features.
This document is meant to help you to find out what constitutes portable
-perl code, so that once you have made your decision to write portably,
+Perl code, so that once you have made your decision to write portably,
you know where the lines are drawn, and you can stay within them.
There is a tradeoff between taking full advantage of B<a> particular type
-of computer, and taking advantage of a full B<range> of them. Naturally,
-as you make your range bigger (and thus more diverse), the common denominators
-drop, and you are left with fewer areas of common ground in which
-you can operate to accomplish a particular task. Thus, when you begin
-attacking a problem, it is important to consider which part of the tradeoff
-curve you want to operate under. Specifically, whether it is important to
-you that the task that you are coding needs the full generality of being
-portable, or if it is sufficient to just get the job done. This is the
-hardest choice to be made. The rest is easy, because Perl provides lots
-of choices, whichever way you want to approach your problem.
-
-Looking at it another way, writing portable code is usually about willfully
-limiting your available choices. Naturally, it takes discipline to do that.
+of computer, and taking advantage of a full B<range> of them. Naturally,
+as you make your range bigger (and thus more diverse), the common
+denominators drop, and you are left with fewer areas of common ground in
+which you can operate to accomplish a particular task. Thus, when you
+begin attacking a problem, it is important to consider which part of the
+tradeoff curve you want to operate under. Specifically, whether it is
+important to you that the task that you are coding needs the full
+generality of being portable, or if it is sufficient to just get the job
+done. This is the hardest choice to be made. The rest is easy, because
+Perl provides lots of choices, whichever way you want to approach your
+problem.
+
+Looking at it another way, writing portable code is usually about
+willfully limiting your available choices. Naturally, it takes discipline
+to do that.
Be aware of two important points:
often the case with systems programming (whether for Unix, Windows,
S<Mac OS>, VMS, etc.), consider writing platform-specific code.
-When the code will run on only two or three operating systems, then you may
-only need to consider the differences of those particular systems. The
-important thing is to decide where the code will run, and to be deliberate
-in your decision.
+When the code will run on only two or three operating systems, then you
+may only need to consider the differences of those particular systems.
+The important thing is to decide where the code will run, and to be
+deliberate in your decision.
+
+The material below is separated into three main sections: main issues of
+portability (L<"ISSUES">, platform-specific issues (L<"PLATFORMS">, and
+builtin perl functions that behave differently on various ports
+(L<"FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS">.
This information should not be considered complete; it includes possibly
-transient information about idiosyncracies of some of the ports, almost
+transient information about idiosyncrasies of some of the ports, almost
all of which are in a state of constant evolution. Thus this material
should be considered a perpetual work in progress
(E<lt>IMG SRC="yellow_sign.gif" ALT="Under Construction"E<gt>).
+
+
=head1 ISSUES
=head2 Newlines
-In most operating systems, lines in files are separated with newlines.
+In most operating systems, lines in files are terminated by newlines.
Just what is used as a newline may vary from OS to OS. Unix
traditionally uses C<\012>, one kind of Windows I/O uses C<\015\012>,
and S<Mac OS> uses C<\015>.
with arbitrary values quite safely.
A common misconception in socket programming is that C<\n> eq C<\012>
-everywhere. When using protocols, such as common Internet protocols,
+everywhere. When using protocols such as common Internet protocols,
C<\012> and C<\015> are called for specifically, and the values of
the logical C<\n> and C<\r> (carriage return) are not reliable.
which translates those characters, along with all other
characters in text streams, from EBCDIC to ASCII.]
-However, C<\015\012> (or C<\cM\cJ>, or C<\x0D\x0A>) can be tedious and
-unsightly, as well as confusing to those maintaining the code. As such,
-the C<Socket> module supplies the Right Thing for those who want it.
+However, using C<\015\012> (or C<\cM\cJ>, or C<\x0D\x0A>) can be tedious
+and unsightly, as well as confusing to those maintaining the code. As
+such, the C<Socket> module supplies the Right Thing for those who want it.
use Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf);
print SOCKET "Hi there, client!$CRLF" # RIGHT
(and there was much rejoicing).
-=head2 File Paths
+=head2 Numbers endianness and Width
+
+Different CPUs store integers and floating point numbers in different
+orders (called I<endianness>) and widths (32-bit and 64-bit being the
+most common). This affects your programs if they attempt to transfer
+numbers in binary format from a CPU architecture to another over some
+channel: either 'live' via network connections or storing the numbers
+to secondary storage such as a disk file.
+
+Conflicting storage orders make utter mess out of the numbers: if a
+little-endian host (Intel, Alpha) stores 0x12345678 (305419896 in
+decimal), a big-endian host (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc, PA) reads it as
+0x78563412 (2018915346 in decimal). To avoid this problem in network
+(socket) connections use the C<pack()> and C<unpack()> formats C<"n">
+and C<"N">, the "network" orders, they are guaranteed to be portable.
+
+Different widths can cause truncation even between platforms of equal
+endianness: the platform of shorter width loses the upper parts of the
+number. There is no good solution for this problem except to avoid
+transferring or storing raw binary numbers.
+
+One can circumnavigate both these problems in two ways: either
+transfer and store numbers always in text format, instead of raw
+binary, or consider using modules like C<Data::Dumper> (included in
+the standard distribution as of Perl 5.005) and C<Storable>.
+
+=head2 Files and Filesystems
Most platforms these days structure files in a hierarchical fashion.
So, it is reasonably safe to assume that any platform supports the
how that path is actually written, differs.
While they are similar, file path specifications differ between Unix,
-Windows, S<Mac OS>, OS/2, VMS and probably others. Unix, for example, is
-one of the few OSes that has the idea of a root directory. S<Mac OS>
-uses C<:> as a path separator instead of C</>. VMS, Windows, and OS/2
-can work similarly to Unix with C</> as path separator, or in their own
-idiosyncratic ways.
