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[perl5.git] / README.symbian

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=head1 NAME

README.symbian - Perl version 5 on Symbian OS

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document describes various features of the Symbian operating
system that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
is compiled and/or runs.

B<NOTE: this port (as of 0.1.0) does not compile into a Symbian
OS GUI application, but instead it results in a Symbian DLL.>
The DLL includes a C++ class called CPerlBase, which one can then
(derive from and) use to embed Perl into applications, see F<symbian/README>.

The base port of Perl to Symbian only implements the basic POSIX-like
functionality; it does not implement any further Symbian or Series 60
bindings for Perl.

It is also possible to generate Symbian executables for "miniperl"
and "perl", but since there is no standard command line interface
for Symbian (nor full keyboards in the devices), these are useful
mainly as demonstrations.

=head2 Compiling Perl on Symbian

(0) You need to have the Symbian SDK installed.

    These instructions have been tested under various Nokia Series 60
    Symbian SDKs (1.2 to 2.6).  You can get the SDKs from
    Forum Nokia (http://www.forum.nokia.com/).

    A prerequisite for any of the SDKs is to install ActivePerl
    from ActiveState, http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/

    Having the SDK installed also means that you need to have either
    the Metrowerks CodeWarrior installed (2.8 and 3.0 were used in testing)
    or the Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 installed (SP3 minimum, SP5 recommended).

    Note that for example the Serie s60 2.0 VC SDK installation talks
    about ActivePerl build 518, which does no more (as of mid-2004) exist
    at the ActiveState website.  The ActivePerl 5.8.4 build 810 was
    used successfully for compiling Perl on Symbian.  The 5.6.x ActivePerls
    do not work.

    Other SDKs or compilers like Visual.NET, command-line-only
    Visual.NET, Borland, GnuPoc, or sdk2unix have not been tried.

    These instructions almost certainly won't work with older Symbian
    releases or other SDKs.  Patches to get this port running in other
    releases, SDKs, compilers, platforms, or devices are naturally welcome.

(1) Get a Perl source code distribution (for example the file
    perl-5.9.2.tar.gz is fine) from http://www.cpan.org/src/
    and unpack it in your the C:/Symbian directory of your Windows
    system.

(2) Change to the perl source directory.

	cd c:\Symbian\perl-5.x.x

(3) Run the following script using the perl coming with the SDK

	perl symbian\config.pl

    You must use the cmd.exe, the Cygwin shell will not work
    (the PATH must include the SDK tools, including a Perl,
    which should be the case under cmd.exe)

(4) Build the project, either by

	make all

    in cmd.exe or by using either the Metrowerks CodeWarrior
    or the Visual C++ 6.0.

    If you use the VC IDE, you will have to run F<symbian\config.pl>
    first using the cmd.exe, and then run 'make win.mf vc6.mf' to generate
    the VC6 makefiles and workspaces.

    The following Series 60 SDK and compiler configurations and Nokia
    phones that were tested (+ = compiled and PerlApp run, - = not),
    both for Perl 5.8.x and 5.9.x:

        SDK | VC | CW |
        ----+----+----+---
        1.2 | +  | +  | 3650 (*)
        2.0 | +  | +  | 6600
        2.1 | -  | +  | 6670
        2.6 | +  | +  | 6630    

    If you are using the 'make' directly, it is the GNU make from the SDKs,
    and it will invoke the right make commands for the Windows emulator
    build and the Arm target builds ('thumb' by default) as necessary.
    (*) Compiles but does not work, unfortunately.

    The build scripts assume the 'absolute style' SDK installs under C:,
    the 'subst style' will not work.

    If using the VC IDE, to build use for example the File->Open Workspace->
    C:\Symbian\8.as\S60_2nd_FP2\epoc32\build\symbian\perl\perl\wins\perl.dsw
    The emulator binaries will appear in the same directory.

    If using the VC IDE, you will a lot of warnings in the beginning of
    the build because a lot of headers mentioned by the source cannot
    be found, but this is not serious since those headers are not used.

    The Metrowerks will give a lot of warnings about unused variables and
    empty declarations, you can ignore those.

