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://sources.redhat.com/cygwin/
32 A recent net or commercial release of Cygwin is required.
34 At the time this document was last updated, Cygwin 1.1.4 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 bugs. If you wish to use Perl with Cygwin B20.1 or earlier, consider
40 using perl5.005_03, which is available in source and binary form at
41 C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/>. If there is significant demand,
42 a patch kit can be developed to port back to earlier Cygwin versions.
44 =head2 Cygwin Configuration
46 While building Perl some changes may be necessary to your Cygwin setup so
47 that Perl builds cleanly. These changes are B<not> required for normal
50 B<NOTE:> The binaries that are built will run on all Win32 versions.
51 They do not depend on your host system (Win9x/WinME, WinNT/Win2K)
52 or your Cygwin configuration (I<ntea>, I<ntsec>, binary/text mounts).
53 The only dependencies come from hard-coded pathnames like C</usr/local>.
54 However, your host system and Cygwin configuration will affect Perl's
55 runtime behavior (see L</"TEST">).
61 Set the C<PATH> environment variable so that Configure finds the Cygwin
62 versions of programs. Any Windows directories should be removed or
63 moved to the end of your C<PATH>.
67 If you do not have I<nroff> (which is part of the I<groff> package),
68 Configure will B<not> prompt you to install I<man> pages.
72 On WinNT with either the I<ntea> or I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> settings, directory
73 and file permissions may not be set correctly. Since the build process
74 creates directories and files, to be safe you may want to run a `C<chmod
75 -R +w *>' on the entire Perl source tree.
77 Also, it is a well known WinNT "feature" that files created by a login
78 that is a member of the I<Administrators> group will be owned by the
79 I<Administrators> group. Depending on your umask, you may find that you
80 can not write to files that you just created (because you are no longer
81 the owner). When using the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, this is not an
82 issue because it "corrects" the ownership to what you would expect on
89 The default options gathered by Configure with the assistance of
90 F<hints/cygwin.sh> will build a Perl that supports dynamic loading
91 (which requires a shared F<libperl.dll>).
93 This will run Configure and keep a record:
95 ./Configure 2>&1 | tee log.configure
97 If you are willing to accept all the defaults run Configure with B<-de>.
98 However, several useful customizations are available.
100 =head2 Strip Binaries
102 It is possible to strip the EXEs and DLLs created by the build process.
103 The resulting binaries will be significantly smaller. If you want the
104 binaries to be stripped, you can either add a B<-s> option when Configure
107 Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [none] -s
108 Any special flags to pass to gcc to use dynamic linking? [none] -s
109 Any special flags to pass to ld2 to create a dynamically loaded library?
112 or you can edit F<hints/cygwin.sh> and uncomment the relevant variables
113 near the end of the file.
115 =head2 Optional Libraries
117 Several Perl functions and modules depend on the existence of
118 some optional libraries. Configure will find them if they are
119 installed in one of the directories listed as being used for library
120 searches. Pre-built packages for most of these are available at
121 C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/>.
127 The crypt package distributed with Cygwin is a Linux compatible 56-bit
128 DES crypt port by Corinna Vinschen.
130 Alternatively, the crypt libraries in GNU libc have been ported to Cygwin.
132 The DES based Ultra Fast Crypt port was done by Alexey Truhan:
134 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/cw32crypt-dist-0.tgz
136 NOTE: There are various export restrictions on DES implementations,
137 see the glibc README for more details.
139 The MD5 port was done by Andy Piper:
141 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/libcrypt.tgz
143 =item * C<-lgdbm> (C<use GDBM_File>)
145 GDBM is available for Cygwin. GDBM's ndbm/dbm compatibility feature
146 also makes C<NDBM_File> and C<ODBM_File> possible (although they add
149 NOTE: The ndbm/dbm emulations only completely work on NTFS partitions.
151 =item * C<-ldb> (C<use DB_File>)
153 BerkeleyDB is available for Cygwin. Some details can be found in
154 F<ext/DB_File/DB_File.pm>.
156 NOTE: The BerkeleyDB library only completely works on NTFS partitions.
158 =item * C<-lcygipc> (C<use IPC::SysV>)
160 A port of SysV IPC is available for Cygwin.
162 NOTE: This has B<not> been extensively tested. In particular,
163 C<d_semctl_semun> is undefined because it fails a Configure test
164 and on Win9x the I<shm*()> functions seem to hang. It also creates
165 a compile time dependency because F<perl.h> includes F<<sys/ipc.h>>
166 and F<<sys/sem.h>> (which will be required in the future when compiling
171 =head2 Configure-time Options
173 The F<INSTALL> document describes several Configure-time options. Some of
174 these will work with Cygwin, others are not yet possible. Also, some of
175 these are experimental. You can either select an option when Configure
176 prompts you or you can define (undefine) symbols on the command line.
