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 have no 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 written, the port required recent
35 development snapshots that were expected to stabilize early in 2000 and
36 be released to the net as B21 and commercially as v1.1.
38 B<NOTE:> At this point, minimal effort has been made to provide
39 compatibility with old (beta) Cygwin releases. The focus has been to
40 provide a high quality release and not worry about working around old
41 Cygwin bugs. If you wish to use Perl with Cygwin B20.1 or earlier,
42 consider using either perl5.005_03 or perl5.005_62, which are available
43 in source and binary form at C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/> or on the
44 Cygwin CD. If there is significant demand, a patch kit can be developed
45 to port back to earlier Cygwin versions.
49 A recent net or commercial release of I<gcc> is required.
51 At the time this document was written, I<gcc-2.95.2> was current and
52 could be downloaded from:
54 ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/cygwin/gcc-2.95.2/
56 =head2 Cygwin Configuration
58 While building Perl some changes may be necessary to your Cygwin setup so
59 that Perl builds cleanly. These changes are B<not> required for normal
62 B<NOTE:> The binaries that are built will run on all Win32 versions.
63 They do not depend on your host system (Win9x, WinNT) or your Cygwin
64 configuration (I<ntea>, I<ntsec>, binary/text mounts). The only
65 dependencies come from hardcoded pathnames like C</usr/local>. However,
66 your host system and Cygwin configuration will affect Perl's runtime
67 behavior (see L</"TEST">). Some regression tests may fail in different
68 ways depending on your setup. For now, the test suite does not skip
69 tests that do not make sense given a particular setup. If a test can
70 pass in some Cygwin setup, it is left in and explainable test failures
77 Set the C<PATH> environment variable so that Configure finds the Cygwin
78 versions of programs. Any Windows directories should be removed or
79 moved to the end of your C<PATH>.
81 =item * F</bin/cat.exe>
83 There should be an instance of I<cat> in F</bin> (or F</usr/bin>).
84 Configure tests C<#!/bin/cat> and if it is not found, you will see
87 Configure: ./try: No such file or directory
91 If you do not have a F</usr/bin> directory, Configure will B<not> prompt
92 you to install I<perl> into F</usr/bin>.
96 If you do not have I<nroff> (which is part of the I<groff> package),
97 Configure will B<not> prompt you to install man pages.
101 On WinNT with either the I<ntea> or I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> settings, directory
102 and file permissions may not be set correctly. Since the build process
103 creates files and directories, to be safe you may want to run a `C<chmod
104 -R +w *>' on the entire Perl source tree.
106 Also, it is a well known WinNT "feature" that files created by a login
107 that is a member of the I<Administrators> group will be owned by the
108 I<Administrators> group. Depending on your umask, you may find that you
109 can not write to files that you just created (because you are no longer
110 the owner). When using the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, this is not an
111 issue because it "corrects" the ownership to what you would expect on
118 The default options gathered by Configure with the assistance of
119 F<hints/cygwin.sh> will build a Perl that supports dynamic loading
120 (which requires a shared F<libperl.dll>).
122 This will run Configure and keep a record:
124 ./Configure 2>&1 | tee log.configure
126 If you are willing to accept all the defaults add a B<-d> option.
127 However, several useful customizations are available.
129 =head2 Strip Binaries
131 It is possible to strip the EXEs and DLLs created by the build process.
132 The resulting binaries will be significantly smaller. If you want the
133 binaries to be stripped, you can either add a B<-s> option when Configure
136 Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [none] -s
137 Any special flags to pass to gcc to use dynamic linking? [none] -s
138 Any special flags to pass to ld2 to create a dynamically loaded library?
141 or you can edit F<hints/cygwin.sh> and uncomment the relevant variables
142 near the end of the file.
144 =head2 Optional Libraries
146 Several Perl functions and modules depend on the existence of
147 some optional libraries. Configure will find them if they are
148 installed in one of the directories listed as being used for library
149 searches. Pre-built packages for most of these are available at
150 C<http://cygutils.netpedia.net/>.
156 The crypt libraries in GNU libc have been ported to Cygwin.
158 The DES based Ultra Fast Crypt port was done by Alexey Truhan:
160 http://dome.weeg.uiowa.edu/pub/domestic/sos/cw32crypt-dist-0.tgz
162 NOTE: There are various export restrictions on DES implementations,
163 see the glibc README for more details.
