |
b8099c3d |
1122 | Invokes VMS debugger. (VMS) |
e41182b5 |
1123 | |
1124 | =item exec LIST |
1125 | |
1126 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>) |
1127 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1128 | Implemented via Spawn. (VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1129 | =item fcntl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR |
1130 | |
1131 | Not implemented. (Win32, VMS) |
1132 | |
1133 | =item flock FILEHANDLE,OPERATION |
1134 | |
495c5fdc |
1135 | Not implemented (S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS). |
e41182b5 |
1136 | |
1137 | Available only on Windows NT (not on Windows 95). (Win32) |
1138 | |
1139 | =item fork |
1140 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1141 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, AmigaOS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1142 | |
1143 | =item getlogin |
1144 | |
b8099c3d |
1145 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1146 | |
1147 | =item getpgrp PID |
1148 | |
495c5fdc |
1149 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1150 | |
1151 | =item getppid |
1152 | |
b8099c3d |
1153 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1154 | |
1155 | =item getpriority WHICH,WHO |
1156 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1157 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1158 | |
1159 | =item getpwnam NAME |
1160 | |
1161 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32) |
1162 | |
b8099c3d |
1163 | Not useful. (S<RISC OS>) |
1164 | |
e41182b5 |
1165 | =item getgrnam NAME |
1166 | |
b8099c3d |
1167 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1168 | |
1169 | =item getnetbyname NAME |
1170 | |
1171 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1172 | |
1173 | =item getpwuid UID |
1174 | |
1175 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32) |
1176 | |
b8099c3d |
1177 | Not useful. (S<RISC OS>) |
1178 | |
e41182b5 |
1179 | =item getgrgid GID |
1180 | |
b8099c3d |
1181 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1182 | |
1183 | =item getnetbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE |
1184 | |
1185 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1186 | |
1187 | =item getprotobynumber NUMBER |
1188 | |
1189 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>) |
1190 | |
1191 | =item getservbyport PORT,PROTO |
1192 | |
1193 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>) |
1194 | |
1195 | =item getpwent |
1196 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1197 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1198 | |
1199 | =item getgrent |
1200 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1201 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1202 | |
1203 | =item gethostent |
1204 | |
1205 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32) |
1206 | |
1207 | =item getnetent |
1208 | |
1209 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1210 | |
1211 | =item getprotoent |
1212 | |
1213 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1214 | |
1215 | =item getservent |
1216 | |
1217 | Not implemented. (Win32, Plan9) |
1218 | |
1219 | =item setpwent |
1220 | |
b8099c3d |
1221 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1222 | |
1223 | =item setgrent |
1224 | |
b8099c3d |
1225 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1226 | |
1227 | =item sethostent STAYOPEN |
1228 | |
b8099c3d |
1229 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1230 | |
1231 | =item setnetent STAYOPEN |
1232 | |
b8099c3d |
1233 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1234 | |
1235 | =item setprotoent STAYOPEN |
1236 | |
b8099c3d |
1237 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1238 | |
1239 | =item setservent STAYOPEN |
1240 | |
b8099c3d |
1241 | Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1242 | |
1243 | =item endpwent |
1244 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1245 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1246 | |