182 Undefining this symbol forces Perl to be compiled statically.
184 =item * C<-Uusemymalloc>
186 By default Perl uses the malloc() included with the Perl source. If you
187 want to force Perl to build with the system malloc() undefine this symbol.
189 =item * C<-Dusemultiplicity>
191 Multiplicity is required when embedding Perl in a C program and using
192 more than one interpreter instance. This works with the Cygwin port.
194 =item * C<-Duseperlio>
196 The PerlIO abstraction works with the Cygwin port.
198 =item * C<-Duse64bitint>
200 I<gcc> supports 64-bit integers. However, several additional long long
201 functions are necessary to use them within Perl (I<{strtol,strtoul}l>).
202 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
204 =item * C<-Duselongdouble>
206 I<gcc> supports long doubles (12 bytes). However, several additional
207 long double math functions are necessary to use them within Perl
208 (I<{atan2,cos,exp,floor,fmod,frexp,isnan,log,modf,pow,sin,sqrt}l,strtold>).
209 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
211 =item * C<-Dusethreads>
213 POSIX threads are B<not> yet implemented in Cygwin.
215 =item * C<-Duselargefiles>
217 Although Win32 supports large files, Cygwin currently uses 32-bit integers
218 for internal size and position calculations.
222 =head2 Suspicious Warnings
224 You may see some messages during Configure that seem suspicious.
230 I<ld2> is needed to build dynamic libraries, but it does not exist
231 when dlsym() checking occurs (it is not created until `C<make>' runs).
232 You will see the following message:
234 Checking whether your dlsym() needs a leading underscore ...
236 I can't compile and run the test program.
237 I'm guessing that dlsym doesn't need a leading underscore.
239 Since the guess is correct, this is not a problem.
241 =item * Win9x and C<d_eofnblk>
243 Win9x does not correctly report C<EOF> with a non-blocking read on a
244 closed pipe. You will see the following messages:
246 But it also returns -1 to signal EOF, so be careful!
247 WARNING: you can't distinguish between EOF and no data!
249 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
250 The recommended value for $d_eofnblk on this machine was "define"!
251 Keep the recommended value? [y]
253 At least for consistency with WinNT, you should keep the recommended
256 =item * Checking how std your stdio is...
260 Your stdio doesn't appear very std.
264 =item * Compiler/Preprocessor defines
266 The following error occurs because of the Cygwin C<#define> of
269 Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
270 try.c:<line#>: parse error
272 This failure does not seem to cause any problems.
278 Simply run I<make> and wait:
280 make 2>&1 | tee log.make
284 Warnings like these are normal:
286 warning: overriding commands for target <file>
287 warning: ignoring old commands for target <file>
289 dllwrap: no export definition file provided
290 dllwrap: creating one, but that may not be what you want
294 During `C<make>', I<ld2> will be created and installed in your $installbin
295 directory (where you said to put public executables). It does not
296 wait until the `C<make install>' process to install the I<ld2> script,
297 this is because the remainder of the `C<make>' refers to I<ld2> without
298 fully specifying its path and does this from multiple subdirectories.
299 The assumption is that $installbin is in your current C<PATH>. If this
300 is not the case `C<make>' will fail at some point. If this happens,
301 just manually copy I<ld2> from the source directory to somewhere in
306 There are two steps to running the test suite:
308 make test 2>&1 | tee log.make-test
310 cd t;./perl harness 2>&1 | tee ../log.harness
312 The same tests are run both times, but more information is provided when
313 running as `C<./perl harness>'.
315 Test results vary depending on your host system and your Cygwin
316 configuration. If a test can pass in some Cygwin setup, it is always
317 attempted and explainable test failures are documented. It is possible
318 for Perl to pass all the tests, but it is more likely that some tests
319 will fail for one of the reasons listed below.
321 =head2 File Permissions
323 UNIX file permissions are based on sets of mode bits for
324 {read,write,execute} for each {user,group,other}. By default Cygwin
325 only tracks the Win32 read-only attribute represented as the UNIX file
326 user write bit (files are always readable, files are executable if they
327 have a F<.{com,bat,exe}> extension or begin with C<#!>, directories are
328 always readable and executable). On WinNT with the I<ntea> C<CYGWIN>
329 setting, the additional mode bits are stored as extended file attributes.
330 On WinNT with the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, permissions use the standard
331 WinNT security descriptors and access control lists. Without one of
332 these options, these tests will fail:
334 Failed Test List of failed
335 ------------------------------------
345 op/stat.t 9, 20 (.tmp not an executable extension)
349 FAT partitions do not support hard links (whereas NTFS does), in which
350 case Cygwin implements link() by copying the file. On remote (network)
351 drives Cygwin's stat() always sets C<st_nlink> to 1, so the link count
352 for remote directories and files is not available. In either case,
353 these tests will fail:
355 Failed Test List of failed
356 ------------------------------------
360 =head2 Filetime Granularity
362 On FAT partitions the filetime granularity is 2 seconds. The following
365 Failed Test List of failed
366 ------------------------------------
369 =head2 Tainting Checks
371 When Perl is running in taint mode, C<$ENV{PATH}> is considered tainted
372 and not used, so DLLs not in the default system directories will not
373 be found. While the tests are running you will see warnings popup from
374 the system with messages like:
377 Error Starting Program
378 A required .DLL file, CYGWIN1.DLL, was not found
381 perl.exe - Unable to Locate DLL
382 The dynamic link library cygwin1.dll could not be found in the
385 Just click OK and ignore them. When running `C<make test>', 2 popups
386 occur. During `C<./perl harness>', 4 popups occur. Also, these tests
389 Failed Test List of failed
390 ------------------------------------
391 op/taint.t 1, 3, 31, 37
393 Alternatively, you can copy F<cygwin1.dll> into the directory where the
396 cp /bin/cygwin1.dll t
398 or one of the Windows system directories (although, this is B<not>
403 Cygwin does not require F</etc/group>, in which case the F<op/grent.t>
404 test will be skipped. The check performed by F<op/grent.t> expects to
405 see entries that use the members field, otherwise this test will fail:
407 Failed Test List of failed
408 ------------------------------------
411 =head2 Script Portability
413 Cygwin does an outstanding job of providing UNIX-like semantics on top of
414 Win32 systems. However, in addition to the items noted above, there are
415 some differences that you should know about. This is a very brief guide
416 to portability, more information can be found in the Cygwin documentation.
422 Cygwin pathnames can be separated by forward (F</>) or backward (F<\>)
423 slashes. They may also begin with drive letters (F<C:>) or Universal
424 Naming Codes (F<//UNC>). DOS device names (F<aux>, F<con>, F<prn>,
425 F<com*>, F<lpt?>, F<nul>) are invalid as base filenames. However, they
426 can be used in extensions (e.g., F<hello.aux>). Names may contain all
427 printable characters except these:
431 File names are case insensitive, but case preserving. A pathname that
432 contains a backslash or drive letter is a Win32 pathname (and not subject
433 to the translations applied to POSIX style pathnames).
437 When a file is opened it is in either text or binary mode. In text mode
438 a file is subject to CR/LF/Ctrl-Z translations. With Cygwin, the default
439 mode for an open() is determined by the mode of the mount that underlies
440 the file. Perl provides a binmode() function to set binary mode on files
441 that otherwise would be treated as text. sysopen() with the C<O_TEXT>
442 flag sets text mode on files that otherwise would be treated as binary:
444 sysopen(FOO, "bar", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TEXT)
446 lseek(), tell() and sysseek() only work with files opened in binary mode.
448 The text/binary issue is covered at length in the Cygwin documentation.
452 The Cygwin stat(), lstat() and readlink() functions make the F<.exe>
453 extension transparent by looking for F<foo.exe> when you ask for F<foo>
454 (unless a F<foo> also exists). Cygwin does not require a F<.exe>
455 extension, but I<gcc> adds it automatically when building a program.
456 However, when accessing an executable as a normal file (e.g., I<cp>
457 in a makefile) the F<.exe> is not transparent. The I<install> included
458 with Cygwin automatically appends a F<.exe> when necessary.
462 On WinNT chown() can change a file's user and group IDs. On Win9x chown()
463 is a no-op, although this is appropriate since there is no security model.
465 =item * Miscellaneous
467 File locking using the C<F_GETLK> command to fcntl() is a stub that
470 Win9x can not rename() an open file (although WinNT can).
472 The Cygwin chroot() implementation has holes (it can not restrict file
473 access by native Win32 programs).
479 This will install Perl, including I<man> pages.
481 make install | tee log.make-install
483 NOTE: If C<STDERR> is redirected `C<make install>' will B<not> prompt
484 you to install I<perl> into F</usr/bin>.
486 You may need to be I<Administrator> to run `C<make install>'. If you
487 are not, you must have write access to the directories in question.
489 Information on installing the Perl documentation in HTML format can be
490 found in the F<INSTALL> document.
494 These are the files in the Perl release that contain references to Cygwin.
495 These very brief notes attempt to explain the reason for all conditional
496 code. Hopefully, keeping this up to date will allow the Cygwin port to
497 be kept as clean as possible.
503 INSTALL README.cygwin
504 Changes Changes5.005 Changes5.004 Changes5.6
505 AUTHORS MAINTAIN MANIFEST README.win32
506 pod/buildtoc.PL pod/perl.pod pod/perl5004delta.pod pod/perl56delta.pod
507 pod/perlfaq3.pod pod/perlhist.pod pod/perlmodlib.pod pod/perlport.pod
510 =item Build, Configure, Make, Install
515 ext/IPC/SysV/hints/cygwin.pl
516 ext/NDBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
517 ext/ODBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
519 Configure - help finding hints from uname,
520 shared libperl required for dynamic loading
521 Makefile.SH - linklibperl
522 Porting/patchls - cygwin in port list
523 installman - man pages with :: translated to .
524 installperl - install dll/ld2/perlld, install to pods
525 makedepend.SH - uwinfix
529 t/io/tell.t - binmode
530 t/lib/b.t - ignore Cwd from os_extras
531 t/lib/glob-basic.t - Win32 directory list access differs from read mode
532 t/op/magic.t - $^X/symlink WORKAROUND, s/.exe//
533 t/op/stat.t - no /dev, skip Win32 ftCreationTime quirk
534 (cache manager sometimes preserves ctime of file
535 previously created and deleted), no -u (setuid)
537 =item Compiled Perl Source
539 EXTERN.h - __declspec(dllimport)
540 XSUB.h - __declspec(dllexport)
541 cygwin/cygwin.c - os_extras (getcwd, spawn)
544 doio.c - win9x can not rename a file when it is open
545 pp_sys.c - do not define h_errno, pp_system with spawn
546 mg.c - environ WORKAROUND
547 unixish.h - environ WORKAROUND
548 util.c - environ WORKAROUND
550 =item Compiled Module Source
552 ext/POSIX/POSIX.xs - tzname defined externally
553 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/pair.c
554 - EXTCONST needs to be redefined from EXTERN.h
555 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.c
558 =item Perl Modules/Scripts
560 lib/Cwd.pm - hook to internal Cwd::cwd
561 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm
562 - require MM_Cygwin.pm
563 lib/ExtUtils/MM_Cygwin.pm
564 - canonpath, cflags, manifypods, perl_archive
565 lib/File/Find.pm - on remote drives stat() always sets st_nlink to 1
566 lib/File/Spec/Unix.pm - preserve //unc
567 lib/File/Temp.pm - no directory sticky bit
568 lib/perl5db.pl - use stdin not /dev/tty
569 utils/perldoc.PL - version comment
575 When I<make> starts, it warns about overriding commands for F<perlmain.o>.
577 `C<make clean>' does not remove library F<.def> or F<.exe.stackdump>
580 The I<ld2> script contains references to the source directory. You should
581 change these to $installbin after `C<make install>'.
583 Support for swapping real and effective user and group IDs is incomplete.
584 On WinNT Cygwin provides setuid(), seteuid(), setgid() and setegid().
585 However, additional Cygwin calls for manipulating WinNT access tokens
586 and security contexts are required.
590 Charles Wilson <cwilson@ece.gatech.edu>,
591 Eric Fifer <efifer@sanwaint.com>,
592 alexander smishlajev <als@turnhere.com>,
593 Steven Morlock <newspost@morlock.net>,
594 Sebastien Barre <Sebastien.Barre@utc.fr>,
595 Teun Burgers <burgers@ecn.nl>.
599 Last updated: 15 August 2000