| 1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you |
| 2 | see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is |
| 3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 NAME |
| 6 | |
| 7 | perlwin32 - Perl under Win32 |
| 8 | |
| 9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
| 10 | |
| 11 | These are instructions for building Perl under Windows NT (versions |
| 12 | 3.51 or 4.0). Currently, this port is reported to build |
| 13 | under Windows95 using the 4DOS shell--the default shell that infests |
| 14 | Windows95 will not work (see below). Note this caveat is only about |
| 15 | B<building> perl. Once built, you should be able to B<use> it on |
| 16 | either Win32 platform (modulo the problems arising from the inferior |
| 17 | command shell). |
| 18 | |
| 19 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 20 | |
| 21 | Before you start, you should glance through the README file |
| 22 | found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution |
| 23 | was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under |
| 24 | which this software is being distributed. |
| 25 | |
| 26 | Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the |
| 27 | known limitations of this port. |
| 28 | |
| 29 | The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is |
| 30 | only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In |
| 31 | particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about |
| 32 | "Configure". |
| 33 | |
| 34 | You may also want to look at two other options for building |
| 35 | a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin32 and |
| 36 | README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build |
| 37 | a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will |
| 38 | probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you |
| 39 | will also need to download and use various other build-time and |
| 40 | run-time support software described in those files. |
| 41 | |
| 42 | This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" |
| 43 | port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no |
| 44 | additional software to run (other than what came with your operating |
| 45 | system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the |
| 46 | following compilers: |
| 47 | |
| 48 | Borland C++ version 5.02 or later |
| 49 | Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later |
| 50 | Mingw32 with EGCS versions 1.0.2, 1.1 |
| 51 | Mingw32 with GCC version 2.8.1 |
| 52 | |
| 53 | The last two of these are high quality freeware compilers. Support |
| 54 | for them is still experimental. |
| 55 | |
| 56 | This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that |
| 57 | is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be |
| 58 | able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. |
| 59 | See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | =head2 Setting Up |
| 62 | |
| 63 | =over 4 |
| 64 | |
| 65 | =item Command Shell |
| 66 | |
| 67 | Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the |
| 68 | popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. |
| 69 | If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd |
| 70 | shell. The Makefile also has known incompatibilites with the "command.com" |
| 71 | shell that comes with Windows95, so building under Windows95 should |
| 72 | be considered "unsupported". However, there have been reports of successful |
| 73 | build attempts using 4DOS/NT version 6.01 under Windows95, using dmake, but |
| 74 | your mileage may vary. |
| 75 | |
| 76 | The surest way to build it is on WindowsNT, using the cmd shell. |
| 77 | |
| 78 | Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The |
| 79 | build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. |
| 80 | |
| 81 | =item Borland C++ |
| 82 | |
| 83 | If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake, a freely |
| 84 | available make that has very nice macro features and parallelability. |
| 85 | (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not |
| 86 | work for MakeMaker builds.) |
| 87 | |
| 88 | A port of dmake for win32 platforms is available from: |
| 89 | |
| 90 | http://www-personal.umich.edu/~gsar/dmake-4.1-win32.zip |
| 91 | |
| 92 | Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions |
| 93 | in the README.NOW file). |
| 94 | |
| 95 | =item Microsoft Visual C++ |
| 96 | |
| 97 | The NMAKE that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. |
| 98 | You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere |
| 99 | like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment. |
| 100 | |
| 101 | You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided: |
| 102 | you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name |
| 103 | under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment, |
| 104 | and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The |
| 105 | latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default |
| 106 | make for building extensions using MakeMaker. |
| 107 | |
| 108 | =item Mingw32 with EGCS or GCC |
| 109 | |
| 110 | ECGS binaries can be downloaded from: |
| 111 | |
| 112 | ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/ |
| 113 | |
| 114 | GCC-2.8.1 binaries are available from: |
| 115 | |
| 116 | http://agnes.dida.physik.uni-essen.de/~janjaap/mingw32/ |
| 117 | |
| 118 | You only need either one of those, not both. Both bundles come with |
| 119 | Mingw32 libraries and headers. While both of them work to build perl, |
| 120 | the EGCS binaries are currently favored by the maintainers, since they |
| 121 | come with more up-to-date Mingw32 libraries. |
| 122 | |
| 123 | Make sure you install the binaries as indicated in the web sites |
| 124 | above. You will need to set up a few environment variables (usually |
| 125 | run from a batch file). |
| 126 | |
| 127 | You also need dmake. See L</"Borland C++"> above on how to get it. |
| 128 | |
| 129 | =back |
| 130 | |
| 131 | =head2 Building |
| 132 | |
| 133 | =over 4 |
| 134 | |
