=head1 INTRODUCTION
-EPOC is a OS for palmtops and mobile phones. For more informations look at:
+EPOC is an OS for palmtops and mobile phones. For more informations look at:
http://www.symbian.com/
-This is a port of perl to EPOC. It runs on the Psion Series 5, 5mx,
-5mx Pro, Psion Revo and on the Ericson M128. I have no report about
-the Psion Netbook or the S7. For information about this hardware
-please refer to http://www.psion.com.
+This is a port of perl to EPOC. It runs on ER5 machines: Psion 5mx,
+5mx Pro, Psion Revo, Psion Netbook and on the Ericson M128. It runs on
+ER3 Hardware (Series 5 classic), too. For more information about this
+hardware please refer to http://www.psion.com.
+
+Vendors which like to have support for their devices are free to send
+me a sample.
=head1 INSTALLING PERL ON EPOC
-You will need ~4MB free space in order to install and run perl.
+You can download a ready-to-install version from
+http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl. You may find other
+versions with some CPAN modules included at this location.
+
+You will need at least ~4MB free space in order to install and run
+perl.
+
+Install perl.sis on the EPOC machine. If you do not know how to do
+that, consult your PsiWin documentation.
+
+Perl itself and its standard library is using 2.5 MB disk space.
+Unicode support and some other modules are left out. (For details,
+please look into epoc/createpkg.pl). If you like to use these modules,
+you are free to copy them from a current perl release.
+
+=head1 STARTING PERL ON EPOC
-Install perl.sis on the EPOC machine (most likely a PSION Series 5,
-5mx). If you do not know how to do that, you are on your own.
+For ER5 machines, you can get the software Perlstart
+http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl. It contains file
+recognizers for files with the extension .pl and .pm. With it you can
+start perl with a double click on the camel icon. Be sure to configure
+the perl installation drive first. You can even provide a script with
+a special commandline, if needed.
-Perl itself and its standard library are using 2.5 MB disk space. I
-left out unicode support modules and modules which will not work with
-this version. (For details look into epoc/createpkg.pl). If you like
-to use them, you are free to copy them from a current perl release.
+Alternatively you can use the epocemx shell
-Get ESHELL from symbian:
-http://developer.epocworld.com/downloads/progs/Eshell.zip
+If you have an ER3 machine (i.e. a PSION 5), you may have to supply the
+full path to the perl executable C:\system\programs\perl.exe.
-Now you can enter: perl -de 0 in order to run the perl debugger. If
-you are leaving perl, you get into the system screen. You have to
-switch back manually to ESHELL. When perl is running, you will see
-a task with the name STDOUT in the task list.
+If you need to set the current directory of perl, please use the
+command line switch '-x'. See L<perlrun> for details.
+
+=head1 STOPPING PERL ON EPOC
+
+You can stop a running perl process in the task list by closing the
+application `STDOUT'. You can use the kill command in the epocemx
+shell to kill perl.
=head1 USING PERL ON EPOC
-=head2 IO Redirection
+=head2 I/O Redirection on Epoc
You can redirect the output with the UNIX bourne shell syntax (this is
built into perl rather then eshell) For instance the following command
Alternatively you can use 2>&1 in order to add the standard error
output to stdout.
-=head2 PATH Names
+=head2 PATH Names on Epoc
ESHELL looks for executables in ?:/System/Programs. The SIS file
installs perl in this special folder directory. The default drive and
path are the same as folder the executable resides. The EPOC
filesystem is case-preserving, not case-sensitive.
-EPOC uses the ?: syntax for establishing a search order: First in C: (RAM),
-then on D: (CF Card) and last in Z: (ROM).
+The EPOC estdlib uses the ?: syntax for establishing a search order:
+First in C: (RAM), then on D: (CF Card, if present) and last in Z:
+(ROM). For instance ?:\a.txt searches for C:\a.txt, D:\a.txt (and
+Z:\a.txt)
-The perl @INC search path is now implemented with '?:'. Your perl
-executable can now live on a different drive than the perl library or
-even your scripts.
+The perl @INC search path is implemented with '?:'. Your perl
+executable can live on a different drive than the perl library or even
+your scripts.
ESHELL paths have to be written with backslashes '\', file arguments
to perl with slashes '/'. Remember that I/O redirection is done
perl.exe C:/test.pl >C:/output.txt
-You can automatically search for file on all EPOC drives with a ? as
-the driver letter. For instance ?:\a.txt searches for C:\a.txt,
-D:\b.txt (and Z:\a.txt).
-
-=head2 Editors
+=head2 Editors on Epoc
-A suitable text-editor can be downloaded
-from symbian http://developer.epocworld.com/downloads/progs/Editor.zip
+A suitable text editor can be downloaded from symbian
+http://www.symbian.com/developer/downloads/files/editor.zip
-=head2 Features
+=head2 Features of Perl on Epoc
The built-in function EPOC::getcwd returns the current directory.
-=head2 Restrictions
+=head2 Restrictions of Perl on Epoc
Features are left out, because of restrictions of the POSIX support in
EPOC:
=item *
-system() does not inherit ressources like: file descriptors,
+system() does not inherit resources like: file descriptors,
environment etc.
=item *
=item *
-You need the shell eshell.exe in order to run perl.exe and supply
-it with arguments.
+Heap is limited to 4MB.
=item *
-Heap is limited to 4MB.
+Dynamic loading is not implemented.
=back
=item *
-You will need the C++ SDK from http://developer.epocworld.com/.
-
-=item *
-
-You will need to set up the cross SDK from
-http://members.linuxstart.com/~oflebbe
-
-=item *
-
-You may have to adjust config.sh (cc, cppflags) for your epoc
-install location.
-
-=item *
-
-You may have to adjust config.sh for your cross SDK location
+You will need the epocemx SDK from Eberhard Mattes. Watch out for an
+announcement.
=item *
=item *
-Build a native perl from this sources...
+Build a native perl from this sources... Make sure to save the
+miniperl executable as miniperl.native.
+
+Start again from scratch
cp epoc/* .
./Configure -S
- make perl.a
+ make
cp miniperl.native miniperl
- make perl
- make ext/Errno/pm_to_blib
- perl link.pl perlmain.o lib/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a \
- lib/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.a \
- lib/auto/File/Glob/Glob.a lib/auto/IO/IO.a \
- lib/auto/Socket/Socket.a \
- lib/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.a lib/auto/Sys/Hostname/Hostname.a \
- perl.a `cat ext.libs`
+ make
perl createpkg.pl
- wine G:/bin/makesis perl.pkg perl.sis
+ emxsis perl.pkg perl.sis
=back
-=head1 SUPPORT STATUS
+=head1 SUPPORT STATUS OF PERL ON EPOC
I'm offering this port "as is". You can ask me questions, but I can't
guarantee I'll be able to answer them.
=head1 AUTHOR
-Olaf Flebbe <o.flebbe@gmx.de>
-http://members.linuxstart.com/~oflebbe/perl/perl5.html
+Olaf Flebbe <o.flebbe@science-computing.de>
+http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl/
=head1 LAST UPDATE
-2000-09-18
+2001-12-12
=cut