165 The MD5 port was done by Andy Piper:
167 http://dome.weeg.uiowa.edu/pub/domestic/sos/libcrypt.tgz
169 More information can also be found at:
171 http://miracle.geol.msu.ru/sos/
173 =item * C<-lgdbm> (C<use GDBM_File>)
175 GDBM is available for Cygwin. GDBM's ndbm/dbm compatibility feature
176 also makes C<NDBM_File> and C<ODBM_File> possible (although they add
179 =item * C<-ldb> (C<use DB_File>)
181 BerkeleyDB is available for Cygwin. Some details can be found in
182 F<ext/DB_File/DB_File.pm>.
184 =item * C<-lcygipc> (C<use IPC::SysV>)
186 A port of SysV IPC is available for Cygwin.
188 NOTE: This has B<not> been extensively tested. In particular,
189 C<d_semctl_semun> is undefined because it fails a configure test and on
190 Win9x the shm*() functions seem to hang.
194 =head2 Configure-time Options
196 The F<INSTALL> document describes several Configure-time options.
197 Some of these will work with Cygwin, others are not yet possible. Also,
198 some of these are experimental.
204 If you want to force Perl to be compiled statically, you can either
205 choose this when Configure prompts you or you can use the Configure
208 =item * C<-Uusemymalloc>
210 By default Perl uses the malloc() included with the Perl source. If you
211 want to force Perl to build with the system malloc(), you can either
212 choose this when Configure prompts you or you can use the Configure
215 =item * C<-Dusemultiplicity>
217 Multiplicity is required when embedding Perl in a C program and using
218 more than one interpreter instance. This works with the Cygwin port.
220 =item * C<-Duseperlio>
222 The PerlIO abstraction works with the Cygwin port.
224 =item * C<-Duse64bits>
226 I<gcc> supports 64-bit integers. However, several additional long long
227 functions are necessary to use them within Perl (I<{strtol,strtoul}l>).
228 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
230 =item * C<-Duselongdouble>
232 I<gcc> supports long doubles (12 bytes). However, several additional
233 long double math functions are necessary to use them within Perl
234 (I<{atan2,cos,exp,floor,fmod,frexp,log,modf,pow,sin,sqrt}l,strtold>).
235 These are B<not> yet available with Cygwin.
237 =item * C<-Dusethreads>
239 POSIX threads are B<not> yet implemented in Cygwin.
241 =item * C<-Duselargefiles>
243 Although Win32 supports large files, Cygwin currently uses 32-bit ints
244 for internal size and position calculations.
248 =head2 Suspicious Warnings
250 You may see some messages during Configure that seem suspicious.
256 Cygwin does not yet implement chroot(), setegid() or seteuid()
257 functionality, but has stub functions that return C<ENOSYS>. You will
258 see a message when Configure detects that its guess conflicts with the
261 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
262 The recommended value for $d_chroot on this machine was "undef"!
263 Keep the recommended value? [y]
265 You should keep the recommended value.
267 =item * Win9x and d_eofnblk
269 Win9x does not correctly report C<EOF> with a non-blocking read on a
270 closed pipe. You will see the following messages:
272 But it also returns -1 to signal EOF, so be careful!
273 WARNING: you can't distinguish between EOF and no data!
275 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
276 The recommended value for $d_eofnblk on this machine was "define"!
277 Keep the recommended value? [y]
279 At least for consistency with WinNT, you should keep the recommended
282 =item * Checking how std your stdio is...
286 Your stdio doesn't appear very std.
294 Simply run make and wait:
296 make 2>&1 | tee log.make
300 Warnings like these are normal:
302 warning: overriding commands for target <file>
303 warning: ignoring old commands for target <file>
305 Warning: no export definition file provided
306 dllwrap will create one, but may not be what you want
310 During `C<make>', I<ld2> will be created and installed in your $installbin
311 directory (where you said to put public executables). It does not
312 wait until the `C<make install>' process to install the I<ld2> script,
313 this is because the remainder of the `C<make>' refers to I<ld2> without
314 fully specifying its path and does this from multiple subdirectories.