| 135 | =item * |
| 136 | |
| 137 | Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. |
| 138 | This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with |
| 139 | versions of NMAKE that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk" |
| 140 | that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake |
| 141 | makefile are setup to build using the Borland compiler. |
| 142 | |
| 143 | =item * |
| 144 | |
| 145 | Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values |
| 146 | of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various build |
| 147 | flags. |
| 148 | |
| 149 | Beginning with version 5.005, there is experimental support for building |
| 150 | a perl interpreter that supports the Perl Object abstraction (courtesy |
| 151 | ActiveState Tool Corp.) PERL_OBJECT uses C++, and the binaries are |
| 152 | therefore incompatible with the regular C build. However, the |
| 153 | PERL_OBJECT build does provide something called the C-API, for linking |
| 154 | it with extensions that won't compile under PERL_OBJECT. Using the C_API |
| 155 | is typically requested through: |
| 156 | |
| 157 | perl Makefile.PL CAPI=TRUE |
| 158 | |
| 159 | PERL_OBJECT requires VC++ 5.0 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or later. It |
| 160 | is not yet supported under GCC or EGCS. WARNING: Binaries built with |
| 161 | PERL_OBJECT enabled are B<not> compatible with binaries built without. |
| 162 | Perl installs PERL_OBJECT binaries under a distinct architecture name, |
| 163 | so they B<can> coexist, though. |
| 164 | |
| 165 | Beginning with version 5.005, there is experimental support for building |
| 166 | a perl interpreter that is capable of native threading. Binaries built |
| 167 | with thread support enabled are also incompatible with the vanilla C |
| 168 | build. WARNING: Binaries built with threads enabled are B<not> compatible |
| 169 | with binaries built without. Perl installs threads enabled binaries under |
| 170 | a distinct architecture name, so they B<can> coexist, though. |
| 171 | |
| 172 | At the present time, you cannot enable both threading and PERL_OBJECT. |
| 173 | You can get only one of them in a Perl interpreter. |
| 174 | |
| 175 | If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(), |
| 176 | enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not |
| 177 | bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions |
| 178 | on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine |
| 179 | is part of the "libdes" library (written by Ed Young) which is widely |
| 180 | available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example: |
| 181 | "ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the |
| 182 | name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if |
| 183 | you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set |
| 184 | CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains |
| 185 | many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different |
| 186 | implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single, |
| 187 | self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be |
| 188 | easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is |
| 189 | in des_fcrypt.patch. |
| 190 | |
| 191 | Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will |
| 192 | fail at run time. |
| 193 | |
| 194 | You will also have to make sure CCHOME points to wherever you installed |
| 195 | your compiler. |
| 196 | |
| 197 | The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ |
| 198 | may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists |
| 199 | and is valid. |
| 200 | |
| 201 | Other options are explained in the makefiles. Be sure to read the |
| 202 | instructions carefully. |
| 203 | |
| 204 | =item * |
| 205 | |
| 206 | Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make). |
| 207 | |
| 208 | This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, |
| 209 | perl.dll (or perlcore.dll), and perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and |
| 210 | various other extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build |
| 211 | fails for any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly. |
| 212 | |
| 213 | The build process may produce "harmless" compiler warnings (more or |
| 214 | less copiously, depending on how picky your compiler gets). The |
| 215 | maintainers are aware of these warnings, thankyouverymuch. :) |
| 216 | |
| 217 | When building using Visual C++, a perl95.exe will also get built. This |
| 218 | executable is only needed on Windows95, and should be used instead of |
| 219 | perl.exe, and then only if you want sockets to work properly on Windows95. |
| 220 | This is necessitated by a bug in the Microsoft C Runtime that cannot be |
| 221 | worked around in the "normal" perl.exe. perl95.exe gets built with its |
| 222 | own private copy of the C Runtime that is not accessible to extensions |
| 223 | (which see the DLL version of the CRT). Be aware, therefore, that this |
| 224 | perl95.exe will have esoteric problems with extensions like perl/Tk that |
| 225 | themselves use the C Runtime heavily, or want to free() pointers |
| 226 | malloc()-ed by perl. |
| 227 | |
| 228 | You can avoid the perl95.exe problems completely if you either enable |
| 229 | USE_PERLCRT with Visual C++, or use Borland C++ for building perl. In |
| 230 | those cases, perl95.exe is not needed and will not be built. |
| 231 | |
| 232 | =back |
| 233 | |
| 234 | =head2 Testing |
| 235 | |
| 236 | Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from |
| 237 | the testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and but no test should fail). |
| 238 | |
| 239 | If some tests do fail, it may be because you are using a different command |
| 240 | shell than the native "cmd.exe", or because you are building from a path |
| 241 | that contains spaces. So don't do that. |
| 242 | |
| 243 | If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see |
| 244 | failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. |
