perlamiga - Perl under Amiga OS
+=head1 NOTE
+
+B<Perl 5.8.0 cannot be built in AmigaOS. You can use either the
+maintenance release Perl 5.6.1 or the development release Perl 5.7.2
+in AmigaOS. See L</"PERL 5.8.0 BROKEN IN AMIGAOS"> if you want to help
+fixing this problem.>
+
=head1 SYNOPSIS
One can read this document in the following formats:
A recent version of perl for the Amiga can be found at the Geek Gadgets
section of the Aminet:
- http://www.aminet.net/~aminet/dirs/dev_gg.html
+ http://www.aminet.net/~aminet/dev/gg
=cut
You need the Unix emulation for AmigaOS, whose most important part is
B<ixemul.library>. For a minimum setup, get the latest versions
-of the following packages from the Aminet archives (http://www.aminet.net/~aminet/):
+of the following packages from the Aminet archives
+( http://www.aminet.net/~aminet/ ):
ixemul-bin
ixemul-env-bin
perl foo arg1 arg2 arg3
If you want to specify perl options C<-my_opts> to the perl itself (as
-opposed to to your program), use
+opposed to your program), use
perl -my_opts foo arg1 arg2 arg3
=over 6
-=item fork()
+=item *
+
+fork()
+
+=item *
-=item some features of the UNIX filesystem regarding link count and file dates
+some features of the UNIX filesystem regarding link count and file dates
-=item inplace operation (the -i switch) without backup file
+=item *
-=item umask() works, but the correct permissions are only set when the file is
- finally close()d
+inplace operation (the -i switch) without backup file
+
+=item *
+
+umask() works, but the correct permissions are only set when the file is
+finally close()d
=back
or get the official source from CPAN:
- http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/5.0
+ http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0
Extract it like this
make install
+=head1 PERL 5.8.0 BROKEN IN AMIGAOS
+
+As told above, Perl 5.6.1 was still good in AmigaOS, as was 5.7.2.
+After Perl 5.7.2 (change #11423, see the Changes file, and the file
+pod/perlhack.pod for how to get the individual changes) Perl dropped
+its internal support for vfork(), and that was very probably the step
+that broke AmigaOS (since the ixemul library has only vfork).
+The build finally fails when the ext/DynaLoader is being built, and
+PERL ends up as "0" in the produced Makefile, trying to run "0" does
+not quite work. Also, executing miniperl in backticks seems to
+generate nothing: very probably related to the (v)fork problems.
+B<Fixing the breakage requires someone quite familiar with the ixemul
+library, and how one is supposed to run external commands in AmigaOS
+without fork().>
+
=head1 AUTHORS
Norbert Pueschel, pueschel@imsdd.meb.uni-bonn.de