=head1 NAME
-perlwin32 - Perl under WindowsNT [XXX and perhaps under Windows95]
+perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
=head1 SYNOPSIS
-These are instructions for building Perl under WindowsNT (versions
-3.51 or 4.0), using Visual C++.
+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows NT (versions
+3.51 or 4.0), using Visual C++ (versions 2.0 through 5.0) or Borland
+C++ (version 5.x). Currently, this port may also build under Windows95,
+but you can expect problems stemming from the unmentionable command
+shell that infests that platform. Note this caveat is only about
+B<building> perl. Once built, you should be able to B<use> it on
+either Win32 platform (modulo the problems arising from the inferior
+command shell).
=head1 DESCRIPTION
-Before you start, you should glance through the README file found
+Before you start, you should glance through the README file
found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution
was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
which this software is being distributed.
-Make sure you read the L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> section below for the
+Also make sure you read the L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> section below for the
known limitations of this port.
The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
"Configure".
-You should probably also read the README.os2 file, which gives a
-different set of rules to build a Perl that will work on Win32
-platforms. That method will probably enable you to build a more
-Unix-compatible perl, but you will also need to download and use
-various other support software described in that file.
+You may also want to look at two other options for building
+a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin32 and
+README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build
+a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will
+probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you
+will also need to download and use various other build-time and
+run-time support software described in those files.
This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no
additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
-system). Currently, this port is only capable of using Microsoft's
-Visual C++ compiler. The ultimate goal is to support the other major
-compilers that can be used on the platforms.
+system). Currently, this port is capable of using either the
+Microsoft Visual C++ compiler, or the Borland C++ compiler. The
+ultimate goal is to support the other major compilers that can
+generally be used to build Win32 applications.
+
+This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
+is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
+able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
+See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
=head2 Setting Up
=over 4
-=item *
+=item Command Shell
Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. In particular, do
*not* use the 4DOS/NT shell. The Makefile has commands that are not
-compatible with that shell.
-
-=item *
-
-Run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN.
-This will set your build environment.
-
-=item *
+compatible with that shell. The Makefile also has known
+incompatibilites with the default shell that comes with Windows95,
+so building under Windows95 should be considered "unsupported".
+
+=item Borland C++
+
+If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake, a freely
+available make that has very nice macro features and parallelability.
+(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not
+work for MakeMaker builds--if you *have* to bug someone about this,
+I suggest you bug Borland to fix their make :)
+
+A port of dmake for win32 platforms is available from
+"http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gsar/dmake-4.0-win32.tar.gz".
+Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path. Also make sure you
+copy the Borland dmake.ini file to some location where you keep
+*.ini files. If you use the binary that comes with the above port, you
+will need to set INIT in your environment to the directory where you
+put the dmake.ini file.
+
+=item Microsoft Visual C++
+
+The NMAKE that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
+If you did not choose to always initialize the Visual C++ compilation
+environment variables when you installed Visual C++ on your system, you
+will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere like
+C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
+
+You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided: you
+copied the dmake.ini for Visual C++; set INIT to point to the
+directory where you put it, as above; and edit win32/config.vc
+and change "make=nmake" to "make=dmake". The last step is only
+essential if you want to use dmake to be your default make for
+building extensions using MakeMaker.
+
+=item Permissions
Depending on how you extracted the distribution, you have to make sure
-all the files are writable by you. The easiest way to make sure of
+some of the files are writable by you. The easiest way to make sure of
this is to execute:
attrib -R *.* /S
=back
-=head2 Building and Installation
+=head2 Building
=over 4
=item *
-The "win32" directory contains *.mak files for use with the NMAKE that
-comes with Visual C++ ver. 4.0 and above. If you wish to build perl
-using Visual C++ versions between 2.0 and 4.0, do the following three
-additional steps (these three steps are not required if you are
-using Visual C++ versions 4.0 and above):
+Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
+This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
+versions of NMAKE that come with Visual C++ ver. 2.0 and above, and
+a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for both Borland and Visual C++
+builds. The defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using the
+Borland compiler.
