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.epoc - Perl for EPOC
11 Perl 5 README file for the EPOC operating system.
15 EPOC is a OS for palmtops and mobile phones. For more informations look at:
16 http://www.symbian.com/
18 This is a port of perl to EPOC. It runs on the Psion Series 5, 5mx,
19 5mx Pro, Psion Revo and on the Ericson M128. I have no report about
20 the Psion Netbook or the S7. For information about this hardware
21 please refer to http://www.psion.com.
23 =head1 INSTALLING PERL ON EPOC
25 You will need ~4MB free space in order to install and run perl.
27 Install perl.sis on the EPOC machine (most likely a PSION Series 5,
28 5mx). If you do not know how to do that, you are on your own.
30 Perl itself and its standard library are using 2.5 MB disk space. I
31 left out unicode support modules and modules which will not work with
32 this version. (For details look into epoc/createpkg.pl). If you like
33 to use them, you are free to copy them from a current perl release.
35 Get ESHELL from symbian:
36 http://developer.epocworld.com/downloads/progs/Eshell.zip
38 Now you can enter: perl -de 0 in order to run the perl debugger. If
39 you are leaving perl, you get into the system screen. You have to
40 switch back manually to ESHELL. When perl is running, you will see
41 a task with the name STDOUT in the task list.
43 =head1 USING PERL ON EPOC
47 You can redirect the output with the UNIX bourne shell syntax (this is
48 built into perl rather then eshell) For instance the following command
49 line will run the script test.pl with the output redirected to
50 stdout_file, the errors to stderr_file and input from stdin_file.
52 perl test.pl >stdout_file <stdin_file 2>stderr_file
54 Alternatively you can use 2>&1 in order to add the standard error
59 ESHELL looks for executables in ?:/System/Programs. The SIS file
60 installs perl in this special folder directory. The default drive and
61 path are the same as folder the executable resides. The EPOC
62 filesystem is case-preserving, not case-sensitive.
64 EPOC uses the ?: syntax for establishing a search order: First in C: (RAM),
65 then on D: (CF Card) and last in Z: (ROM).
67 The perl @INC search path is now implemented with '?:'. Your perl
68 executable can now live on a different drive than the perl library or
71 ESHELL paths have to be written with backslashes '\', file arguments
72 to perl with slashes '/'. Remember that I/O redirection is done
73 internally in perl, so please use slashes for redirects.
75 perl.exe C:/test.pl >C:/output.txt
77 You can automatically search for file on all EPOC drives with a ? as
78 the driver letter. For instance ?:\a.txt searches for C:\a.txt,
79 D:\b.txt (and Z:\a.txt).
83 A suitable text-editor can be downloaded
84 from symbian http://developer.epocworld.com/downloads/progs/Editor.zip
88 The built-in function EPOC::getcwd returns the current directory.
92 Features are left out, because of restrictions of the POSIX support in
99 backquoting, pipes etc.
103 system() does not inherit ressources like: file descriptors,
108 signal, kill, alarm. Do not try to use them. This may be
109 impossible to implement on EPOC.
117 binmode does not exist. (No CR LF to LF translation for text files)
121 EPOC does not handle the notion of current drive and current
122 directory very well (i.e. not at all, but it tries hard to emulate
127 You need the shell eshell.exe in order to run perl.exe and supply
132 Heap is limited to 4MB.
136 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on the EPOC cross compiling environment
138 Sorry, this is far too short.
144 You will need the C++ SDK from http://developer.epocworld.com/.
148 You will need to set up the cross SDK from
149 http://members.linuxstart.com/~oflebbe
153 You may have to adjust config.sh (cc, cppflags) for your epoc
158 You may have to adjust config.sh for your cross SDK location
162 Get the Perl sources from your nearest CPAN site.
170 Build a native perl from this sources...
175 cp miniperl.native miniperl
177 make ext/Errno/pm_to_blib
178 perl link.pl perlmain.o lib/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a \
179 lib/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.a \
180 lib/auto/File/Glob/Glob.a lib/auto/IO/IO.a \
181 lib/auto/Socket/Socket.a \
182 lib/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.a lib/auto/Sys/Hostname/Hostname.a \
183 perl.a `cat ext.libs`
186 wine G:/bin/makesis perl.pkg perl.sis
190 =head1 SUPPORT STATUS
192 I'm offering this port "as is". You can ask me questions, but I can't
193 guarantee I'll be able to answer them.
197 Olaf Flebbe <o.flebbe@gmx.de>
198 http://members.linuxstart.com/~oflebbe/perl/perl5.html