| 245 | |
| 246 | If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t |
| 247 | arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system |
| 248 | default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages |
| 249 | from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory |
| 250 | (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test. |
| 251 | |
| 252 | The Visual C runtime apparently has a bug that causes posix.t to fail |
| 253 | test#2. This usually happens only if you extracted the files in text |
| 254 | mode. Enable the USE_PERLCRT option in the Makefile to fix this bug. |
| 255 | |
| 256 | Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | =head2 Installation |
| 259 | |
| 260 | Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly |
| 261 | built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the |
| 262 | Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under |
| 263 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under |
| 264 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed, |
| 265 | you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable, |
| 266 | C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>. |
| 267 | For example: |
| 268 | |
| 269 | set PATH c:\perl\5.005\bin;c:\perl\5.005\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% |
| 270 | |
| 271 | |
| 272 | =head2 Usage Hints |
| 273 | |
| 274 | =over 4 |
| 275 | |
| 276 | =item Environment Variables |
| 277 | |
| 278 | The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled |
| 279 | into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start |
| 280 | using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). |
| 281 | |
| 282 | If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB |
| 283 | to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl |
| 284 | to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment |
| 285 | variables you can set in L<perlrun>. |
| 286 | |
| 287 | You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and |
| 288 | backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. |
| 289 | |
| 290 | Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default |
| 291 | values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from |
| 292 | C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. |
| 293 | Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the |
| 294 | following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set: |
| 295 | |
| 296 | lib-$] version-specific path to add to @INC |
| 297 | lib path to add to @INC |
| 298 | sitelib-$] version-specific path to add to @INC |
| 299 | sitelib path to add to @INC |
| 300 | PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" |
| 301 | |
| 302 | Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version |
| 303 | of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.00502>. Paths must be |
| 304 | separated with semicolons, as usual on win32. |
| 305 | |
| 306 | =item File Globbing |
| 307 | |
| 308 | By default, perl spawns an external program to do file globbing. |
| 309 | The install process installs both a perlglob.exe and a perlglob.bat |
| 310 | that perl can use for this purpose. Note that with the default |
| 311 | installation, perlglob.exe will be found by the system before |
| 312 | perlglob.bat. |
| 313 | |
| 314 | perlglob.exe relies on the argv expansion done by the C Runtime of |
| 315 | the particular compiler you used, and therefore behaves very |
| 316 | differently depending on the Runtime used to build it. To preserve |
| 317 | compatiblity, perlglob.bat (a perl script that can be used portably) |
| 318 | is installed. Besides being portable, perlglob.bat also offers |
| 319 | enhanced globbing functionality. |
| 320 | |
| 321 | If you want perl to use perlglob.bat instead of perlglob.exe, just |
| 322 | delete perlglob.exe from the install location (or move it somewhere |
| 323 | perl cannot find). Using File::DosGlob.pm (which implements the core |
| 324 | functionality of perlglob.bat) to override the internal CORE::glob() |
| 325 | works about 10 times faster than spawing perlglob.exe, and you should |
| 326 | take this approach when writing new modules. See File::DosGlob for |
| 327 | details. |
| 328 | |
| 329 | =item Using perl from the command line |
| 330 | |
| 331 | If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line |
| 332 | shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased |
| 333 | with what Windows NT offers by way of a command shell. |
| 334 | |
| 335 | The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is |
| 336 | the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard |
| 337 | expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be |
| 338 | quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only |
| 339 | (useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to |
| 340 | protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The |
| 341 | Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the |
| 342 | quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations |
| 343 | based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and |
| 344 | passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used |
| 345 | to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. |
| 346 | You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with |
| 347 | a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. |
| 348 | The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the |
| 349 | argument will be stripped by the shell. |
| 350 | |
| 351 | The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted |
| 352 | by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes |
| 353 | will protect those three file redirection characters, but the |
| 354 | single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this |
| 355 | type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also |
| 356 | been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get |
| 357 | stripped by the shell also). |
| 358 | |
| 359 | Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: |
| 360 | |
| 361 | This prints two doublequotes: |
| 362 | |
| 363 | perl -e "print '\"\"' " |
| 364 | |
| 365 | This does the same: |
| 366 | |
| 367 | perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " |
| 368 | |
| 369 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": |
| 370 | |
| 371 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch |
| 372 | |
| 373 | This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): |
| 374 | |
| 375 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul |
| 376 | |
| 377 | This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": |
| 378 | |
| 379 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch |
| 380 | |
| 381 | This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: |
| 382 | |
| 383 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less |
| 384 | |
| 385 | This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: |
| 386 | |
| 387 | perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less |
| 388 | |
| 389 | This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": |
| 390 | |
| 391 | perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less |
| 392 | |
| 393 | |
| 394 | Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows95 |
| 395 | is left as an exercise to the reader :) |
| 396 | |
| 397 | =item Building Extensions |
| 398 | |
| 399 | The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth |
| 400 | of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. |
| 401 | Look in http://www.perl.com/ for more information on CPAN. |
| 402 | |
| 403 | Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can |
| 404 | be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: |
| 405 | |
| 406 | perl Makefile.PL |
| 407 | $MAKE |
| 408 | $MAKE test |
| 409 | $MAKE install |
| 410 | |
| 411 | where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to |
| 412 | use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions |
| 413 | may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or |
| 414 | fail), but most serious ones do. |
| 415 | |
| 416 | It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and |
| 417 | ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can |
| 418 | either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an |
| 419 | old version of nmake reportedly available from: |
| 420 | |
| 421 | ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe |
| 422 | |
| 423 | Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from |
| 424 | CPAN: |
| 425 | |
| 426 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz |
| 427 | |
| 428 | Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax |
| 429 | depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is |
| 430 | important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: |
| 431 | |
| 432 | make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax |
| 433 | make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax |
| 434 | any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax |
| 435 | (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) |
| 436 | |
| 437 | If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, |
| 438 | edit Config.pm to fix it. |
| 439 | |
| 440 | If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported |
| 441 | C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for |
| 442 | the compiler for command-line compilation. |
| 443 | |
| 444 | If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for |
| 445 | why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If |
| 446 | it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report |
| 447 | that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug |
| 448 | utility. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion |
| 451 | |
| 452 | The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such |
| 453 | as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to |
| 454 | programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. |
| 455 | This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, |
| 456 | perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. |
| 457 | However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the |
| 458 | behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the |
| 459 | compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may |
| 460 | be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an |
| 461 | alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. |
| 462 | |
| 463 | Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things |
| 464 | about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful, |
| 465 | because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c |
| 466 | 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can |
| 467 | extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely |
| 468 | different kinds of wildcard expansion). |
| 469 | |
| 470 | C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm |
| 471 | # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't |
| 472 | use File::DosGlob; |
| 473 | @ARGV = map { |
| 474 | my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; |
| 475 | @g ? @g : $_; |
| 476 | } @ARGV; |
| 477 | 1; |
| 478 | ^Z |
| 479 | C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild |
| 480 | C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c |
| 481 | p4view/perl/perl.c |
| 482 | p4view/perl/perlio.c |
| 483 | p4view/perl/perly.c |
| 484 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
| 485 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
| 486 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
| 487 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
| 488 | perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c |
| 489 | perl5.005/win32/perllib.c |
| 490 | |
| 491 | Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create |
| 492 | Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to |
| 493 | set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion |
| 494 | to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup |
| 495 | environment. |
| 496 | |
| 497 | If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's |
| 498 | command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting |
| 499 | binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be |
| 500 | what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion |
| 501 | done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. |
| 502 | |
| 503 | =item Win32 Specific Extensions |
| 504 | |
| 505 | A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available |
| 506 | from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to |
| 507 | be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only |
| 508 | native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not |
| 509 | have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these |
| 510 | extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore |
| 511 | cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section. |
| 512 | |
| 513 | To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the |
| 514 | ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains |
| 515 | all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from |
| 516 | CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker |
| 517 | support. This bundle is available at: |
| 518 | |
| 519 | http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.14.zip |
| 520 | |
| 521 | See the README in that distribution for building and installation |
| 522 | instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the |
| 523 | same location. |
| 524 | |
| 525 | =item Running Perl Scripts |
| 526 | |
| 527 | Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to |
| 528 | indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. |
| 529 | Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are |
| 530 | executables. |
| 531 | |
| 532 | Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on |
| 533 | Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods |
| 534 | to use this to execute perl scripts: |
| 535 | |
| 536 | =over 8 |
| 537 | |
| 538 | =item 1 |
| 539 | |
| 540 | There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will |
| 541 | work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two |
| 542 | commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT |
| 543 | 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this |
| 544 | up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't |
| 545 | perl-ready? :). |
| 546 | |
| 547 | =item 2 |
| 548 | |
| 549 | Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are |
| 550 | reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the |
| 551 | old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a |
| 552 | regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process |
| 553 | makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap |
| 554 | perl scripts into batch files. For example: |
| 555 | |
| 556 | pl2bat foo.pl |
| 557 | |
| 558 | will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any |
| 559 | .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. |
| 560 | |
| 561 | If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that |
| 562 | "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to |
| 563 | refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make |
| 564 | sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, |
| 565 | 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their |
| 566 | 4NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT |
| 567 | startup file to enable this to work. |
| 568 | |
| 569 | =item 3 |
| 570 | |
| 571 | Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, |
| 572 | so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not |
| 573 | run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the |
| 574 | original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive |
| 575 | if the originals get updated often. A different approach that |
| 576 | avoids both problems is possible. |
| 577 | |
| 578 | A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied |
| 579 | to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, |
| 580 | if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is |
| 581 | executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply |
| 582 | by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively |
| 583 | runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". |
| 584 | With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location |
| 585 | than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on |
| 586 | the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic |
| 587 | links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". |
| 588 | |
| 589 | Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type |
| 590 | "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) |
| 591 | Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH |
| 592 | |
| 593 | =back |
| 594 | |
| 595 | =item Miscellaneous Things |
| 596 | |
| 597 | A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be |
| 598 | able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your |
| 599 | system. |
| 600 | |
| 601 | C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained |
| 602 | in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager |
| 603 | like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may |
| 604 | have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. |
| 605 | "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator |
| 606 | "foo". |
| 607 | |
| 608 | If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a |
| 609 | bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot |
| 610 | find a mailer on your system). |
| 611 | |
| 612 | =back |
| 613 | |
| 614 | =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS |
| 615 | |
| 616 | An effort has been made to ensure that the DLLs produced by the two |
| 617 | supported compilers are compatible with each other (despite the |
| 618 | best efforts of the compiler vendors). Extension binaries produced |
| 619 | by one compiler should also coexist with a perl binary built by |
| 620 | a different compiler. In order to accomplish this, PERL.DLL provides |
| 621 | a layer of runtime code that uses the C Runtime that perl was compiled |
| 622 | with. Extensions which include "perl.h" will transparently access |
| 623 | the functions in this layer, thereby ensuring that both perl and |
| 624 | extensions use the same runtime functions. |
| 625 | |
| 626 | If you have had prior exposure to Perl on Unix platforms, you will notice |
| 627 | this port exhibits behavior different from what is documented. Most of the |
| 628 | differences fall under one of these categories. We do not consider |
| 629 | any of them to be serious limitations (especially when compared to the |
| 630 | limited nature of some of the Win32 OSes themselves :) |
| 631 | |
| 632 | =over 8 |
| 633 | |
| 634 | =item * |
| 635 | |
| 636 | C<stat()> and C<lstat()> functions may not behave as documented. They |
| 637 | may return values that bear no resemblance to those reported on Unix |
| 638 | platforms, and some fields (like the the one for inode) may be completely |
| 639 | bogus. |
| 640 | |
| 641 | =item * |
| 642 | |
| 643 | The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>, |
| 644 | C<dump()>, C<chown()>, C<link()>, C<symlink()>, C<chroot()>, |
| 645 | C<setpgrp()> and related security functions, C<setpriority()>, |
| 646 | C<getpriority()>, C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>, C<getpw*()>, |
| 647 | C<msg*()>, C<shm*()>, C<sem*()>, C<alarm()>, C<socketpair()>, |
| 648 | C<*netent()>, C<*protoent()>, C<*servent()>, C<*hostent()>, |
| 649 | C<getnetby*()>. |
| 650 | This list is possibly incomplete. |
| 651 | |
| 652 | =item * |
| 653 | |
| 654 | Various C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not |
| 655 | behave as on Unix platforms. |
| 656 | |
| 657 | =item * |
| 658 | |
| 659 | The four-argument C<select()> call is only supported on sockets. |
| 660 | |
| 661 | =item * |
| 662 | |
| 663 | The C<ioctl()> call is only supported on sockets (where it provides the |
| 664 | functionality of ioctlsocket() in the Winsock API). |
| 665 | |
| 666 | =item * |
| 667 | |
| 668 | Failure to spawn() a subprocess is indicated by setting $? to "255 << 8". |
| 669 | C<$?> is set in a way compatible with Unix (i.e. the exitstatus of the |
| 670 | subprocess is obtained by "$? >> 8", as described in the documentation). |
| 671 | |
| 672 | =item * |
| 673 | |
| 674 | You can expect problems building modules available on CPAN if you |
| 675 | build perl itself with -DUSE_THREADS. These problems should be resolved |
| 676 | as we get closer to 5.005. |
| 677 | |
| 678 | =item * |
| 679 | |
| 680 | C<utime()>, C<times()> and process-related functions may not |
| 681 | behave as described in the documentation, and some of the |
| 682 | returned values or effects may be bogus. |
| 683 | |
| 684 | =item * |
| 685 | |
| 686 | Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it |
| 687 | doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> |
| 688 | or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most |
| 689 | implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled. |
| 690 | Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag |
| 691 | variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should |
| 692 | currently be considered unsupported. |
| 693 | |
| 694 | =item * |
| 695 | |
| 696 | C<kill()> is implemented, but doesn't have the semantics of |
| 697 | C<raise()>, i.e. it doesn't send a signal to the identified process |
| 698 | like it does on Unix platforms. Instead it immediately calls |
| 699 | C<TerminateProcess(process,signal)>. Thus the signal argument is |
| 700 | used to set the exit-status of the terminated process. This behavior |
| 701 | may change in future. |
| 702 | |
| 703 | =item * |
| 704 | |
| 705 | File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms. In particular, |
| 706 | if you don't use perlglob.bat for globbing, it will understand |
| 707 | wildcards only in the filename component (and not in the pathname). |
| 708 | In other words, something like "print <*/*.pl>" will not print all the |
| 709 | perl scripts in all the subdirectories one level under the current one |
| 710 | (like it does on UNIX platforms). perlglob.exe is also dependent on |
| 711 | the particular implementation of wildcard expansion in the vendor |
| 712 | libraries used to build it (which varies wildly at the present time). |
| 713 | Using perlglob.bat (or File::DosGlob) avoids these limitations, but |
| 714 | still only provides DOS semantics (read "warts") for globbing. |
| 715 | |
| 716 | =back |
| 717 | |
| 718 | Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that |
| 719 | you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced |
| 720 | by C<perl -V>. |
| 721 | |
| 722 | =head1 AUTHORS |
| 723 | |
| 724 | =over 4 |
| 725 | |
| 726 | Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> |
| 727 | |
| 728 | Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@umich.eduE<gt> |
| 729 | |
| 730 | Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt> |
| 731 | |
| 732 | =back |
| 733 | |
| 734 | This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy. |
| 735 | |
| 736 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
| 737 | |
| 738 | L<perl> |
| 739 | |
| 740 | =head1 HISTORY |
| 741 | |
| 742 | This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, |
| 743 | and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available |
| 744 | at the time. |
| 745 | |
| 746 | Nick Ing-Simmons and Gurusamy Sarathy have made numerous and |
| 747 | sundry hacks since then. |
| 748 | |
| 749 | Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy). |
| 750 | |
| 751 | GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). |
| 752 | |
| 753 | Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). |
| 754 | |
| 755 | Last updated: 18 January 1999 |
| 756 | |
| 757 | =cut |
| 758 | |