-=over 8
+=item *
-=item 1.
+Edit the Makefile (or makefile.mk, if using dmake) and change the values
+of INST_DRV and INST_TOP if you want perl to be installed in a location
+other than "C:\PERL". If you are using Visual C++ ver. 2.0, uncomment
+the line that sets "CCTYPE=MSVC20".
-Overwrite the *.mak files in the win32 subdirectory with the versions
-in the win32\VC-2.0 directory. (The only difference in those makefiles
-is in how the $(INCLUDE) variable is handled--VC 2.0 NMAKE does not
-grok a path list in $(INCLUDE)).
+You will also have to make sure CCHOME points to wherever you installed
+your compiler.
-=item 2.
+=item *
-Reset your INCLUDE environment variable to the MSVC include directory.
-For example:
+Type "nmake" (or "dmake" if you are using that make).
- set INCLUDE=E:\MSVC20\INCLUDE
+This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
+perl.dll, and perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and various other
+extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for
+any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
-This must have only one directory (a list of directories will not work).
-VCVARS32.BAT may put multiple locations in there, which is why this step
-is required.
+When building using Visual C++, a perl95.exe will also get built. This
+executable is only needed on Windows95, and should be used instead of
+perl.exe, and then only if you want sockets to work properly on Windows95.
+This is necessitated by a bug in the Microsoft C Runtime that cannot be
+worked around in the "normal" perl.exe. Again, if this bugs you, please
+bug Microsoft :). perl95.exe gets built with its own private copy of the
+C Runtime that is not accessible to extensions (which see the DLL version
+of the CRT). Be aware, therefore, that this perl95.exe will have
+esoteric problems with extensions like perl/Tk that themselves use the C
+Runtime heavily, or want to free() pointers malloc()-ed by perl.
-=item 3.
+You can avoid the perl95.exe problems completely if you use Borland
+C++ for building perl (perl95.exe is not needed and will not be built
+in that case).
-Apply the patch found in win32\VC-2.0\vc2.patch, like so:
+=back
- cd win32
- patch -p2 -N < VC-2.0\vc2.patch
+=head2 Testing
-You may have to edit win32\win32.c manually if you don't have GNU patch.
+Type "nmake test" (or "dmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
+the testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and but no test should fail).
-=back
+If some tests do fail, it may be because you are using a different command
+shell than the native "cmd.exe".
-=item *
+If you used the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
+arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
+default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
+from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
+(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test.
-Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
+Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
-=item *
+=head2 Installation
-Type "nmake" while in the "win32" subdirectory. This should build
-everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, perl.dll, and
-perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
-under the lib\auto directory. If the make fails for any reason, make
-sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
+Type "nmake install" (or "dmake install"). This will put the newly
+built perl and the libraries under "C:\perl" (actually whatever you set
+C<INST_TOP> to in the Makefile). It will also install the pod
+documentation under C<$INST_TOP\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same
+under C<$INST_TOP\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed,
+set your PATH environment variable to "C:\perl\bin" (or C<$INST_TOP\bin>,
+if you changed the default as above).
-=item *
+=head2 Usage Hints
-Type "nmake install". This will put the newly built perl and the
-libraries under C:\PERL. If you want to alter this location, to say,
-D:\FOO\PERL, you will have to say:
+=over 4
- nmake install INST_TOP=D:\FOO\PERL
+=item Environment Variables
-instead. To use the Perl you just installed, make sure you set your
-PATH environment variable to C:\PERL\BIN (or D:\FOO\PERL\BIN).
+The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
+into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
+using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
-=back
+If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
+to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
+to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
+variables you can set in the perlrun podpage.
-=head2 Testing
+Sometime in the future, some of the configuration information
+for perl will be moved into the Windows registry.
-Type "nmake test". This will run most of the tests from the
-testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and some tests will fail).
-Most failures are due to UNIXisms in the standard perl testsuite.
+=item File Globbing
-To get a more detailed breakdown of the tests that failed, say:
+By default, perl spawns an external program to do file globbing.
+The install process installs both a perlglob.exe and a perlglob.bat
+that perl can use for this purpose. Note that with the default
+installation, perlglob.exe will be found by the system before
+perlglob.bat.
- cd ..\t
- .\perl harness
+perlglob.exe relies on the argv expansion done by the C Runtime of
+the particular compiler you used, and therefore behaves very
+differently depending on the Runtime used to build it. To preserve
+compatiblity, perlglob.bat (a perl script/module that can be
+used portably) is installed. Besides being portable, perlglob.bat
+also offers enhanced globbing functionality.
-This should produce a summary very similar to the following:
+If you want perl to use perlglob.bat instead of perlglob.exe, just
+delete perlglob.exe from the install location (or move it somewhere
+perl cannot find). Using File::DosGlob.pm (which is the same
+as perlglob.bat) to override the internal CORE::glob() works about 10
+times faster than spawing perlglob.exe, and you should take this
+approach when writing new modules. See File::DosGlob for details.
- Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- io/fs.t 26 16 61.54% 1-5, 7-11, 16-18, 23-25
- io/tell.t 13 1 7.69% 10
- lib/anydbm.t 12 1 8.33% 2
- lib/findbin.t 1 1 100.00% 1
- lib/sdbm.t 12 1 8.33% 2
- op/mkdir.t 7 2 28.57% 3, 7
- op/runlevel.t 8 1 12.50% 4
- op/stat.t 56 3 5.36% 3-4, 20
- op/taint.t 98 20 20.41% 1-6, 14, 16, 19-21, 24, 26, 35-3
- pragma/locale.t 98 40 40.82% 1, 13-14, 21-27, 33, 39, 45-53,
- Failed 10/149 test scripts, 93.29% okay. 86/3506 subtests failed, 97.55% okay.
+=item Using perl from the command line
-Check if any additional tests other than the ones shown here
-failed. The standard testsuite will ultimately be modified so
-that the testsuite avoids running irrelevant tests on Win32.
+If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
+shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
+with what Windows NT offers by way of a command shell.
-=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
+The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is
+the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard
+expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be
+quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only
+(useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to
+protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The
+Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
+quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
+based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and
+passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used
+to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up.
+You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with
+a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes.
+The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the
+argument will be stripped by the shell.
+
+The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted
+by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes
+will protect those three file redirection characters, but the
+single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this
+type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
+been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get
+stripped by the shell also).
+
+Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
+
+This prints two doublequotes:
+
+ perl -e "print '\"\"' "
+
+This does the same:
+
+ perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
+
+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
+
+This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
+
+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
+
+This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
-This is still very much an experimental port, and should be considered
-alpha quality software. You can expect changes in virtually all of
-these areas: build process, installation structure, supported
-utilities/modules, and supported perl functionality. Specifically,
-functionality that supports the Win32 environment may be ultimately
-be supported as either core modules or extensions.
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
-Many tests from the standard testsuite either fail or produce different
-results under this port. Most of the problems fall under one of these
-categories
+This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
+
+ perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
+
+This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
+
+
+Discovering the usage of the "command.com" shell on Windows95
+is left as an exercise to the reader :)
+
+=item Building Extensions
+
+The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
+of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
+Look in http://www.perl.com/ for more information on CPAN.
+
+Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
+be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
+
+ perl Makefile.PL
+ $MAKE
+ $MAKE test
+ $MAKE install
+
+where $MAKE stands for NMAKE or DMAKE. Some extensions may not
+provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or fail),
+but most serious ones do.
+
+If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
+C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
+the compiler for command-line compilation.
+
+If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
+why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
+it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
+that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
+utility.
+
+=item Win32 Specific Extensions
+
+A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
+from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
+be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
+native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
+have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
+extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore
+cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
+
+To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
+Activeware port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
+all of the Activeware extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
+CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
+support. This bundle is available at:
+
+ http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.06.tar.gz
+
+See the README in that distribution for building and installation
+instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
+same location.
+
+It is expected that authors of Win32 specific extensions will begin
+distributing their work in MakeMaker compatible form subsequent to
+the 5.004 release of perl, at which point the need for a dedicated
+bundle such as the above should diminish.
+
+=item Miscellaneous Things
+
+A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
+able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
+system.
+
+C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
+in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
+like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
+have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
+"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
+"foo".
+
+If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
+bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
+find a mailer on your system).
+
+=back
+
+=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
+
+This port should be considered beta quality software at the present
+time because some details are still in flux and there may be
+changes in any of these areas: build process, installation structure,
+supported utilities/modules, and supported perl functionality.
+In particular, functionality specific to the Win32 environment may
+ultimately be supported as either core modules or extensions. This
+means that you should be prepared to recompile extensions when binary
+incompatibilites arise due to changes in the internal structure of
+the code.
+
+The DLLs produced by the two supported compilers are incompatible
+with each other due to the conventions they use to export symbols,
+and due to differences in the Runtime libraries that they provide.
+This means that extension binaries built under either compiler will
+only work with the perl binaries built under the same compiler.
+If you know of a robust, freely available C Runtime that can
+be used under win32, let us know.
+
+If you have had prior exposure to Perl on Unix platforms, you will notice
+this port exhibits behavior different from what is documented. Most of the
+differences fall under one of these categories. We do not consider
+any of them to be serious limitations (especially when compared to the
+limited nature of some of the Win32 OSes themselves :)
=over 8
C<stat()> and C<lstat()> functions may not behave as documented. They
may return values that bear no resemblance to those reported on Unix
-platforms, and some fields may be completely bogus.
+platforms, and some fields (like the the one for inode) may be completely
+bogus.
=item *
The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>, C<exec()>,
-C<dump()>, C<kill()>, C<chown()>, C<link()>, C<symlink()>, C<chroot()>,
+C<dump()>, C<chown()>, C<link()>, C<symlink()>, C<chroot()>,
C<setpgrp()>, C<getpgrp()>, C<setpriority()>, C<getpriority()>,
-C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>, C<flock()>. This list is possibly incomplete.
+C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>. This list is possibly very incomplete.
=item *
=item *
-The behavior of C<system()> or the C<qx[]> operator (a.k.a. "backticks"),
-when used to call interactive commands, is ill-defined.
-
-=item *
-
-C<$!> doesn't work reliably yet.
+C<$?> ends up with the exitstatus of the subprocess (this is different
+from Unix, where the exitstatus is actually given by "$? >> 8").
+Failure to spawn() the subprocess is indicated by setting $? to
+"255<<8". This is subject to change.
=item *
=item *
-Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms.
+Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
+doesn't exactly "behave", either :).
=item *
-File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms.
-
-=item *
-
-Not all of the utilities that come with the Perl distribution
-are supported yet.
+File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms. In particular,
+if you don't use perlglob.bat for globbing, it will understand
+wildcards only in the filename component (and not in the pathname).
+In other words, something like "print <*/*.pl>" will not print all the
+perl scripts in all the subdirectories one level under the current one
+(like it does on UNIX platforms). perlglob.exe is also dependent on
+the particular implementation of wildcard expansion in the vendor
+libraries used to build it (which varies wildly at the present time).
+Using perlglob.bat (or File::DosGlob) avoids these limitations, but
+still only provides DOS semantics (read "warts") for globbing.
=back
=over 4
-=item Gary Ng <F<71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>>
+Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
-=item Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@umich.edu>>
+Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@umich.eduE<gt>
-=item Nick Ing-Simmons <F<nick@ni-s.u-net.com>>
+Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>
=back
Nick Ing-Simmons and Gurusamy Sarathy have made numerous and
sundry hacks since then.
-Last updated: 19 March 1997
+Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
+
+Last updated: 11 June 1997
=cut
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff