If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
shell.
-The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilites with the
+The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the
"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to
use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment
variables (usually run from a batch file).
+The version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999 left out
+a fix for certain command line quotes, so be sure to download and install
+fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe too.
+
You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
=back
Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
-No tests should typically fail when running Windows NT 4.0. Under Windows
-2000, test 22 in lib/open3.t is known to fail (cause still unknown). Many
-tests will fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior command shell.
+There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
+Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
+command shell.
Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
-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).
+The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
+the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
+First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
+COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
+redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
+executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
+command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
+upon which Perl was built.
+
+It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
+runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
+wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
+shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
+using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). 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 C runtime
+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 C runtime.
+
+The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
+double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
+be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or the C
+runtime. The caret "^" has also been observed to behave as a quoting
+character, but this appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not
+stripped from the command line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime
+phase does not treat the caret as a quote character).
Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
is left as an exercise to the reader :)
+One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
+Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
+that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
+therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
+Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
+quoted.
+
=item Building Extensions
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff