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.
7 README.cygwin - Perl for Cygwin
11 This document will help you configure, make, test and install Perl
12 on Cygwin. This document also describes features of Cygwin that will
13 affect how Perl behaves at runtime.
15 B<NOTE:> There are pre-built Perl packages available for Cygwin and a
16 version of Perl is provided on the Cygwin CD. If you do not need to
17 customize the configuration, consider using one of these packages:
19 http://cygutils.netpedia.net/
23 =head2 Cygwin = GNU+Cygnus+Windows (Don't leave UNIX without it)
25 The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools for Win32
26 platforms. They run thanks to the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX
27 system calls and environment these programs expect. More information
28 about this project can be found at:
30 http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/
32 A recent net or commercial release of Cygwin is required.
34 At the time this document was last updated, Cygwin 1.1.2 was current.
36 B<NOTE:> At this point, minimal effort has been made to provide
37 compatibility with old (beta) Cygwin releases. The focus has been to
38 provide a high quality release and not worry about working around old
39 Cygwin bugs. If you wish to use Perl with Cygwin B20.1 or earlier,
40 consider using perl5.005_03, which is available in source and binary
41 form at C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/> or on the Cygwin CD. If there
42 is significant demand, a patch kit can be developed to port back to
43 earlier Cygwin versions.
45 =head2 Cygwin Configuration
47 While building Perl some changes may be necessary to your Cygwin setup so
48 that Perl builds cleanly. These changes are B<not> required for normal
51 B<NOTE:> The binaries that are built will run on all Win32 versions.
52 They do not depend on your host system (Win9x, WinNT) or your Cygwin
53 configuration (I<ntea>, I<ntsec>, binary/text mounts). The only
54 dependencies come from hard-coded pathnames like C</usr/local>. However,
55 your host system and Cygwin configuration will affect Perl's runtime
56 behavior (see L</"TEST">).
62 Set the C<PATH> environment variable so that Configure finds the Cygwin
63 versions of programs. Any Windows directories should be removed or
64 moved to the end of your C<PATH>.
68 If you do not have I<nroff> (which is part of the I<groff> package),
69 Configure will B<not> prompt you to install I<man> pages.
73 On WinNT with either the I<ntea> or I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> settings, directory
74 and file permissions may not be set correctly. Since the build process
75 creates files and directories, to be safe you may want to run a `C<chmod
76 -R +w *>' on the entire Perl source tree.
78 Also, it is a well known WinNT "feature" that files created by a login
79 that is a member of the I<Administrators> group will be owned by the
80 I<Administrators> group. Depending on your umask, you may find that you
81 can not write to files that you just created (because you are no longer
82 the owner). When using the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, this is not an
83 issue because it "corrects" the ownership to what you would expect on
90 The default options gathered by Configure with the assistance of
91 F<hints/cygwin.sh> will build a Perl that supports dynamic loading
92 (which requires a shared F<libperl.dll>).
94 This will run Configure and keep a record:
96 ./Configure 2>&1 | tee log.configure
98 If you are willing to accept all the defaults run Configure with B<-de>.
99 However, several useful customizations are available.
101 =head2 Strip Binaries
103 It is possible to strip the EXEs and DLLs created by the build process.
104 The resulting binaries will be significantly smaller. If you want the
105 binaries to be stripped, you can either add a B<-s> option when Configure
108 Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [none] -s
109 Any special flags to pass to gcc to use dynamic linking? [none] -s
110 Any special flags to pass to ld2 to create a dynamically loaded library?
113 or you can edit F<hints/cygwin.sh> and uncomment the relevant variables
114 near the end of the file.
116 =head2 Optional Libraries
118 Several Perl functions and modules depend on the existence of
119 some optional libraries. Configure will find them if they are
120 installed in one of the directories listed as being used for library
121 searches. Pre-built packages for most of these are available at
122 C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/>.
128 The crypt libraries in GNU libc have been ported to Cygwin.
130 The DES based Ultra Fast Crypt port was done by Alexey Truhan:
132 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/cw32crypt-dist-0.tgz
134 NOTE: There are various export restrictions on DES implementations,
135 see the glibc README for more details.