    When the Windows and Arm DLLs are built do not be scared by a very long
    messages whizzing by: it is the "export freeze" phase where the whole
    (rather large) API of Perl is listed.

    Once the build is completed you need to create the DLL SIS file by

	make perldll.sis

    which will create the file perlXYZ.sis (the XYZ being the Perl version)
    which you can then install into your Symbian device: an easy way
    to do this is to send them via Bluetooth or infrared and just open
    the messages.

    Since the total size of all Perl SIS files once installed is
    over 1.9 MB, it is recommended to do the installation into a
    memory card (drive E:) instead of the C: drive.

    The size of the perlXYZ.SIS is about 370 kB but once it is in the
    device it is about one 750 kB (according to the application manager).

    The perlXYZ.sis includes only the Perl DLL: to create an additional
    SIS file which includes some of the standard (pure) Perl libraries,
    issue the command

        make perllib.sis

    Some of the standard Perl libraries are included, but not all:
    see L</HISTORY> or F<symbian\install.cfg> for more details
    (250 kB -> 700 kB).

    Some of the standard Perl XS extensions (see L</HISTORY> are
    also available:

        make perlext.sis

    which will create perlXYZext.sis (210 kB -> 470 kB).

    To compile the demonstration application PerlApp you need first to
    install the Perl headers under the SDK.

    To install the Perl headers and the class CPerlBase documentation
    so that you no more need the Perl sources around to compile Perl
    applications using the SDK:

        make sdkinstall

    The destination directory is C:\Symbian\perl\X.Y.Z.  For more
    details, see F<symbian\PerlBase.pod>.

    Once the headers have been installed, you can create a SIS for
    the PerlApp:

        make perlapp.sis

    The perlapp.sis (11 kB -> 16 kB) will be built in the symbian
    subdirectory, but a copy will also be made to the main directory.

    If you want to package the Perl DLLs (one for WINS, one for ARMI),
    the headers, and the documentation:

        make perlsdk.zip

    which will create perlXYZsdk.zip that can be used in another
    Windows system with the SDK, without having to compile Perl in
    that system.

    If you want to package the PerlApp sources:

        make perlapp.zip

    If you want to package the perl.exe and miniperl.exe, you
    can use the perlexe.sis and miniperlexe.sis make targets.
    You also probably want the perllib.sis for the libraries
    and maybe even the perlapp.sis for the recognizer.

    The make target 'allsis' combines all the above SIS targets.

    To clean up after compilation you can use either of

        make clean
        make distclean

    depending on how clean you want to be.

=head2 Compilation problems

If you see right after "make" this

    cat makefile.sh >makefile
    'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
    operable program or batch file.

it means you need to (re)run the symbian\config.pl.

If you get the error

        'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
        operable program or batch file.

you may need to reinstall the ActivePerl.

If you see this

    ren makedef.pl nomakedef.pl
    The system cannot find the file specified.
    C:\Symbian\...\make.exe: [rename_makedef] Error 1 (ignored)

please ignore it since it is nothing serious (the build process of
renames the Perl makedef.pl as nomakedef.pl to avoid confusing it
with a makedef.pl of the SDK).

=head2 PerlApp

The PerlApp application demonstrates how to embed Perl interpreters
to a Symbian application.  The "Time" menu item runs the following
Perl code: C<print "Running in ", $^O, "\n", scalar localtime>,
the "Oneliner" allows one to type in Perl code, and the "Run"
opens a file chooser for selecting a Perl file to run.

The PerlApp also is started when the "Perl recognizer" (also included
and installed) detects a Perl file being activated througg the GUI,
and offers either to install it under \Perl (if the Perl file is in
the inbox of the messaging application) or to run it (if the Perl file
is under \Perl).

=head2 Using Perl in Symbian

First of all note that you have full access to the Symbian device
when using Perl: you can do a lot of damage to your device (like
removing system files) unless you are careful.  Please do take
backups before doing anything.

The Perl port has been done for the most part using the Symbian
standard POSIX-ish STDLIB library. It is a reasonably complete
library, but certain corners of such emulation libraries that tend
to be left unimplemented on non-UNIX platforms have been left
unimplemented also this time: fork(), signals(), user/group ids,
select() working for sockets, non-blocking sockets, and so forth.
See the file symbian/config.sh and look for 'undef' to find the
unsupported APIs (or from Perl use Config).
  
The filesystem of Symbian devices uses DOSish syntax, "drives"
separated from paths by a colon, and backslashes for the path.
The exact assignment of the drives probably varies between platforms,
but you might for example see C: as the flash main memory, D: as the
RAM drive, E: as the memory card (MMC), Z: as the ROM.  As far the
devices go the NUL: is the bit bucket, the COMx: are the serial lines,
IRCOMx: are the IR ports, TMP: might be C:\System\Temp.  Remember to
double those backslashes in doublequoted strings.

The Perl DLL is installed in \System\Libs\.  The Perl libraries and
extension DLLs are installed in \System\Libs\Perl\X.Y.Z\.  The PerlApp
is installed in \System\Apps\, and the SIS also installs a couple of
demo scripts in \Perl\.

Note that the Symbian filesystem is very picky: it strongly prefers
the \ instead of the /.

When doing XS / Symbian C++ programming include first the Symbian
headers, then any standard C/POSIX headers, then Perl headers, and finally
any application headers.

New() and Copy() are unfortunately used by both Symbian and Perl code
so you'll have to play cpp games if you need them.  PerlBase.h undefines
the Perl definitions and redefines them as PerlNew() and PerlCopy().

=head1 TO DO

Lots.  See F<symbian\TODO>.

=head1 WARNING

As of Perl Symbian port version 0.1.0 any part of Perl's standard
regression test suite has not been run on a real Symbian device using
the ported Perl, so innumerable bugs may lie in wait.  Therefore there
is absolutely no warranty.

=head1 NOTE

When creating and extending application programming interfaces (APIs)
for Symbian or Series 60 it is suggested that trademarks, registered
trademarks, or trade names are not used in the API names.  Instead,
developers should consider basing the API naming in the existing (C++)
public component and API naming, modified as appropriate by the rules
of the programming language the new APIs are for.
  
Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Nokia's product
names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nokia.  Other product
and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of
their respective owners.

=head1 AUTHOR

Jarkko Hietaniemi

=head1 COPYRIGHT

Copyright (c) 2004-2005 Nokia.  All rights reserved.

=head1 LICENSE

The Symbian port is licensed under the same terms as Perl itself.

=head1 HISTORY

Perl Symbian Port version 0.1.0: April 2005
(This will show as "0.01" in the Symbian Installer.)

  - The console window is a very simple console indeed: one can
    get the newline with "000" and the "C" button is a backspace.
    Do not expect a terminal capable of vt100 or ANSI sequences.
    The console is also "ASCII", you cannot input e.g. any accented
    letters.  Because of obvious physical constraints the console is
    also very small: (in Nokia 6600) 22 columns, 17 rows.
  - The following libraries are available:
    AnyDBM_File AutoLoader base Carp Config Cwd constant
    DynaLoader Exporter File::Spec integer lib strict Symbol
    vars warnings XSLoader
  - The following extensions are available:
    attrs Cwd Data::Dumper Devel::Peek Digest::MD5 DynaLoader
    Fcntl File::Glob Filter::Util::Call IO List::Util MIME::Base64
    PerlIO::scalar PerlIO::via SDBM_File Socket Storable Time::HiRes
  - The following extensions are missing for various technical reasons:
    B ByteLoader Devel::DProf Devel::PPPort Encode GDBM_File
    I18N::Langinfo IPC::SysV NDBM_File Opcode PerlIO::encoding POSIX
    re Safe Sys::Hostname Sys::Syslog
    threads threads::shared Unicode::Normalize
  - Using MakeMaker or the Module::* to build and install modules
    is not supported.  A future solution might use the native
    SIS packaging format (see symbian\TODO).
  - Building XS other than the ones in the core is not supported.

Since this is 0.1.0, any future releases are almost guaranteed to be
binary incompatible.  As a sign of this the Symbian symbol exports are
kept unfrozen and the .def files rebuilt every time.

=cut