315 The assumption is that $installbin is in your current C<PATH>. If this
316 is not the case or if you do not have an I<install> program, `C<make>'
317 will fail at some point. If this happens, just manually copy I<ld2>
318 from the source directory to someplace in your C<PATH>.
322 There are two steps to running the test suite:
324 make test 2>&1 | tee log.make-test
326 cd t;./perl harness 2>&1 | tee ../log.harness
328 The same tests are run both times, but more information is provided when
329 running as `C<./perl harness>'.
331 Test results vary depending on your host system and your Cygwin
332 configuration. It is possible that Cygwin will pass all the tests,
333 but it is more likely that some tests will fail for one of these reasons.
335 =head2 File Permissions
337 UNIX file permissions are based on sets of mode bits for
338 {read,write,execute} for each {user,group,other}. By default Cygwin only
339 tracks the Win32 readonly attribute represented as the UNIX file user
340 write bit (files are always readable, files are executable if they have
341 a F<.{com,bat,exe}> extension or begin with C<#!>, directories are always
342 readable and executable). On WinNT with the I<ntea> C<CYGWIN> setting,
343 the remaining mode bits are stored as extended attributes. On WinNT
344 with the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, permissions use the standard WinNT
345 security descriptors and access control lists. Without one of these
346 options, these tests will fail:
348 Failed Test List of failed
349 ------------------------------------
359 op/stat.t 9, 20 (.tmp not an executable extension)
363 FAT partitions do not support hard links (whereas NTFS does), in which
364 case Cygwin implements link() by copying the file. 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 one of the Windows system
405 directories (although, this is B<not> recommended).
409 Cygwin does not require F</etc/group>, in which case the F<op/grent.t>
410 test will be skipped. The check performed by F<op/grent.t> expects to
411 see entries that use the members field, otherwise this test will fail:
413 Failed Test List of failed
414 ------------------------------------
417 =head2 Unexplained Failures
419 Any additional tests that fail are likely due to bugs in Cygwin or the
420 optional libraries. It is expected that by the time of the next net
421 release most of these will be solved so they are not described here.
423 =head2 Script Portability
425 Cygwin does an outstanding job of providing UNIX-like semantics on
426 top of Win32 systems. However, in addition to the items noted above,
427 there are some differences that you should know about. This is only a
428 very brief guide to portability, more information can be found in the
429 Cygwin documentation.
435 Cygwin pathnames can be separated by forward (F</>) or backward (F<\>)
436 slashes. They may also begin with drive letters (F<C:>) or Universal
437 Naming Codes (F<//UNC>). DOS device names (F<aux>, F<con>, F<prn>,
438 F<com*>, F<lpt?>) are invalid as base filenames. However, they can be
439 used in extensions (e.g., F<hello.aux>). Names may not contain these
444 File names are case insensitive, but case preserving. With the I<mixed>
445 C<CYGWIN> setting, file names are mixed-case (although, directory names
446 remain case insensitive).
448 The I<mixed> setting is only available with the "coolview" version of
449 F<cygwin1.dll> provided by Sergey Okhapkin at:
451 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/
455 When a file is opened it is in either text or binary mode. In text mode
456 a file is subject to CR/LF/Ctrl-Z translations. With Cygwin, the default
457 mode for an open() is determined by the mode of the mount that underlies
458 the file. Perl provides a binmode() function to set binary mode on files
459 that otherwise would be treated as text. sysopen() with the C<O_TEXT>
460 flag sets text mode on files that otherwise would be treated as binary:
462 sysopen(FOO, "bar", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TEXT)
464 lseek(), tell() and sysseek() only work with files opened in binary mode.
466 The text/binary issue is covered at length in the Cygwin documentation.
470 The Cygwin stat() makes the F<.exe> extension transparent by looking for
471 a F<foo.exe> when you ask for F<foo> (unless a F<foo> also exists).
472 Cygwin does not require a F<.exe> extension, but I<gcc> adds it
473 automatically when building a program. However, when accessing an
474 executable as a normal file (e.g., I<install> or I<cp> in a makefile)
475 the F<.exe> is not transparent.
477 NOTE: There is a version of I<install> that understands the F<.exe>
478 semantics, it can be found at:
480 ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Humblet_Pierre_A/
484 On WinNT with the I<ntsec> C<CYGWIN> setting, chown() can change a file's
485 user and group IDs. In all other configurations chown() is a no-op,
486 although this is appropriate on Win9x since there is no security model.
488 =item * Miscellaneous
490 File locking using the C<F_GETLK> command to fcntl() is a stub that
493 Win9x can not rename() an open file (although WinNT can).
499 This will install Perl, including man pages.
501 make install | tee log.make-install
503 NOTE: If C<STDERR> is redirected `C<make install>' will B<not> prompt
504 you to install I<perl> into F</usr/bin>.
506 You may need to be I<Administrator> to run `C<make install>'. If you
507 are not, you must have write access to the directories in question.
509 Information on installing the Perl documentation in HTML format can be
510 found in the F<INSTALL> document.
514 These are the files in the Perl release that contain references to Cygwin.
515 These very brief notes attempt to explain the reason for all conditional
516 code. Hopefully, keeping this up to date will allow the Cygwin port to
517 be kept as clean as possible.
523 INSTALL README.cygwin
524 Changes Changes5.005 Changes5.004
525 AUTHORS MAINTAIN MANIFEST README.win32
526 pod/perl.pod pod/perlfaq3.pod pod/perlhist.pod pod/perlmodlib.pod
527 pod/perlport.pod pod/perltoc.pod pod/perl5004delta.pod
529 =item Build, Configure, Make, Install
534 ext/IPC/SysV/hints/cygwin.pl
535 ext/NDBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
536 ext/ODBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
538 Configure - help finding hints from uname,
539 shared libperl required for dynamic loading
540 Makefile.SH - linklibperl
541 Porting/patchls - cygwin in port list
542 installman - man pages with :: translated to .
543 installperl - install dll/ld2/perlld, install to pods
544 makedepend.SH - uwinfix
548 t/io/tell.t - binmode
549 t/lib/glob-basic.t - Win32 directory list access differs from read mode
550 t/op/magic.t - $^X/symlink WORKAROUND, s/.exe//
551 t/op/stat.t - no /dev, skip Win32 ftCreationTime quirk
552 (cache manager sometimes preserves ctime of file
553 previously created and deleted), no -u (setuid)
555 =item Compiled Perl Source
557 EXTERN.h - __declspec(dllimport)
558 XSUB.h - __declspec(dllexport)
559 cygwin/cygwin.c - os_extras (getcwd)
562 doio.c - win9x can not rename a file when it is open
563 pp_sys.c - do not define h_errno
564 mg.c - environ WORKAROUND
565 unixish.h - environ WORKAROUND
566 util.c - environ WORKAROUND
568 =item Compiled Module Source
570 ext/POSIX/POSIX.xs - tzname defined externally
571 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/pair.c
572 - EXTCONST needs to be redefined from EXTERN.h
573 ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.c
576 =item Perl Modules/Scripts
578 lib/Cwd.pm - hook to internal Cwd::cwd
579 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm
580 - require MM_Cygwin.pm
581 lib/ExtUtils/MM_Cygwin.pm
582 - canonpath, cflags, manifypods, perl_archive
583 lib/File/Spec/Unix.pm - preserve //unc
584 lib/perl5db.pl - use stdin not /dev/tty
585 utils/perlcc.PL - DynaLoader.a in compile, -DUSEIMPORTLIB
586 utils/perldoc.PL - version comment
592 Upon each start, I<make> warns that a rule for F<perlmain.o> is overridden
593 (but there seems to be no better solution than adding an explicit define).
595 `C<make clean>' does not remove library F<.def> and F<.exe.stackdump>
598 The I<ld2> script contains references to the source directory. You should
599 change these to C</usr/local/bin> (or whatever) after install.
603 Charles Wilson E<lt>cwilson@ece.gatech.eduE<gt>,
604 Eric Fifer E<lt>efifer@sanwaint.comE<gt>,
605 alexander smishlajev E<lt>als@turnhere.comE<gt>,
606 Steven Morlock E<lt>newspost@morlock.netE<gt>,
607 Sebastien Barre E<lt>Sebastien.Barre@utc.frE<gt>,
608 Teun Burgers E<lt>burgers@ecn.nlE<gt>.
612 Last updated: 25 February 2000