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 in the normal Cygwin install. If you do
17 not need to customize the configuration, consider using one of those
21 =head1 PREREQUISITES FOR COMPILING PERL ON CYGWIN
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://www.cygwin.com/
32 A recent net or commercial release of Cygwin is required.
34 At the time this document was last updated, Cygwin 1.3.5 was current.
37 =head2 Cygwin Configuration
39 While building Perl some changes may be necessary to your Cygwin setup so
40 that Perl builds cleanly. These changes are B<not> required for normal
43 B<NOTE:> The binaries that are built will run on all Win32 versions.
44 They do not depend on your host system (Win9x/WinME, WinNT/Win2K)
45 or your Cygwin configuration (I<ntea>, I<ntsec>, binary/text mounts).
46 The only dependencies come from hard-coded pathnames like C</usr/local>.
47 However, your host system and Cygwin configuration will affect Perl's
48 runtime behavior (see L</"TEST">).
54 Set the C<PATH> environment variable so that Configure finds the Cygwin
55 versions of programs. Any Windows directories should be removed or
56 moved to the end of your C<PATH>.
60 If you do not have I<nroff> (which is part of the I<groff> package),
61 Configure will B<not> prompt you to install I<man> pages.
65 On WinNT with either the I<ntea> or I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> settings, directory
66 and file permissions may not be set correctly. Since the build process
67 creates directories and files, to be safe you may want to run a `C<chmod
68 -R +w *>' on the entire Perl source tree.
70 Also, it is a well known WinNT "feature" that files created by a login
71 that is a member of the I<Administrators> group will be owned by the
72 I<Administrators> group. Depending on your umask, you may find that you
73 can not write to files that you just created (because you are no longer
74 the owner). When using the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, this is not an
75 issue because it "corrects" the ownership to what you would expect on
80 =head1 CONFIGURE PERL ON CYGWIN
82 The default options gathered by Configure with the assistance of
83 F<hints/cygwin.sh> will build a Perl that supports dynamic loading
84 (which requires a shared F<libperl.dll>).
86 This will run Configure and keep a record:
88 ./Configure 2>&1 | tee log.configure
90 If you are willing to accept all the defaults run Configure with B<-de>.
91 However, several useful customizations are available.
93 =head2 Stripping Perl Binaries on Cygwin
95 It is possible to strip the EXEs and DLLs created by the build process.
96 The resulting binaries will be significantly smaller. If you want the
97 binaries to be stripped, you can either add a B<-s> option when Configure
100 Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [none] -s
101 Any special flags to pass to gcc to use dynamic linking? [none] -s
102 Any special flags to pass to ld2 to create a dynamically loaded library?
105 or you can edit F<hints/cygwin.sh> and uncomment the relevant variables
106 near the end of the file.
108 =head2 Optional Libraries for Perl on Cygwin
110 Several Perl functions and modules depend on the existence of
111 some optional libraries. Configure will find them if they are
112 installed in one of the directories listed as being used for library
113 searches. Pre-built packages for most of these are available from
114 the Cygwin installer.
120 The crypt package distributed with Cygwin is a Linux compatible 56-bit
121 DES crypt port by Corinna Vinschen.
123 Alternatively, the crypt libraries in GNU libc have been ported to Cygwin.
125 The DES based Ultra Fast Crypt port was done by Alexey Truhan:
127 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/cw32crypt-dist-0.tgz
129 NOTE: There are various export restrictions on DES implementations,
130 see the glibc README for more details.
132 The MD5 port was done by Andy Piper:
134 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/libcrypt.tgz
136 =item * C<-lgdbm> (C<use GDBM_File>)
138 GDBM is available for Cygwin. GDBM's ndbm/dbm compatibility feature
139 also makes C<NDBM_File> and C<ODBM_File> possible (although they add
142 NOTE: The ndbm/dbm emulations only completely work on NTFS partitions.
144 =item * C<-ldb> (C<use DB_File>)
146 BerkeleyDB is available for Cygwin. Some details can be found in
147 F<ext/DB_File/DB_File.pm>.
149 NOTE: The BerkeleyDB library only completely works on NTFS partitions.
151 =item * C<-lcygipc> (C<use IPC::SysV>)
153 A port of SysV IPC is available for Cygwin.
155 NOTE: This has B<not> been extensively tested. In particular,
156 C<d_semctl_semun> is undefined because it fails a Configure test
157 and on Win9x the I<shm*()> functions seem to hang. It also creates
158 a compile time dependency because F<perl.h> includes F<<sys/ipc.h>>
159 and F<<sys/sem.h>> (which will be required in the future when compiling
164 =head2 Configure-time Options for Perl on Cygwin
166 The F<INSTALL> document describes several Configure-time options. Some of
167 these will work with Cygwin, others are not yet possible. Also, some of
168 these are experimental. You can either select an option when Configure
169 prompts you or you can define (undefine) symbols on the command line.