137 The MD5 port was done by Andy Piper:
139 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/libcrypt.tgz
141 There is also a Linux compatible 56 bit DES crypt port by Corinna
144 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Vinschen_Corinna/V1.1.1/crypt-1.0.tar.gz
146 =item * C<-lgdbm> (C<use GDBM_File>)
148 GDBM is available for Cygwin. GDBM's ndbm/dbm compatibility feature
149 also makes C<NDBM_File> and C<ODBM_File> possible (although they add
152 =item * C<-ldb> (C<use DB_File>)
154 BerkeleyDB is available for Cygwin. Some details can be found in
155 F<ext/DB_File/DB_File.pm>.
157 =item * C<-lcygipc> (C<use IPC::SysV>)
159 A port of SysV IPC is available for Cygwin.
161 NOTE: This has B<not> been extensively tested. In particular,
162 C<d_semctl_semun> is undefined because it fails a Configure test
163 and on Win9x the I<shm*()> functions seem to hang. It also creates
164 a compile time dependency because F<perl.h> includes F<<sys/ipc.h>>
165 and F<<sys/sem.h>> (which will be required in the future when compiling
170 =head2 Configure-time Options
172 The F<INSTALL> document describes several Configure-time options. Some of
173 these will work with Cygwin, others are not yet possible. Also, some of
174 these are experimental. You can either select an option when Configure
175 prompts you or you can define (undefine) symbols on the command line.
181 Undefining this symbol forces Perl to be compiled statically.
183 =item * C<-Uusemymalloc>
185 By default Perl uses the malloc() included with the Perl source. If you
186 want to force Perl to build with the system malloc() undefine this symbol.
188 =item * C<-Dusemultiplicity>
190 Multiplicity is required when embedding Perl in a C program and using
191 more than one interpreter instance. This works with the Cygwin port.
193 =item * C<-Duseperlio>
195 The PerlIO abstraction works with the Cygwin port.
197 =item * C<-Duse64bitint>
199 I<gcc> supports 64-bit integers. However, several additional long long
200 functions are necessary to use them within Perl (I<{strtol,strtoul}l>).
201 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
203 =item * C<-Duselongdouble>
205 I<gcc> supports long doubles (12 bytes). However, several additional
206 long double math functions are necessary to use them within Perl
207 (I<{atan2,cos,exp,floor,fmod,frexp,log,modf,pow,sin,sqrt}l,strtold>).
208 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
210 =item * C<-Dusethreads>
212 POSIX threads are B<not> yet implemented in Cygwin.
214 =item * C<-Duselargefiles>
216 Although Win32 supports large files, Cygwin currently uses 32-bit integers
217 for internal size and position calculations.
221 =head2 Suspicious Warnings
223 You may see some messages during Configure that seem suspicious.
229 Cygwin does not yet implement chroot() functionality, but has a stub
230 function that returns C<ENOSYS>. You will see a message when Configure
231 detects that its guess conflicts with the hint file.
233 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
234 The recommended value for $d_chroot on this machine was "undef"!
235 Keep the recommended value? [y]
237 You should keep the recommended value.
241 I<ld2> is needed to build dynamic libraries, but it does not exist
242 when dlsym() checking occurs (it is not created until `C<make>' runs).
243 You will see the following message:
245 Checking whether your dlsym() needs a leading underscore ...
247 I can't compile and run the test program.
248 I'm guessing that dlsym doesn't need a leading underscore.
250 Since the guess is correct, this is not a problem.
252 =item * Win9x and C<d_eofnblk>
254 Win9x does not correctly report C<EOF> with a non-blocking read on a
255 closed pipe. You will see the following messages:
257 But it also returns -1 to signal EOF, so be careful!
258 WARNING: you can't distinguish between EOF and no data!
260 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
261 The recommended value for $d_eofnblk on this machine was "define"!
262 Keep the recommended value? [y]
264 At least for consistency with WinNT, you should keep the recommended
267 =item * Checking how std your stdio is...
271 Your stdio doesn't appear very std.
275 =item * Compiler/Preprocessor defines
277 The following error occurs because of the Cygwin C<#define> of
280 Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
281 try.c:3847: parse error
283 This failure does not seem to cause any problems.
289 Simply run I<make> and wait:
291 make 2>&1 | tee log.make
295 Warnings like these are normal:
297 warning: overriding commands for target <file>
298 warning: ignoring old commands for target <file>
300 Warning: no export definition file provided
301 dllwrap will create one, but may not be what you want
305 During `C<make>', I<ld2> will be created and installed in your $installbin
306 directory (where you said to put public executables). It does not
307 wait until the `C<make install>' process to install the I<ld2> script,
308 this is because the remainder of the `C<make>' refers to I<ld2> without
309 fully specifying its path and does this from multiple subdirectories.
310 The assumption is that $installbin is in your current C<PATH>. If this
311 is not the case `C<make>' will fail at some point. If this happens,
312 just manually copy I<ld2> from the source directory to somewhere in
317 There are two steps to running the test suite:
319 make test 2>&1 | tee log.make-test
321 cd t;./perl harness 2>&1 | tee ../log.harness
323 The same tests are run both times, but more information is provided when
324 running as `C<./perl harness>'.
326 Test results vary depending on your host system and your Cygwin
327 configuration. If a test can pass in some Cygwin setup, it is always
328 attempted and explainable test failures are documented. It is possible
329 that Perl will pass all the tests, but it is more likely that some tests
330 will fail for one of these reasons.
332 =head2 File Permissions
334 UNIX file permissions are based on sets of mode bits for
335 {read,write,execute} for each {user,group,other}. By default Cygwin
336 only tracks the Win32 read-only attribute represented as the UNIX file
337 user write bit (files are always readable, files are executable if they
338 have a F<.{com,bat,exe}> extension or begin with C<#!>, directories are
339 always readable and executable). On WinNT with the I<ntea> C<CYGWIN>
340 setting, the additional mode bits are stored as extended file attributes.
341 On WinNT with the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, permissions use the standard
342 WinNT security descriptors and access control lists. Without one of
343 these options, these tests will fail:
345 Failed Test List of failed
346 ------------------------------------
356 op/stat.t 9, 20 (.tmp not an executable extension)
360 FAT partitions do not support hard links (whereas NTFS does), in which
361 case Cygwin implements link() by copying the file. On remote (network)
362 drives Cygwin's stat() always sets C<st_nlink> to 1, so the link count
363 for remote directories and files is not available. In both cases,
364 these tests will fail:
366 Failed Test List of failed
367 ------------------------------------
371 =head2 Filetime Granularity
373 On FAT partitions the filetime granularity is 2 seconds. The following
376 Failed Test List of failed
377 ------------------------------------
380 =head2 Tainting Checks
382 When Perl is running in taint mode, C<$ENV{PATH}> is considered tainted
383 and not used, so DLLs not in the default system directories will not
384 be found. While the tests are running you will see warnings popup from
385 the system with messages like:
388 Error Starting Program
389 A required .DLL file, CYGWIN1.DLL, was not found
392 perl.exe or sh.exe - Unable to Locate DLL
393 The dynamic link library cygwin1.dll could not be found in the
396 Just click OK and ignore them. When running `C<make test>', 2 popups
397 occur. During `C<./perl harness>', 4 popups occur. Also, these tests
400 Failed Test List of failed
401 ------------------------------------
402 op/taint.t 1, 3, 31, 37
404 Alternatively, you can copy F<cygwin1.dll> into the directory where the
407 cp `type -p cygwin1.dll` t
409 or one of the Windows system directories (although, this is B<not>
414 Cygwin does not require F</etc/group>, in which case the F<op/grent.t>
415 test will be skipped. The check performed by F<op/grent.t> expects to
416 see entries that use the members field, otherwise this test will fail:
418 Failed Test List of failed
419 ------------------------------------
422 =head2 Script Portability
424 Cygwin does an outstanding job of providing UNIX-like semantics on top of
425 Win32 systems. However, in addition to the items noted above, there are
426 some differences that you should know about. This is a very brief guide
427 to portability, more information can be found in the Cygwin documentation.
433 Cygwin pathnames can be separated by forward (F</>) or backward (F<\>)
434 slashes. They may also begin with drive letters (F<C:>) or Universal
435 Naming Codes (F<//UNC>). DOS device names (F<aux>, F<con>, F<prn>,
436 F<com*>, F<lpt?>, F<nul>) are invalid as base filenames. However, they
437 can be used in extensions (e.g., F<hello.aux>). Names may contain all
438 printable characters except these:
442 File names are case insensitive, but case preserving. A pathname
443 that contains a backslash is a Win32 pathname (and not subject to the
444 translations applied to POSIX style pathnames).
448 When a file is opened it is in either text or binary mode. In text mode
449 a file is subject to CR/LF/Ctrl-Z translations. With Cygwin, the default
450 mode for an open() is determined by the mode of the mount that underlies
451 the file. Perl provides a binmode() function to set binary mode on files
452 that otherwise would be treated as text. sysopen() with the C<O_TEXT>
453 flag sets text mode on files that otherwise would be treated as binary:
455 sysopen(FOO, "bar", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TEXT)
457 lseek(), tell() and sysseek() only work with files opened in binary mode.
459 The text/binary issue is covered at length in the Cygwin documentation.
463 The Cygwin stat(), lstat() and readlink() functions make the F<.exe>
464 extension transparent by looking for F<foo.exe> when you ask for F<foo>
465 (unless a F<foo> also exists). Cygwin does not require a F<.exe>
466 extension, but I<gcc> adds it automatically when building a program.
467 However, when accessing an executable as a normal file (e.g., I<cp>
468 in a makefile) the F<.exe> is not transparent. The I<install> included
469 with Cygwin automatically appends a F<.exe> when necessary.
473 On WinNT chown() can change a file's user and group IDs. On Win9x chown()
474 is a no-op, although this is appropriate since there is no security model.
476 =item * Miscellaneous
478 File locking using the C<F_GETLK> command to fcntl() is a stub that
481 Win9x can not rename() an open file (although WinNT can).
487 This will install Perl, including I<man> pages.
489 make install | tee log.make-install
491 NOTE: If C<STDERR> is redirected `C<make install>' will B<not> prompt
492 you to install I<perl> into F</usr/bin>.
494 You may need to be I<Administrator> to run `C<make install>'. If you
495 are not, you must have write access to the directories in question.
497 Information on installing the Perl documentation in HTML format can be
498 found in the F<INSTALL> document.
502 These are the files in the Perl release that contain references to Cygwin.
503 These very brief notes attempt to explain the reason for all conditional
504 code. Hopefully, keeping this up to date will allow the Cygwin port to
505 be kept as clean as possible.
511 INSTALL README.cygwin
512 Changes Changes5.005 Changes5.004
513 AUTHORS MAINTAIN MANIFEST README.win32
514 pod/perl.pod pod/perlfaq3.pod pod/perlhist.pod pod/perlmodlib.pod
515 pod/perlport.pod pod/perltoc.pod pod/perldelta.pod pod/perl5004delta.pod
517 =item Build, Configure, Make, Install
522 ext/IPC/SysV/hints/cygwin.pl
523 ext/NDBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
524 ext/ODBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
526 Configure - help finding hints from uname,
527 shared libperl required for dynamic loading
528 Makefile.SH - linklibperl
529 Porting/patchls - cygwin in port list
530 installman - man pages with :: translated to .
531 installperl - install dll/ld2/perlld, install to pods
532 makedepend.SH - uwinfix
536 t/io/tell.t - binmode
537 t/lib/glob-basic.t - Win32 directory list access differs from read mode
538 t/op/magic.t - $^X/symlink WORKAROUND, s/.exe//
539 t/op/stat.t - no /dev, skip Win32 ftCreationTime quirk
540 (cache manager sometimes preserves ctime of file
541 previously created and deleted), no -u (setuid)
543 =item Compiled Perl Source
545 EXTERN.h - __declspec(dllimport)
546 XSUB.h - __declspec(dllexport)
547 cygwin/cygwin.c - os_extras (getcwd, spawn)
550 doio.c - win9x can not rename a file when it is open
551 pp_sys.c - do not define h_errno, pp_system with spawn
552 mg.c - environ WORKAROUND
553 unixish.h - environ WORKAROUND
554 util.c - environ WORKAROUND
556 =item Compiled Module Source
558 ext/POSIX/POSIX.xs - tzname defined externally
559 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/pair.c
560 - EXTCONST needs to be redefined from EXTERN.h
561 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.c
564 =item Perl Modules/Scripts
566 lib/Cwd.pm - hook to internal Cwd::cwd
567 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm
568 - require MM_Cygwin.pm
569 lib/ExtUtils/MM_Cygwin.pm
570 - canonpath, cflags, manifypods, perl_archive
571 lib/File/Find.pm - on remote drives stat() always sets st_nlink to 1
572 lib/File/Spec/Unix.pm - preserve //unc
573 lib/perl5db.pl - use stdin not /dev/tty
574 utils/perlcc.PL - DynaLoader.a in compile, -DUSEIMPORTLIB
575 utils/perldoc.PL - version comment
581 When I<make> starts, it warns about overriding commands for F<perlmain.o>.
583 `C<make clean>' does not remove library F<.def> and F<.exe.stackdump>
586 The I<ld2> script contains references to the source directory. You should
587 change these to $installbin after `C<make install>'.
591 Charles Wilson <cwilson@ece.gatech.edu>,
592 Eric Fifer <efifer@sanwaint.com>,
593 alexander smishlajev <als@turnhere.com>,
594 Steven Morlock <newspost@morlock.net>,
595 Sebastien Barre <Sebastien.Barre@utc.fr>,
596 Teun Burgers <burgers@ecn.nl>.
600 Last updated: 20 June 2000