+Windows, S<Mac OS>, OS/2, VMS, VOS, S<RISC OS> and probably others.
+Unix, for example, is one of the few OSes that has the idea of a single
+root directory.
+
+VMS, Windows, and OS/2 can work similarly to Unix with C</> as path
+separator, or in their own idiosyncratic ways (such as having several
+root directories and various "unrooted" device files such NIL: and
+LPT:).
+
+S<Mac OS> uses C<:> as a path separator instead of C</>.
+
+The filesystem may support neither hard links (C<link()>) nor
+symbolic links (C<symlink()>, C<readlink()>, C<lstat()>).
+
+The filesystem may support neither access timestamp nor change
+timestamp (meaning that about the only portable timestamp is the
+modification timestamp), or one second granularity of any timestamps
+(e.g. the FAT filesystem limits the time granularity to two seconds).
+
+VOS perl can emulate Unix filenames with C</> as path separator. The
+native pathname characters greater-than, less-than, number-sign, and
+percent-sign are always accepted.
+
+C<RISC OS> perl can emulate Unix filenames with C</> as path
+separator, or go native and use C<.> for path separator and C<:> to
+signal filing systems and disc names.
As with the newline problem above, there are modules that can help. The
C<File::Spec> modules provide methods to do the Right Thing on whatever
splits a pathname into pieces (base filename, full path to directory,
and file suffix).
-Remember not to count on the existence of system-specific files, like
-F</etc/resolv.conf>. If code does need to rely on such a file, include a
-description of the file and its format in the code's documentation, and
-make it easy for the user to override the default location of the file.
+Even when on a single platform (if you can call UNIX a single platform),
+remember not to count on the existence or the contents of
+system-specific files or directories, like F</etc/passwd>,
+F</etc/sendmail.conf>, F</etc/resolv.conf>, or even F</tmp/>. For
+example, F</etc/passwd> may exist but it may not contain the encrypted
+passwords because the system is using some form of enhanced security --
+or it may not contain all the accounts because the system is using NIS.
+If code does need to rely on such a file, include a description of the
+file and its format in the code's documentation, and make it easy for
+the user to override the default location of the file.
+
+Don't assume a text file will end with a newline.
+
+Do not have two files of the same name with different case, like
+F<test.pl> and F<Test.pl>, as many platforms have case-insensitive
+filenames. Also, try not to have non-word characters (except for C<.>)
+in the names, and keep them to the 8.3 convention, for maximum
+portability.
+
+Likewise, if using C<AutoSplit>, try to keep the split functions to
+8.3 naming and case-insensitive conventions; or, at the very least,
+make it so the resulting files have a unique (case-insensitively)
+first 8 characters.
+
+There certainly can be whitespace in filenames. Many systems (DOS,
+VMS) cannot have more than one C<"."> in their filenames.
+
+Don't assume C<E<gt>> won't be the first character of a filename.
+Always use C<E<lt>> explicitly to open a file for reading.
+
+ open(FILE, "<$existing_file") or die $!;
+
+Actually, though, if filenames might use strange characters, it is
+safest to open it with C<sysopen> instead of C<open>, which is magic.
=head2 System Interaction
Don't C<unlink> or C<rename> an open file. Don't C<tie> to or C<open> a
file that is already tied to or opened; C<untie> or C<close> first.
+Don't open the same file more than once at a time for writing, as some
+operating systems put mandatory locks on such files.
+
Don't count on a specific environment variable existing in C<%ENV>.
-Don't even count on C<%ENV> entries being case-sensitive, or even
+Don't count on C<%ENV> entries being case-sensitive, or even
case-preserving.
-Don't count on signals in portable programs.
+Don't count on signals.
Don't count on filename globbing. Use C<opendir>, C<readdir>, and
C<closedir> instead.
+Don't count on per-program environment variables, or per-program current
+directories.
+
+Don't count on specific values of C<$!>.
+
=head2 Interprocess Communication (IPC)
In general, don't directly access the system in code that is meant to be
-portable. That means, no: C<system>, C<exec>, C<fork>, C<pipe>, C<``>,
-C<qx//>, C<open> with a C<|>, or any of the other things that makes being
+portable. That means, no C<system>, C<exec>, C<fork>, C<pipe>, C<``>,
+C<qx//>, C<open> with a C<|>, nor any of the other things that makes being
a Unix perl hacker worth being.
Commands that launch external processes are generally supported on
(via C<Net::SMTP>) if a mail transfer agent is not available.
The rule of thumb for portable code is: Do it all in portable Perl, or
-use a module that may internally implement it with platform-specific code,
-but expose a common interface. By portable Perl, we mean code that
-avoids the constructs described in this document as being non-portable.
+use a module (that may internally implement it with platform-specific
+code, but expose a common interface).
+
+The UNIX System V IPC (C<msg*(), sem*(), shm*()>) is not available
+even in all UNIX platforms.
=head2 External Subroutines (XS)
normally reasonable to make sure the XS code is portable, too.
There is a different kind of portability issue with writing XS
-code: availability of a C compiler on the end-user's system. C brings with
-it its own portability issues, and writing XS code will expose you to
+code: availability of a C compiler on the end-user's system. C brings
+with it its own portability issues, and writing XS code will expose you to
some of those. Writing purely in perl is a comparatively easier way to
achieve portability.
There is no one DBM module that is available on all platforms.
C<SDBM_File> and the others are generally available on all Unix and DOSish
-ports, but not in MacPerl, where C<NBDM_File> and C<DB_File> are available.
+ports, but not in MacPerl, where only C<NBDM_File> and C<DB_File> are
+available.
The good news is that at least some DBM module should be available, and
C<AnyDBM_File> will use whichever module it can find. Of course, then
=head2 Time and Date
-The system's notion of time of day and calendar date is controlled in widely
-different ways. Don't assume the timezone is stored in C<$ENV{TZ}>, and even
-if it is, don't assume that you can control the timezone through that
-variable.
+The system's notion of time of day and calendar date is controlled in
+widely different ways. Don't assume the timezone is stored in C<$ENV{TZ}>,
+and even if it is, don't assume that you can control the timezone through
+that variable.
+
+Don't assume that the epoch starts at 00:00:00, January 1, 1970,
+because that is OS-specific. Better to store a date in an unambiguous
+representation. The ISO 8601 standard defines YYYY-MM-DD as the date
+format. A text representation (like C<1 Jan 1970>) can be easily
+converted into an OS-specific value using a module like
+C<Date::Parse>. An array of values, such as those returned by
+C<localtime>, can be converted to an OS-specific representation using
+C<Time::Local>.
+
+
+=head2 Character sets and character encoding
+
+Assume very little about character sets. Do not assume anything about
+the numerical values (C<ord()>, C<chr()>) of characters. Do not
+assume that the alphabetic characters are encoded contiguously (in
+numerical sense). Do not assume anything about the ordering of the
+characters. The lowercase letters may come before or after the
+uppercase letters, the lowercase and uppercase may be interlaced so
+that both 'a' and 'A' come before the 'b', the accented and other
+international characters may be interlaced so that E<auml> comes
+before the 'b'.
+
-Don't assume that the epoch starts at January 1, 1970, because that is
-OS-specific. Better to store a date in an unambiguous representation.
-A text representation (like C<1 Jan 1970>) can be easily converted into an
-OS-specific value using a module like C<Date::Parse>. An array of values,
-such as those returned by C<localtime>, can be converted to an OS-specific
-representation using C<Time::Local>.
+=head2 Internationalisation
+
+If you may assume POSIX (a rather large assumption, that in practice
+means UNIX), you may read more about the POSIX locale system from
+L<perllocale>. The locale system at least attempts to make things a
+little bit more portable, or at least more convenient and
+native-friendly for non-English users. The system affects character
+sets and encoding, and date and time formatting, among other things.
=head2 System Resources
-If your code is destined for systems with severely constrained (or missing!)
-virtual memory systems then you want to be especially mindful of avoiding
-wasteful constructs such as:
+If your code is destined for systems with severely constrained (or
+missing!) virtual memory systems then you want to be I<especially> mindful
+of avoiding wasteful constructs such as:
# NOTE: this is no longer "bad" in perl5.005
for (0..10000000) {} # bad
@lines = <VERY_LARGE_FILE>; # bad
while (<FILE>) {$file .= $_} # sometimes bad
- $file = join '', <FILE>; # better
+ $file = join('', <FILE>); # better
The last two may appear unintuitive to most people. The first of those
two constructs repeatedly grows a string, while the second allocates a
large chunk of memory in one go. On some systems, the latter is more
efficient that the former.
+
=head2 Security
-Most Unix platforms provide basic levels of security that is usually felt
-at the file-system level. Other platforms usually don't (unfortunately).
-Thus the notion of User-ID, or "home" directory, or even the state of
-being logged-in may be unrecognizable on may platforms. If you write
-programs that are security conscious, it is usually best to know what
-type of system you will be operating under, and write code explicitly
+Most multi-user platforms provide basic levels of security that is usually
+felt at the file-system level. Other platforms usually don't
+(unfortunately). Thus the notion of user id, or "home" directory, or even
+the state of being logged-in, may be unrecognizable on many platforms. If
+you write programs that are security conscious, it is usually best to know
+what type of system you will be operating under, and write code explicitly
for that platform (or class of platforms).
+
=head2 Style
For those times when it is necessary to have platform-specific code,
consider keeping the platform-specific code in one place, making porting
to other platforms easier. Use the C<Config> module and the special
-variable C<$^O> to differentiate platforms, as described in L<"PLATFORMS">.
+variable C<$^O> to differentiate platforms, as described in
+L<"PLATFORMS">.
-=head1 CPAN TESTERS
+=head1 CPAN Testers
-Module uploaded to CPAN are tested by a variety of volunteers on
-different platforms. These CPAN testers are notified by e-mail of each
+Modules uploaded to CPAN are tested by a variety of volunteers on
+different platforms. These CPAN testers are notified by mail of each
new upload, and reply to the list with PASS, FAIL, NA (not applicable to
-this platform), or ???? (unknown), along with any relevant notations.
+this platform), or UNKNOWN (unknown), along with any relevant notations.
The purpose of the testing is twofold: one, to help developers fix any
-problems in their code; two, to provide users with information about
-whether or not a given module works on a given platform.
+problems in their code that crop up because of lack of testing on other
+platforms; two, to provide users with information about whether or not
+a given module works on a given platform.
=over 4
e.g. most of the files in the F<hints/> directory in the source code kit).
On most of these systems, the value of C<$^O> (hence C<$Config{'osname'}>,
too) is determined by lowercasing and stripping punctuation from the first
-field of the string returned by typing
-
- % uname -a
-
-(or a similar command) at the shell prompt. Here, for example, are a few
-of the more popular Unix flavors:
-
- uname $^O
- --------------------
- AIX aix
- FreeBSD freebsd
- Linux linux
- HP-UX hpux
- OSF1 dec_osf
- SunOS solaris
- SunOS4 sunos
-
+field of the string returned by typing C<uname -a> (or a similar command)
+at the shell prompt. Here, for example, are a few of the more popular
+Unix flavors:
+
+ uname $^O $Config{'archname'}
+ -------------------------------------------
+ AIX aix aix
+ FreeBSD freebsd freebsd-i386
+ Linux linux i386-linux
+ HP-UX hpux PA-RISC1.1
+ IRIX irix irix
+ OSF1 dec_osf alpha-dec_osf
+ SunOS solaris sun4-solaris
+ SunOS solaris i86pc-solaris
+ SunOS4 sunos sun4-sunos
+
+Note that because the C<$Config{'archname'}> may depend on the hardware
+architecture it may vary quite a lot, much more than the C<$^O>.