175 Undefining this symbol forces Perl to be compiled statically.
177 =item * C<-Uusemymalloc>
179 By default Perl uses the malloc() included with the Perl source. If you
180 want to force Perl to build with the system malloc() undefine this symbol.
182 =item * C<-Dusemultiplicity>
184 Multiplicity is required when embedding Perl in a C program and using
185 more than one interpreter instance. This works with the Cygwin port.
187 =item * C<-Duseperlio>
189 The PerlIO abstraction works with the Cygwin port.
191 =item * C<-Duse64bitint>
193 I<gcc> supports 64-bit integers. However, several additional long long
194 functions are necessary to use them within Perl (I<{strtol,strtoul}l>).
195 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
197 =item * C<-Duselongdouble>
199 I<gcc> supports long doubles (12 bytes). However, several additional
200 long double math functions are necessary to use them within Perl
201 (I<{atan2,cos,exp,floor,fmod,frexp,isnan,log,modf,pow,sin,sqrt}l,strtold>).
202 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
204 =item * C<-Dusethreads>
206 POSIX threads are B<not> yet implemented in Cygwin.
208 =item * C<-Duselargefiles>
210 Although Win32 supports large files, Cygwin currently uses 32-bit integers
211 for internal size and position calculations.
215 =head2 Suspicious Warnings on Cygwin
217 You may see some messages during Configure that seem suspicious.
223 I<ld2> is needed to build dynamic libraries, but it does not exist
224 when dlsym() checking occurs (it is not created until `C<make>' runs).
225 You will see the following message:
227 Checking whether your dlsym() needs a leading underscore ...
229 I can't compile and run the test program.
230 I'm guessing that dlsym doesn't need a leading underscore.
232 Since the guess is correct, this is not a problem.
234 =item * Win9x and C<d_eofnblk>
236 Win9x does not correctly report C<EOF> with a non-blocking read on a
237 closed pipe. You will see the following messages:
239 But it also returns -1 to signal EOF, so be careful!
240 WARNING: you can't distinguish between EOF and no data!
242 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
243 The recommended value for $d_eofnblk on this machine was "define"!
244 Keep the recommended value? [y]
246 At least for consistency with WinNT, you should keep the recommended
249 =item * Compiler/Preprocessor defines
251 The following error occurs because of the Cygwin C<#define> of
254 Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
255 try.c:<line#>: parse error
257 This failure does not seem to cause any problems.
261 =head1 MAKE ON CYGWIN
263 Simply run I<make> and wait:
265 make 2>&1 | tee log.make
267 =head2 Warnings on Cygwin
269 Warnings like these are normal:
271 warning: overriding commands for target <file>
272 warning: ignoring old commands for target <file>
274 dllwrap: no export definition file provided
275 dllwrap: creating one, but that may not be what you want
279 During `C<make>', I<ld2> will be created and installed in your $installbin
280 directory (where you said to put public executables). It does not
281 wait until the `C<make install>' process to install the I<ld2> script,
282 this is because the remainder of the `C<make>' refers to I<ld2> without
283 fully specifying its path and does this from multiple subdirectories.
284 The assumption is that $installbin is in your current C<PATH>. If this
285 is not the case `C<make>' will fail at some point. If this happens,
286 just manually copy I<ld2> from the source directory to somewhere in
289 =head1 TEST ON CYGWIN
291 There are two steps to running the test suite:
293 make test 2>&1 | tee log.make-test
295 cd t;./perl harness 2>&1 | tee ../log.harness
297 The same tests are run both times, but more information is provided when
298 running as `C<./perl harness>'.
300 Test results vary depending on your host system and your Cygwin
301 configuration. If a test can pass in some Cygwin setup, it is always
302 attempted and explainable test failures are documented. It is possible
303 for Perl to pass all the tests, but it is more likely that some tests
304 will fail for one of the reasons listed below.
306 =head2 File Permissions on Cygwin
308 UNIX file permissions are based on sets of mode bits for
309 {read,write,execute} for each {user,group,other}. By default Cygwin
310 only tracks the Win32 read-only attribute represented as the UNIX file
311 user write bit (files are always readable, files are executable if they
312 have a F<.{com,bat,exe}> extension or begin with C<#!>, directories are
313 always readable and executable). On WinNT with the I<ntea> C<CYGWIN>
314 setting, the additional mode bits are stored as extended file attributes.
315 On WinNT with the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, permissions use the standard
316 WinNT security descriptors and access control lists. Without one of
317 these options, these tests will fail:
319 Failed Test List of failed
320 ------------------------------------
330 op/stat.t 9, 20 (.tmp not an executable extension)
332 =head2 Hard Links on Cygwin
334 FAT partitions do not support hard links (whereas NTFS does), in which
335 case Cygwin implements link() by copying the file. On remote (network)
336 drives Cygwin's stat() always sets C<st_nlink> to 1, so the link count
337 for remote directories and files is not available. In either case,
338 these tests will fail:
340 Failed Test List of failed
341 ------------------------------------
345 =head2 Filetime Granularity on Cygwin
347 On FAT partitions the filetime granularity is 2 seconds. The following
350 Failed Test List of failed
351 ------------------------------------
354 =head2 Tainting Checks on Cygwin
356 When Perl is running in taint mode, C<$ENV{PATH}> is considered tainted
357 and not used, so DLLs not in the default system directories will not
358 be found. While the tests are running you will see warnings popup from
359 the system with messages like:
362 Error Starting Program
363 A required .DLL file, CYGWIN1.DLL, was not found
366 perl.exe - Unable to Locate DLL
367 The dynamic link library cygwin1.dll could not be found in the
370 Just click OK and ignore them. When running `C<make test>', 2 popups
371 occur. During `C<./perl harness>', 4 popups occur. Also, these tests
374 Failed Test List of failed
375 ------------------------------------
376 op/taint.t 1, 3, 31, 37
378 Alternatively, you can copy F<cygwin1.dll> into the directory where the
381 cp /bin/cygwin1.dll t
383 or one of the Windows system directories (although, this is B<not>
386 =head2 /etc/group on Cygwin
388 Cygwin does not require F</etc/group>, in which case the F<op/grent.t>
389 test will be skipped. The check performed by F<op/grent.t> expects to
390 see entries that use the members field, otherwise this test will fail:
392 Failed Test List of failed
393 ------------------------------------
396 =head2 Script Portability on Cygwin
398 Cygwin does an outstanding job of providing UNIX-like semantics on top of
399 Win32 systems. However, in addition to the items noted above, there are
400 some differences that you should know about. This is a very brief guide
401 to portability, more information can be found in the Cygwin documentation.
407 Cygwin pathnames can be separated by forward (F</>) or backward (F<\>)
408 slashes. They may also begin with drive letters (F<C:>) or Universal
409 Naming Codes (F<//UNC>). DOS device names (F<aux>, F<con>, F<prn>,
410 F<com*>, F<lpt?>, F<nul>) are invalid as base filenames. However, they
411 can be used in extensions (e.g., F<hello.aux>). Names may contain all
412 printable characters except these:
416 File names are case insensitive, but case preserving. A pathname that
417 contains a backslash or drive letter is a Win32 pathname (and not subject
418 to the translations applied to POSIX style pathnames).
422 When a file is opened it is in either text or binary mode. In text mode
423 a file is subject to CR/LF/Ctrl-Z translations. With Cygwin, the default
424 mode for an open() is determined by the mode of the mount that underlies
425 the file. Perl provides a binmode() function to set binary mode on files
426 that otherwise would be treated as text. sysopen() with the C<O_TEXT>
427 flag sets text mode on files that otherwise would be treated as binary:
429 sysopen(FOO, "bar", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TEXT)
431 lseek(), tell() and sysseek() only work with files opened in binary mode.
433 The text/binary issue is covered at length in the Cygwin documentation.
437 The Cygwin stat(), lstat() and readlink() functions make the F<.exe>
438 extension transparent by looking for F<foo.exe> when you ask for F<foo>
439 (unless a F<foo> also exists). Cygwin does not require a F<.exe>
440 extension, but I<gcc> adds it automatically when building a program.
441 However, when accessing an executable as a normal file (e.g., I<cp>
442 in a makefile) the F<.exe> is not transparent. The I<install> included
443 with Cygwin automatically appends a F<.exe> when necessary.
447 On WinNT chown() can change a file's user and group IDs. On Win9x chown()
448 is a no-op, although this is appropriate since there is no security model.
450 =item * Miscellaneous
452 File locking using the C<F_GETLK> command to fcntl() is a stub that
455 Win9x can not rename() an open file (although WinNT can).
457 The Cygwin chroot() implementation has holes (it can not restrict file
458 access by native Win32 programs).
462 =head1 INSTALL PERL ON CYGWIN
464 This will install Perl, including I<man> pages.
466 make install | tee log.make-install
468 NOTE: If C<STDERR> is redirected `C<make install>' will B<not> prompt
469 you to install I<perl> into F</usr/bin>.
471 You may need to be I<Administrator> to run `C<make install>'. If you
472 are not, you must have write access to the directories in question.
474 Information on installing the Perl documentation in HTML format can be
475 found in the F<INSTALL> document.
477 =head1 MANIFEST ON CYGWIN
479 These are the files in the Perl release that contain references to Cygwin.
480 These very brief notes attempt to explain the reason for all conditional
481 code. Hopefully, keeping this up to date will allow the Cygwin port to
482 be kept as clean as possible.
488 INSTALL README.cygwin README.win32 MANIFEST
489 Changes Changes5.005 Changes5.004 Changes5.6
490 pod/perl.pod pod/perlport.pod pod/perlfaq3.pod
491 pod/perldelta.pod pod/perl5004delta.pod pod/perl56delta.pod
492 pod/perlhist.pod pod/perlmodlib.pod pod/buildtoc.PL pod/perltoc.pod
494 =item Build, Configure, Make, Install
499 ext/IPC/SysV/hints/cygwin.pl
500 ext/NDBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
501 ext/ODBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
503 Configure - help finding hints from uname,
504 shared libperl required for dynamic loading
505 Makefile.SH - linklibperl
506 Porting/patchls - cygwin in port list
507 installman - man pages with :: translated to .
508 installperl - install dll/ld2/perlld, install to pods
509 makedepend.SH - uwinfix
513 t/io/tell.t - binmode
514 t/lib/b.t - ignore Cwd from os_extras
515 t/lib/glob-basic.t - Win32 directory list access differs from read mode
516 t/op/magic.t - $^X/symlink WORKAROUND, s/.exe//
517 t/op/stat.t - no /dev, skip Win32 ftCreationTime quirk
518 (cache manager sometimes preserves ctime of file
519 previously created and deleted), no -u (setuid)
521 =item Compiled Perl Source
523 EXTERN.h - __declspec(dllimport)
524 XSUB.h - __declspec(dllexport)
525 cygwin/cygwin.c - os_extras (getcwd, spawn)
528 doio.c - win9x can not rename a file when it is open
529 pp_sys.c - do not define h_errno, pp_system with spawn
532 =item Compiled Module Source
534 ext/POSIX/POSIX.xs - tzname defined externally
535 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/pair.c
536 - EXTCONST needs to be redefined from EXTERN.h
537 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.c
540 =item Perl Modules/Scripts
542 lib/Cwd.pm - hook to internal Cwd::cwd
543 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm
544 - require MM_Cygwin.pm
545 lib/ExtUtils/MM_Cygwin.pm
546 - canonpath, cflags, manifypods, perl_archive
547 lib/File/Find.pm - on remote drives stat() always sets st_nlink to 1
548 lib/File/Spec/Unix.pm - preserve //unc
549 lib/File/Temp.pm - no directory sticky bit
550 lib/perl5db.pl - use stdin not /dev/tty
551 utils/perldoc.PL - version comment
555 =head1 BUGS ON CYGWIN
557 When I<make> starts, it warns about overriding commands for F<perlmain.o>.
559 `C<make clean>' does not remove library F<.def> or F<.exe.stackdump>
562 The I<ld2> script contains references to the source directory. You should
563 change these to $installbin after `C<make install>'.
565 Support for swapping real and effective user and group IDs is incomplete.
566 On WinNT Cygwin provides setuid(), seteuid(), setgid() and setegid().
567 However, additional Cygwin calls for manipulating WinNT access tokens
568 and security contexts are required.
570 When building DLLs, `C<dllwrap --export-all-symbols>' is used to export
571 global symbols. It might be better to generate an explicit F<.def> file
572 (see F<makedef.pl>). Also, DLLs can now be build with `C<gcc -shared>'.
576 Charles Wilson <cwilson@ece.gatech.edu>,
577 Eric Fifer <egf7@columbia.edu>,
578 alexander smishlajev <als@turnhere.com>,
579 Steven Morlock <newspost@morlock.net>,
580 Sebastien Barre <Sebastien.Barre@utc.fr>,
581 Teun Burgers <burgers@ecn.nl>.
585 Last updated: 9 November 2000