1247 | =item endgrent |
1248 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1249 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1250 | |
1251 | =item endhostent |
1252 | |
1253 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32) |
1254 | |
1255 | =item endnetent |
1256 | |
1257 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1258 | |
1259 | =item endprotoent |
1260 | |
1261 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9) |
1262 | |
1263 | =item endservent |
1264 | |
1265 | Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32) |
1266 | |
1267 | =item getsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME |
1268 | |
1269 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Plan9) |
1270 | |
1271 | =item glob EXPR |
1272 | |
1273 | =item glob |
1274 | |
1275 | Globbing built-in, but only C<*> and C<?> metacharacters are supported. |
1276 | (S<Mac OS>) |
1277 | |
0a47030a |
1278 | Features depend on external perlglob.exe or perlglob.bat. May be |
1279 | overridden with something like File::DosGlob, which is recommended. |
1280 | (Win32) |
e41182b5 |
1281 | |
b8099c3d |
1282 | Globbing built-in, but only C<*> and C<?> metacharacters are supported. |
0a47030a |
1283 | Globbing relies on operating system calls, which may return filenames |
1284 | in any order. As most filesystems are case-insensitive, even "sorted" |
1285 | filenames will not be in case-sensitive order. (S<RISC OS>) |
b8099c3d |
1286 | |
e41182b5 |
1287 | =item ioctl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR |
1288 | |
1289 | Not implemented. (VMS) |
1290 | |
1291 | Available only for socket handles, and it does what the ioctlsocket() call |
1292 | in the Winsock API does. (Win32) |
1293 | |
b8099c3d |
1294 | Available only for socket handles. (S<RISC OS>) |
1295 | |
e41182b5 |
1296 | =item kill LIST |
1297 | |
0a47030a |
1298 | Not implemented, hence not useful for taint checking. (S<Mac OS>, |
1299 | S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1300 | |
0a47030a |
1301 | Available only for process handles returned by the C<system(1, ...)> |
1302 | method of spawning a process. (Win32) |
e41182b5 |
1303 | |
1304 | =item link OLDFILE,NEWFILE |
1305 | |
b8099c3d |
1306 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1307 | |
1308 | =item lstat FILEHANDLE |
1309 | |
1310 | =item lstat EXPR |
1311 | |
1312 | =item lstat |
1313 | |
b8099c3d |
1314 | Not implemented. (VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1315 | |
b8099c3d |
1316 | Return values may be bogus. (Win32) |
e41182b5 |
1317 | |
1318 | =item msgctl ID,CMD,ARG |
1319 | |
1320 | =item msgget KEY,FLAGS |
1321 | |
1322 | =item msgsnd ID,MSG,FLAGS |
1323 | |
1324 | =item msgrcv ID,VAR,SIZE,TYPE,FLAGS |
1325 | |
495c5fdc |
1326 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1327 | |
1328 | =item open FILEHANDLE,EXPR |
1329 | |
1330 | =item open FILEHANDLE |
1331 | |
1332 | The C<|> variants are only supported if ToolServer is installed. |
1333 | (S<Mac OS>) |
1334 | |
b8099c3d |
1335 | open to C<|-> and C<-|> are unsupported. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1336 | |
1337 | =item pipe READHANDLE,WRITEHANDLE |
1338 | |
1339 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>) |
1340 | |
1341 | =item readlink EXPR |
1342 | |
1343 | =item readlink |
1344 | |
b8099c3d |
1345 | Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1346 | |
1347 | =item select RBITS,WBITS,EBITS,TIMEOUT |
1348 | |
1349 | Only implemented on sockets. (Win32) |
1350 | |
b8099c3d |
1351 | Only reliable on sockets. (S<RISC OS>) |
1352 | |
e41182b5 |
1353 | =item semctl ID,SEMNUM,CMD,ARG |
1354 | |
1355 | =item semget KEY,NSEMS,FLAGS |
1356 | |
1357 | =item semop KEY,OPSTRING |
1358 | |
495c5fdc |
1359 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1360 | |
1361 | =item setpgrp PID,PGRP |
1362 | |
495c5fdc |
1363 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1364 | |
1365 | =item setpriority WHICH,WHO,PRIORITY |
1366 | |
495c5fdc |
1367 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1368 | |
1369 | =item setsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME,OPTVAL |
1370 | |
1371 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Plan9) |
1372 | |
1373 | =item shmctl ID,CMD,ARG |
1374 | |
1375 | =item shmget KEY,SIZE,FLAGS |
1376 | |
1377 | =item shmread ID,VAR,POS,SIZE |
1378 | |
1379 | =item shmwrite ID,STRING,POS,SIZE |
1380 | |
495c5fdc |
1381 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1382 | |
1383 | =item socketpair SOCKET1,SOCKET2,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL |
1384 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1385 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1386 | |
1387 | =item stat FILEHANDLE |
1388 | |
1389 | =item stat EXPR |
1390 | |
1391 | =item stat |
1392 | |
1393 | mtime and atime are the same thing, and ctime is creation time instead of |
1394 | inode change time. (S<Mac OS>) |
1395 | |
1396 | device and inode are not meaningful. (Win32) |
1397 | |
1398 | device and inode are not necessarily reliable. (VMS) |
1399 | |
b8099c3d |
1400 | mtime, atime and ctime all return the last modification time. Device and |
1401 | inode are not necessarily reliable. (S<RISC OS>) |
1402 | |
e41182b5 |
1403 | =item symlink OLDFILE,NEWFILE |
1404 | |
b8099c3d |
1405 | Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1406 | |
1407 | =item syscall LIST |
1408 | |
7c5ffed3 |
1409 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA) |
e41182b5 |
1410 | |
f34d0673 |
1411 | =item sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE,PERMS |
1412 | |
dd9f0070 |
1413 | The traditional "0", "1", and "2" MODEs are implemented with different |
322422de |
1414 | numeric values on some systems. The flags exported by C<Fcntl> |
1415 | (O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) should work everywhere though. (S<Mac |
7c5ffed3 |
1416 | OS>, OS/390, VM/ESA) |
f34d0673 |
1417 | |
e41182b5 |
1418 | =item system LIST |
1419 | |
1420 | Only implemented if ToolServer is installed. (S<Mac OS>) |
1421 | |
1422 | As an optimization, may not call the command shell specified in |
1423 | C<$ENV{PERL5SHELL}>. C<system(1, @args)> spawns an external |
1424 | process and immediately returns its process designator, without |
1425 | waiting for it to terminate. Return value may be used subsequently |
1426 | in C<wait> or C<waitpid>. (Win32) |
1427 | |
b8099c3d |
1428 | There is no shell to process metacharacters, and the native standard is |
1429 | to pass a command line terminated by "\n" "\r" or "\0" to the spawned |
1430 | program. Redirection such as C<E<gt> foo> is performed (if at all) by |
1431 | the run time library of the spawned program. C<system> I<list> will call |
1432 | the Unix emulation library's C<exec> emulation, which attempts to provide |
1433 | emulation of the stdin, stdout, stderr in force in the parent, providing |
1434 | the child program uses a compatible version of the emulation library. |
1435 | I<scalar> will call the native command line direct and no such emulation |
1436 | of a child Unix program will exists. Mileage B<will> vary. (S<RISC OS>) |
1437 | |
e41182b5 |
1438 | =item times |
1439 | |
1440 | Only the first entry returned is nonzero. (S<Mac OS>) |
1441 | |
1442 | "cumulative" times will be bogus. On anything other than Windows NT, |
1443 | "system" time will be bogus, and "user" time is actually the time |
1444 | returned by the clock() function in the C runtime library. (Win32) |
1445 | |
b8099c3d |
1446 | Not useful. (S<RISC OS>) |
1447 | |
e41182b5 |
1448 | =item truncate FILEHANDLE,LENGTH |
1449 | |
1450 | =item truncate EXPR,LENGTH |
1451 | |
1452 | Not implemented. (VMS) |
1453 | |
495c5fdc |
1454 | Truncation to zero-length only. (VOS) |
1455 | |
4cfdb94f |
1456 | If a FILEHANDLE is supplied, it must be writable and opened in append |
1457 | mode (i.e., use C<open(FH, '>>filename')> |
1458 | or C<sysopen(FH,...,O_APPEND|O_RDWR)>. If a filename is supplied, it |
1459 | should not be held open elsewhere. (Win32) |
1460 | |
e41182b5 |
1461 | =item umask EXPR |
1462 | |
1463 | =item umask |
1464 | |
1465 | Returns undef where unavailable, as of version 5.005. |
1466 | |
1467 | =item utime LIST |
1468 | |
b8099c3d |
1469 | Only the modification time is updated. (S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>) |
e41182b5 |
1470 | |
322422de |
1471 | May not behave as expected. Behavior depends on the C runtime |
1472 | library's implementation of utime(), and the filesystem being |
1473 | used. The FAT filesystem typically does not support an "access |
1474 | time" field, and it may limit timestamps to a granularity of |
1475 | two seconds. (Win32) |
e41182b5 |
1476 | |
1477 | =item wait |
1478 | |
1479 | =item waitpid PID,FLAGS |
1480 | |
495c5fdc |
1481 | Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, VOS) |
e41182b5 |
1482 | |
1483 | Can only be applied to process handles returned for processes spawned |
1484 | using C<system(1, ...)>. (Win32) |
1485 | |
b8099c3d |
1486 | Not useful. (S<RISC OS>) |
1487 | |
e41182b5 |
1488 | =back |
1489 | |
b8099c3d |
1490 | =head1 CHANGES |
1491 | |
1492 | =over 4 |
1493 | |
495c5fdc |
1494 | =item 1.35, 9 September 1998 |
1495 | |
1496 | Updated for Stratus VOS. |
1497 | |
0a47030a |
1498 | =item 1.33, 06 August 1998 |
1499 | |
1500 | Integrate more minor changes. |
1501 | |
dd9f0070 |
1502 | =item 1.32, 05 August 1998 |
1503 | |
1504 | Integrate more minor changes. |
1505 | |
b8099c3d |
1506 | =item 1.30, 03 August 1998 |
1507 | |
1508 | Major update for RISC OS, other minor changes. |
1509 | |
1510 | =item 1.23, 10 July 1998 |
1511 | |
1512 | First public release with perl5.005. |
1513 | |
1514 | =back |
e41182b5 |
1515 | |
1516 | =head1 AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS |
1517 | |
dd9f0070 |
1518 | Abigail E<lt>abigail@fnx.comE<gt>, |
bd3fa61c |
1519 | Charles Bailey E<lt>bailey@newman.upenn.eduE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1520 | Graham Barr E<lt>gbarr@pobox.comE<gt>, |
e41182b5 |
1521 | Tom Christiansen E<lt>tchrist@perl.comE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1522 | Nicholas Clark E<lt>Nicholas.Clark@liverpool.ac.ukE<gt>, |
1523 | Andy Dougherty E<lt>doughera@lafcol.lafayette.eduE<gt>, |
1524 | Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@vo.luE<gt>, |
7c5ffed3 |
1525 | Neale Ferguson E<lt>neale@mailbox.tabnsw.com.auE<gt> |
495c5fdc |
1526 | Paul Green E<lt>Paul_Green@stratus.comE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1527 | M.J.T. Guy E<lt>mjtg@cus.cam.ac.ukE<gt>, |
7c5ffed3 |
1528 | Jarkko Hietaniemi E<lt>jhi@iki.fi<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1529 | Luther Huffman E<lt>lutherh@stratcom.comE<gt>, |
1530 | Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>, |
322422de |
1531 | Andreas J. KE<ouml>nig E<lt>koenig@kulturbox.deE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1532 | Andrew M. Langmead E<lt>aml@world.std.comE<gt>, |
e41182b5 |
1533 | Paul Moore E<lt>Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.comE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1534 | Chris Nandor E<lt>pudge@pobox.comE<gt>, |
322422de |
1535 | Matthias Neeracher E<lt>neeri@iis.ee.ethz.chE<gt>, |
e41182b5 |
1536 | Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>, |
e41182b5 |
1537 | Tom Phoenix E<lt>rootbeer@teleport.comE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1538 | Peter Prymmer E<lt>pvhp@forte.comE<gt>, |
322422de |
1539 | Hugo van der Sanden E<lt>hv@crypt0.demon.co.ukE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1540 | Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@umich.eduE<gt>, |
1541 | Paul J. Schinder E<lt>schinder@pobox.comE<gt>, |
e41182b5 |
1542 | Dan Sugalski E<lt>sugalskd@ous.eduE<gt>, |
dd9f0070 |
1543 | Nathan Torkington E<lt>gnat@frii.comE<gt>. |
e41182b5 |
1544 | |
1545 | This document is maintained by Chris Nandor. |
1546 | |
1547 | =head1 VERSION |
1548 | |
495c5fdc |
1549 | Version 1.35, last modified 09 September 1998. |
1550 | |