=head2 DOS and Derivatives
probably better, as it is more consistent with popular usage, and avoids
the problem of remembering what to backwhack and what not to.
-The DOS FAT file system can only accomodate "8.3" style filenames. Under
+The DOS FAT filesystem can only accommodate "8.3" style filenames. Under
the "case insensitive, but case preserving" HPFS (OS/2) and NTFS (NT)
-file systems you may have to be careful about case returned with functions
+filesystems you may have to be careful about case returned with functions
like C<readdir> or used with functions like C<open> or C<opendir>.
DOS also treats several filenames as special, such as AUX, PRN, NUL, CON,
=back
-=head2 MacPerl
+=head2 S<Mac OS>
Any module requiring XS compilation is right out for most people, because
MacPerl is built using non-free (and non-cheap!) compilers. Some XS
modules that can work with MacPerl are built and distributed in binary
-form on CPAN. See I<MacPerl: Power and Ease> for more details.
+form on CPAN. See I<MacPerl: Power and Ease> and L<"CPAN Testers">
+for more details.
Directories are specified as:
limited to 31 characters, and may include any character except C<:>,
which is reserved as a path separator.
-Instead of C<flock>, see C<FSpSetFLock> and C<FSpRstFLock> in
-C<Mac::Files>.
+Instead of C<flock>, see C<FSpSetFLock> and C<FSpRstFLock> in the
+C<Mac::Files> module, or C<chmod(0444, ...)> and C<chmod(0666, ...)>.
In the MacPerl application, you can't run a program from the command line;
programs that expect C<@ARGV> to be populated can be edited with something
perl myscript.plx some arguments
ToolServer is another app from Apple that provides access to MPW tools
-from MPW and the MacPerl app, which allows MacPerl program to use
+from MPW and the MacPerl app, which allows MacPerl programs to use
C<system>, backticks, and piped C<open>.
"S<Mac OS>" is the proper name for the operating system, but the value
$is_ppc = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'MacPPC';
$is_68k = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'Mac68K';
+S<Mac OS X>, to be based on NeXT's OpenStep OS, will (in theory) be able
+to run MacPerl natively, but Unix perl will also run natively under the
+built-in Unix environment.
Also see:
=head2 VMS
Perl on VMS is discussed in F<vms/perlvms.pod> in the perl distribution.
-Note that perl on VMS can accept either VMS or Unix style file
+Note that perl on VMS can accept either VMS- or Unix-style file
specifications as in either of the following:
$ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM
VMS' RMS filesystem is case insensitive and does not preserve case.
C<readdir> returns lowercased filenames, but specifying a file for
-opening remains case insensitive. Files without extensions have a
+opening remains case insensitive. Files without extensions have a
trailing period on them, so doing a C<readdir> with a file named F<A.;5>
-will return F<a.> (though that file could be opened with C<open(FH, 'A')>.
+will return F<a.> (though that file could be opened with
+C<open(FH, 'A')>).
-RMS has an eight level limit on directory depths from any rooted logical
-(allowing 16 levels overall). Hence C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8]>
-is a valid directory specification but C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9]>
-is not. F<Makefile.PL> authors might have to take this into account, but
-at least they can refer to the former as C</PERL_ROOT/lib/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/>.
+RMS had an eight level limit on directory depths from any rooted logical
+(allowing 16 levels overall) prior to VMS 7.2. Hence
+C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8]> is a valid directory specification but
+C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9]> is not. F<Makefile.PL> authors might
+have to take this into account, but at least they can refer to the former
+as C</PERL_ROOT/lib/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/>.
-The C<VMS::Filespec> module, which gets installed as part
-of the build process on VMS, is a pure Perl module that can easily be
-installed on non-VMS platforms and can be helpful for conversions to
-and from RMS native formats.
+The C<VMS::Filespec> module, which gets installed as part of the build
+process on VMS, is a pure Perl module that can easily be installed on
+non-VMS platforms and can be helpful for conversions to and from RMS
+native formats.
What C<\n> represents depends on the type of file that is open. It could
be C<\015>, C<\012>, C<\015\012>, or nothing. Reading from a file
=back
+=head2 VOS
+
+Perl on VOS is discussed in F<README.vos> in the perl distribution.
+Note that perl on VOS can accept either VOS- or Unix-style file
+specifications as in either of the following:
+
+ $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" >system>notices
+ $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" /system/notices
+
+or even a mixture of both as in:
+
+ $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" >system/notices
+
+Note that even though VOS allows the slash character to appear in object
+names, because the VOS port of Perl interprets it as a pathname
+delimiting character, VOS files, directories, or links whose names
+contain a slash character cannot be processed. Such files must be
+renamed before they can be processed by Perl.
+
+The following C functions are unimplemented on VOS, any any attempt by
+Perl to use them will result in a fatal error message and an immediate
+exit from Perl: dup, do_aspawn, do_spawn, execlp, execl, execvp, fork,
+waitpid. Once these functions become available in the VOS POSIX.1
+implementation, you can either recompile and rebind Perl, or you can
+download a newer port from ftp.stratus.com.
+
+The value of C<$^O> on VOS is "VOS". To determine the architecture that
+you are running on without resorting to loading all of C<%Config> you
+can examine the content of the C<@INC> array like so:
+
+ if (grep(/VOS/, @INC)) {
+ print "I'm on a Stratus box!\n";
+ } else {
+ print "I'm not on a Stratus box!\n";
+ die;
+ }
+
+ if (grep(/860/, @INC)) {
+ print "This box is a Stratus XA/R!\n";
+ } elsif (grep(/7100/, @INC)) {
+ print "This box is a Stratus HP 7100 or 8000!\n";
+ } elsif (grep(/8000/, @INC)) {
+ print "This box is a Stratus HP 8000!\n";
+ } else {
+ print "This box is a Stratus 68K...\n";
+ }
+
+Also see:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item L<README.vos>
+
+=item VOS mailing list
+
+There is no specific mailing list for Perl on VOS. You can post
+comments to the comp.sys.stratus newsgroup, or subscribe to the general
+Stratus mailing list. Send a letter with "Subscribe Info-Stratus" in
+the message body to majordomo@list.stratagy.com.
+
+=item VOS Perl on the web at C<http://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/vos.html>
+
+=back
+
+
=head2 EBCDIC Platforms
Recent versions of Perl have been ported to platforms such as OS/400 on
-AS/400 minicomputers as well as OS/390 for IBM Mainframes. Such computers
-use EBCDIC character sets internally (usually Character Code Set ID 00819
-for OS/400 and IBM-1047 for OS/390). Note that on the mainframe perl
-currently works under the "Unix system services for OS/390" (formerly
-known as OpenEdition).
+AS/400 minicomputers as well as OS/390 & VM/ESA for IBM Mainframes. Such
+computers use EBCDIC character sets internally (usually Character Code
+Set ID 00819 for OS/400 and IBM-1047 for OS/390 & VM/ESA). Note that on
+the mainframe perl currently works under the "Unix system services
+for OS/390" (formerly known as OpenEdition) and VM/ESA OpenEdition.
-As of R2.5 of USS for OS/390 that Unix sub-system did not support the
-C<#!> shebang trick for script invocation. Hence, on OS/390 perl scripts
-can executed with a header similar to the following simple script:
+As of R2.5 of USS for OS/390 and Version 2.3 of VM/ESA these Unix
+sub-systems do not support the C<#!> shebang trick for script invocation.
+Hence, on OS/390 and VM/ESA perl scripts can be executed with a header
+similar to the following simple script:
: # use perl
eval 'exec /usr/local/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
print "Hello from perl!\n";
On these platforms, bear in mind that the EBCDIC character set may have
-an effect on what happens with perl functions such as C<chr>, C<pack>,
-C<print>, C<printf>, C<ord>, C<sort>, C<sprintf>, C<unpack>; as well as
-bit-fiddling with ASCII constants using operators like C<^>, C<&> and
-C<|>; not to mention dealing with socket interfaces to ASCII computers
-(see L<"NEWLINES">).
+an effect on what happens with some perl functions (such as C<chr>,
+C<pack>, C<print>, C<printf>, C<ord>, C<sort>, C<sprintf>, C<unpack>), as
+well as bit-fiddling with ASCII constants using operators like C<^>, C<&>
+and C<|>, not to mention dealing with socket interfaces to ASCII computers
+(see L<Newlines>).
Fortunately, most web servers for the mainframe will correctly translate
the C<\n> in the following statement to its ASCII equivalent (note that
-C<\r> is the same under both ASCII and EBCDIC):
+C<\r> is the same under both Unix and OS/390 & VM/ESA):
print "Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n";
The value of C<$^O> on OS/390 is "os390".
+The value of C<$^O> on VM/ESA is "vmesa".
+
Some simple tricks for determining if you are running on an EBCDIC
platform could include any of the following (perhaps all):
if (chr(169) eq 'z') { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; }
Note that one thing you may not want to rely on is the EBCDIC encoding
-of punctuation characters since these may differ from code page to code page
-(and once your module or script is rumoured to work with EBCDIC, folks will
-want it to work with all EBCDIC character sets).
+of punctuation characters since these may differ from code page to code
+page (and once your module or script is rumoured to work with EBCDIC,
+folks will want it to work with all EBCDIC character sets).
Also see:
general usage issues for all EBCDIC Perls. Send a message body of
"subscribe perl-mvs" to majordomo@perl.org.
-=item AS/400 Perl information at C<http://as400.rochester.ibm.com>
+=item AS/400 Perl information at C<http://as400.rochester.ibm.com/>
=back
+
+=head2 Acorn RISC OS
+
+As Acorns use ASCII with newlines (C<\n>) in text files as C<\012> like
+Unix and Unix filename emulation is turned on by default, it is quite
+likely that most simple scripts will work "out of the box". The native
+filing system is modular, and individual filing systems are free to be
+case-sensitive or insensitive, and are usually case-preserving. Some
+native filing systems have name length limits which file and directory
+names are silently truncated to fit - scripts should be aware that the
+standard disc filing system currently has a name length limit of B<10>
+characters, with up to 77 items in a directory, but other filing systems
+may not impose such limitations.
+
+Native filenames are of the form
+
+ Filesystem#Special_Field::DiscName.$.Directory.Directory.File
+
+where
+
+ Special_Field is not usually present, but may contain . and $ .
+ Filesystem =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_]|
+ DsicName =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_/]|
+ $ represents the root directory
+ . is the path separator
+ @ is the current directory (per filesystem but machine global)
+ ^ is the parent directory
+ Directory and File =~ m|[^\0- "\.\$\%\&:\@\\^\|\177]+|
+
+The default filename translation is roughly C<tr|/.|./|;>
+
+Note that C<"ADFS::HardDisc.$.File" ne 'ADFS::HardDisc.$.File'> and that
+the second stage of C<$> interpolation in regular expressions will fall
+foul of the C<$.> if scripts are not careful.
+
+Logical paths specified by system variables containing comma-separated
+search lists are also allowed, hence C<System:Modules> is a valid
+filename, and the filesystem will prefix C<Modules> with each section of
+C<System$Path> until a name is made that points to an object on disc.
+Writing to a new file C<System:Modules> would only be allowed if
+C<System$Path> contains a single item list. The filesystem will also
+expand system variables in filenames if enclosed in angle brackets, so
+C<E<lt>System$DirE<gt>.Modules> would look for the file
+S<C<$ENV{'System$Dir'} . 'Modules'>>. The obvious implication of this is
+that B<fully qualified filenames can start with C<E<lt>E<gt>>> and should
+be protected when C<open> is used for input.
+
+Because C<.> was in use as a directory separator and filenames could not
+be assumed to be unique after 10 characters, Acorn implemented the C
+compiler to strip the trailing C<.c> C<.h> C<.s> and C<.o> suffix from
+filenames specified in source code and store the respective files in
+subdirectories named after the suffix. Hence files are translated:
+
+ foo.h h.foo
+ C:foo.h C:h.foo (logical path variable)
+ sys/os.h sys.h.os (C compiler groks Unix-speak)
+ 10charname.c c.10charname
+ 10charname.o o.10charname
+ 11charname_.c c.11charname (assuming filesystem truncates at 10)
+
+The Unix emulation library's translation of filenames to native assumes
+that this sort of translation is required, and allows a user defined list
+of known suffixes which it will transpose in this fashion. This may
+appear transparent, but consider that with these rules C<foo/bar/baz.h>
+and C<foo/bar/h/baz> both map to C<foo.bar.h.baz>, and that C<readdir> and
+C<glob> cannot and do not attempt to emulate the reverse mapping. Other
+C<.>s in filenames are translated to C</>.
+
+As implied above the environment accessed through C<%ENV> is global, and
+the convention is that program specific environment variables are of the
+form C<Program$Name>. Each filing system maintains a current directory,
+and the current filing system's current directory is the B<global> current
+directory. Consequently, sociable scripts don't change the current
+directory but rely on full pathnames, and scripts (and Makefiles) cannot
+assume that they can spawn a child process which can change the current
+directory without affecting its parent (and everyone else for that
+matter).
+
+As native operating system filehandles are global and currently are
+allocated down from 255, with 0 being a reserved value the Unix emulation
+library emulates Unix filehandles. Consequently, you can't rely on
+passing C<STDIN>, C<STDOUT>, or C<STDERR> to your children.
+
+The desire of users to express filenames of the form
+C<E<lt>Foo$DirE<gt>.Bar> on the command line unquoted causes problems,
+too: C<``> command output capture has to perform a guessing game. It
+assumes that a string C<E<lt>[^E<lt>E<gt>]+\$[^E<lt>E<gt>]E<gt>> is a
+reference to an environment variable, whereas anything else involving
+C<E<lt>> or C<E<gt>> is redirection, and generally manages to be 99%
+right. Of course, the problem remains that scripts cannot rely on any
+Unix tools being available, or that any tools found have Unix-like command
+line arguments.
+
+Extensions and XS are, in theory, buildable by anyone using free tools.
+In practice, many don't, as users of the Acorn platform are used to binary
+distribution. MakeMaker does run, but no available make currently copes
+with MakeMaker's makefiles; even if/when this is fixed, the lack of a
+Unix-like shell can cause problems with makefile rules, especially lines
+of the form C<cd sdbm && make all>, and anything using quoting.
+
+"S<RISC OS>" is the proper name for the operating system, but the value
+in C<$^O> is "riscos" (because we don't like shouting).
+
+Also see:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item perl list
+
+=back
+
+
=head2 Other perls
Perl has been ported to a variety of platforms that do not fit into any of
the above categories. Some, such as AmigaOS, BeOS, QNX, and Plan 9, have
-been well integrated into the standard Perl source code kit. You may need
+been well-integrated into the standard Perl source code kit. You may need
to see the F<ports/> directory on CPAN for information, and possibly
-binaries, for the likes of: acorn, aos, atari, lynxos, HP-MPE/iX, riscos,
-Tandem Guardian, vos, I<etc.> (yes we know that some of these OSes may fall
-under the Unix category but we are not a standards body.)
+binaries, for the likes of: aos, atari, lynxos, riscos, Tandem Guardian,
+vos, I<etc.> (yes we know that some of these OSes may fall under the Unix
+category, but we are not a standards body.)
See also:
=item Novell Netware
-A free Perl 5 based PERL.NLM for Novell Netware is available from
+A free perl5-based PERL.NLM for Novell Netware is available from
C<http://www.novell.com/>
=back
doubt, consult the platform-specific README files in the Perl source
distribution, and other documentation resources for a given port.
-Be aware, moreover, that even among Unix-ish systems there are variations,
-and not all functions listed here are necessarily available, though
-most usually are.
+Be aware, moreover, that even among Unix-ish systems there are variations.
For many functions, you can also query C<%Config>, exported by default
from C<Config.pm>. For example, to check if the platform has the C<lstat>
-call, check C<$Config{'d_lstat'}>. See L<Config> for a full description
-of available variables.
+call, check C<$Config{'d_lstat'}>. See L<Config.pm> for a full
+description of available variables.
=head2 Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions
C<-r>, C<-w>, C<-x>, and C<-o> tell whether or not file is accessible,
which may not reflect UIC-based file protections. (VMS)
+C<-s> returns the size of the data fork, not the total size of data fork
+plus resource fork. (S<Mac OS>).
+
+C<-s> by name on an open file will return the space reserved on disk,
+rather than the current extent. C<-s> on an open filehandle returns the
+current size. (S<RISC OS>)
+
C<-R>, C<-W>, C<-X>, C<-O> are indistinguishable from C<-r>, C<-w>,
-C<-x>, C<-o>. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+C<-x>, C<-o>. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
C<-b>, C<-c>, C<-k>, C<-g>, C<-p>, C<-u>, C<-A> are not implemented.
(S<Mac OS>)
C<-g>, C<-k>, C<-l>, C<-p>, C<-u>, C<-A> are not particularly meaningful.
-(Win32, VMS)
+(Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
C<-d> is true if passed a device spec without an explicit directory.
(VMS)
C<-T> and C<-B> are implemented, but might misclassify Mac text files
-with foreign characters; this is the case will all platforms, but
-affects S<Mac OS> a lot. (S<Mac OS>)
+with foreign characters; this is the case will all platforms, but may
+affect S<Mac OS> often. (S<Mac OS>)
C<-x> (or C<-X>) determine if a file ends in one of the executable
suffixes. C<-S> is meaningless. (Win32)
+C<-x> (or C<-X>) determine if a file has an executable file type.
+(S<RISC OS>)
+
=item binmode FILEHANDLE
-Meaningless. (S<Mac OS>)
+Meaningless. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
Reopens file and restores pointer; if function fails, underlying
filehandle may be closed, or pointer may be in a different position.
Only good for changing "owner" read-write access, "group", and "other"
bits are meaningless. (Win32)
+Only good for changing "owner" and "other" read-write access. (S<RISC OS>)
+
+Access permissions are mapped onto VOS access-control list changes. (VOS)
+
=item chown LIST
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
Does nothing, but won't fail. (Win32)
=item chroot
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
=item crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT
May not be available if library or source was not provided when building
-perl. (Win32)
+perl. (Win32)
+
+Not implemented. (VOS)
=item dbmclose HASH
-Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS)
=item dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MODE
-Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS)
=item dump LABEL
-Not useful. (S<Mac OS>)
+Not useful. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
Not implemented. (Win32)
-Invokes VMS debugger. (VMS)
+Invokes VMS debugger. (VMS)
=item exec LIST
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
+Implemented via Spawn. (VM/ESA)
+
=item fcntl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
Not implemented. (Win32, VMS)
=item flock FILEHANDLE,OPERATION
-Not implemented (S<Mac OS>, VMS).
+Not implemented (S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS).
Available only on Windows NT (not on Windows 95). (Win32)
=item fork
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, AmigaOS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, AmigaOS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
=item getlogin
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
=item getpgrp PID
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item getppid
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item getpriority WHICH,WHO
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
=item getpwnam NAME
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item getgrnam NAME
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item getnetbyname NAME
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item getgrgid GID
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item getnetbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE
=item getpwent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VM/ESA)
=item getgrent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, VM/ESA)
=item gethostent
=item setpwent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
=item setgrent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item sethostent STAYOPEN
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
=item setnetent STAYOPEN
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
=item setprotoent STAYOPEN
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
=item setservent STAYOPEN
-Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32)
+Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
=item endpwent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VM/ESA)
=item endgrent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VM/ESA)
=item endhostent
Globbing built-in, but only C<*> and C<?> metacharacters are supported.
(S<Mac OS>)
-Features depend on external perlglob.exe or perlglob.bat. May be overridden
-with something like File::DosGlob, which is recommended. (Win32)
+Features depend on external perlglob.exe or perlglob.bat. May be
+overridden with something like File::DosGlob, which is recommended.
+(Win32)
+
+Globbing built-in, but only C<*> and C<?> metacharacters are supported.
+Globbing relies on operating system calls, which may return filenames
+in any order. As most filesystems are case-insensitive, even "sorted"
+filenames will not be in case-sensitive order. (S<RISC OS>)
=item ioctl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
Available only for socket handles, and it does what the ioctlsocket() call
in the Winsock API does. (Win32)
+Available only for socket handles. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item kill LIST
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
+Not implemented, hence not useful for taint checking. (S<Mac OS>,
+S<RISC OS>)
-Available only for process handles returned by the C<system(1, ...)> method of
-spawning a process. (Win32)
+Available only for process handles returned by the C<system(1, ...)>
+method of spawning a process. (Win32)
=item link OLDFILE,NEWFILE
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
+
+Link count not updated because hard links are not quite that hard
+(They are sort of half-way between hard and soft links). (AmigaOS)
=item lstat FILEHANDLE
=item lstat
-Not implemented. (VMS)
+Not implemented. (VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-Return values may be bogus. (Win32)
+Return values may be bogus. (Win32)
=item msgctl ID,CMD,ARG
=item msgrcv ID,VAR,SIZE,TYPE,FLAGS
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item open FILEHANDLE,EXPR
The C<|> variants are only supported if ToolServer is installed.
(S<Mac OS>)
-open to C<|-> and C<-|> are unsupported. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
+open to C<|-> and C<-|> are unsupported. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
=item pipe READHANDLE,WRITEHANDLE
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
+Very limited functionality. (MiNT)
+
=item readlink EXPR
=item readlink
-Not implemented. (Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item select RBITS,WBITS,EBITS,TIMEOUT
Only implemented on sockets. (Win32)
+Only reliable on sockets. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item semctl ID,SEMNUM,CMD,ARG
=item semget KEY,NSEMS,FLAGS
=item semop KEY,OPSTRING
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item setpgrp PID,PGRP
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item setpriority WHICH,WHO,PRIORITY
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item setsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME,OPTVAL
=item shmwrite ID,STRING,POS,SIZE
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item socketpair SOCKET1,SOCKET2,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
=item stat FILEHANDLE
device and inode are not necessarily reliable. (VMS)
+mtime, atime and ctime all return the last modification time. Device and
+inode are not necessarily reliable. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item symlink OLDFILE,NEWFILE
-Not implemented. (Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item syscall LIST
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
+
+=item sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE,PERMS
+
+The traditional "0", "1", and "2" MODEs are implemented with different
+numeric values on some systems. The flags exported by C<Fcntl>
+(O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) should work everywhere though. (S<Mac
+OS>, OS/390, VM/ESA)
=item system LIST
waiting for it to terminate. Return value may be used subsequently
in C<wait> or C<waitpid>. (Win32)
+There is no shell to process metacharacters, and the native standard is
+to pass a command line terminated by "\n" "\r" or "\0" to the spawned
+program. Redirection such as C<E<gt> foo> is performed (if at all) by
+the run time library of the spawned program. C<system> I<list> will call
+the Unix emulation library's C<exec> emulation, which attempts to provide
+emulation of the stdin, stdout, stderr in force in the parent, providing
+the child program uses a compatible version of the emulation library.
+I<scalar> will call the native command line direct and no such emulation
+of a child Unix program will exists. Mileage B<will> vary. (S<RISC OS>)
+
+Far from being POSIX compliant. Because there may be no underlying
+/bin/sh tries to work around the problem by forking and execing the
+first token in its argument string. Handles basic redirection
+("E<lt>" or "E<gt>") on its own behalf. (MiNT)
+
=item times
Only the first entry returned is nonzero. (S<Mac OS>)
"system" time will be bogus, and "user" time is actually the time
returned by the clock() function in the C runtime library. (Win32)
+Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=item truncate FILEHANDLE,LENGTH
=item truncate EXPR,LENGTH
Not implemented. (VMS)
+Truncation to zero-length only. (VOS)
+
+If a FILEHANDLE is supplied, it must be writable and opened in append
+mode (i.e., use C<open(FH, '>>filename')>
+or C<sysopen(FH,...,O_APPEND|O_RDWR)>. If a filename is supplied, it
+should not be held open elsewhere. (Win32)
+
=item umask EXPR
=item umask
Returns undef where unavailable, as of version 5.005.
+C<umask()> works but the correct permissions are only set when the file
+is finally close()d. (AmigaOS)
+
=item utime LIST
-Only the modification time is updated. (S<Mac OS>, VMS)
+Only the modification time is updated. (S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-May not behave as expected. (Win32)
+May not behave as expected. Behavior depends on the C runtime
+library's implementation of utime(), and the filesystem being
+used. The FAT filesystem typically does not support an "access
+time" field, and it may limit timestamps to a granularity of
+two seconds. (Win32)
=item wait
=item waitpid PID,FLAGS
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, VOS)
Can only be applied to process handles returned for processes spawned
using C<system(1, ...)>. (Win32)
+Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
+
=back
+=head1 CHANGES
+
+=over 4
+
+=item v1.38, 31 December 1998
+
+More changes from Jarkko.
+
+=item v1.37, 19 December 1998
+
+More minor changes. Merge two separate version 1.35 documents.
+
+=item v1.36, 9 September 1998
+
+Updated for Stratus VOS. Also known as version 1.35.
+
+=item v1.35, 13 August 1998
+
+Integrate more minor changes, plus addition of new sections under
+L<"ISSUES">: L<"Numbers endianness and Width">,
+L<"Character sets and character encoding">,
+L<"Internationalisation">.
+
+=item v1.33, 06 August 1998
+
+Integrate more minor changes.
+
+=item v1.32, 05 August 1998
+
+Integrate more minor changes.
+
+=item v1.30, 03 August 1998
+
+Major update for RISC OS, other minor changes.
+
+=item v1.23, 10 July 1998
+
+First public release with perl5.005.
+
+=back
=head1 AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS
-Chris Nandor E<lt>pudge@pobox.comE<gt>,
-Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@umich.eduE<gt>,
-Peter Prymmer E<lt>pvhp@forte.comE<gt>,
+Abigail E<lt>abigail@fnx.comE<gt>,
+Charles Bailey E<lt>bailey@newman.upenn.eduE<gt>,
+Graham Barr E<lt>gbarr@pobox.comE<gt>,
Tom Christiansen E<lt>tchrist@perl.comE<gt>,
-Nathan Torkington E<lt>gnat@frii.comE<gt>,
-Paul Moore E<lt>Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.comE<gt>,
-Matthias Neercher E<lt>neeri@iis.ee.ethz.chE<gt>,
-Charles Bailey E<lt>bailey@genetics.upenn.eduE<gt>,
+Nicholas Clark E<lt>Nicholas.Clark@liverpool.ac.ukE<gt>,
+Andy Dougherty E<lt>doughera@lafcol.lafayette.eduE<gt>,
+Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@vo.luE<gt>,
+Neale Ferguson E<lt>neale@mailbox.tabnsw.com.auE<gt>
+Paul Green E<lt>Paul_Green@stratus.comE<gt>,
+M.J.T. Guy E<lt>mjtg@cus.cam.ac.ukE<gt>,
+Jarkko Hietaniemi E<lt>jhi@iki.fi<gt>,
Luther Huffman E<lt>lutherh@stratcom.comE<gt>,
-Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>,
Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>,
-Paul J. Schinder E<lt>schinder@pobox.comE<gt>,
+Andreas J. KE<ouml>nig E<lt>koenig@kulturbox.deE<gt>,
+Markus Laker E<lt>mlaker@contax.co.ukE<gt>,
+Andrew M. Langmead E<lt>aml@world.std.comE<gt>,
+Paul Moore E<lt>Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.comE<gt>,
+Chris Nandor E<lt>pudge@pobox.comE<gt>,
+Matthias Neeracher E<lt>neeri@iis.ee.ethz.chE<gt>,
+Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>,
Tom Phoenix E<lt>rootbeer@teleport.comE<gt>,
-Hugo van der Sanden E<lt>h.sanden@elsevier.nlE<gt>,
-Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@vo.luE<gt>,
+Peter Prymmer E<lt>pvhp@forte.comE<gt>,
+Hugo van der Sanden E<lt>hv@crypt0.demon.co.ukE<gt>,
+Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@umich.eduE<gt>,
+Paul J. Schinder E<lt>schinder@pobox.comE<gt>,
Dan Sugalski E<lt>sugalskd@ous.eduE<gt>,
-Andreas J. Koenig E<lt>koenig@kulturbox.deE<gt>,
-Andrew M. Langmead E<lt>aml@world.std.comE<gt>,
-Andy Dougherty E<lt>doughera@lafcol.lafayette.eduE<gt>,
-Abigail E<lt>abigail@fnx.comE<gt>.
+Nathan Torkington E<lt>gnat@frii.comE<gt>.
-This document is maintained by Chris Nandor.
+This document is maintained by Chris Nandor
+E<lt>pudge@pobox.comE<gt>.
=head1 VERSION
-Version 1.23, last modified 10 July 1998.
-
+Version 1.38, last modified 31 December 1998
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff