| 1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the equal signs on the left. |
| 2 | This file is written in the POD format (see [.POD]PERLPOD.POD;1) which is |
| 3 | specially designed to be readable as is. |
| 4 | |
| 5 | =head1 NAME |
| 6 | |
| 7 | perlvms - Configuring, building, testing, and installing perl on VMS |
| 8 | |
| 9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS |
| 10 | |
| 11 | To configure, build, test, and install perl on VMS: |
| 12 | |
| 13 | @configure |
| 14 | mmk |
| 15 | mmk test |
| 16 | mmk install |
| 17 | |
| 18 | =head1 DESCRIPTION |
| 19 | |
| 20 | =head2 Important safety tip |
| 21 | |
| 22 | For best results, make sure you read the "Configuring the Perl Build", |
| 23 | "Building Perl", and "Installing Perl" sections of this document before |
| 24 | you build or install. Also please note other changes in the current |
| 25 | release by having a look at L<perldelta/VMS>. |
| 26 | |
| 27 | =head2 Introduction to Perl on VMS |
| 28 | |
| 29 | The VMS port of Perl is as functionally complete as any other Perl port |
| 30 | (and as complete as the ports on some Unix systems). The Perl binaries |
| 31 | provide all the Perl system calls that are either available under VMS or |
| 32 | reasonably emulated. There are some incompatibilities in process handling |
| 33 | (e.g. the fork/exec model for creating subprocesses doesn't do what you |
| 34 | might expect under Unix), mainly because VMS and Unix handle processes and |
| 35 | sub-processes very differently. |
| 36 | |
| 37 | There are still some unimplemented system functions, and of course we |
| 38 | could use modules implementing useful VMS system services, so if you'd like |
| 39 | to lend a hand we'd love to have you. Join the Perl Porting Team Now! |
| 40 | |
| 41 | =head2 Other required software for Compiling Perl on VMS |
| 42 | |
| 43 | In addition to VMS and DCL you will need three things: |
| 44 | |
| 45 | =over 4 |
| 46 | |
| 47 | =item 1 A C compiler. |
| 48 | |
| 49 | HP (formerly Compaq, more formerly DEC) C for VMS (VAX, Alpha, or Itanium). |
| 50 | Various ancient versions of DEC C had some caveats, so if you're using a |
| 51 | version older than 7.x on Alpha or Itanium or 6.x on VAX, you may need to |
| 52 | upgrade to get a successful build. |
| 53 | |
| 54 | There have been no recent reports of builds using Gnu C, but latent |
| 55 | (and most likely outdated) support for it is still present in various |
| 56 | parts of the sources. |
| 57 | |
| 58 | There is rudimentary but not quite complete support for HP C++; to try it out, |
| 59 | configure with C<-"Dusecxx" -"Duser_c_flags=/WARN=INFORMATIONAL=NOCTOBUTCONREFM">. |
| 60 | |
| 61 | =item 2 A make tool. |
| 62 | |
| 63 | You will need the free MMS analog MMK (available from |
| 64 | L<http://ftp.endlesssoftware.com.au/mmk/kits/> or |
| 65 | L<https://github.com/endlesssoftware/mmk>). HP's MMS has not been known to work for |
| 66 | some time as Perl's automatically-generated description files are too complex for it, |
| 67 | but MMS support may return in the future. Gnu Make might work, but it's been so long |
| 68 | since anyone's tested it that we're not sure. |
| 69 | |
| 70 | =item 3 ODS-5 and Extended Parse |
| 71 | |
| 72 | All development and testing of Perl on VMS takes place on ODS-5 volumes with |
| 73 | extended parse enabled in the environment via the command C<SET PROCESS/PARSE=EXTENDED>. |
| 74 | Latent support for ODS-2 volumes (including on VAX) is still present, but the number |
| 75 | of components that require ODS-5 features is steadily growing and ODS-2 support may be |
| 76 | completely removed in a future release. |
| 77 | |
| 78 | |
| 79 | =back |
| 80 | |
| 81 | =head2 Additional software that is optional for Perl on VMS |
| 82 | |
| 83 | You may also want to have on hand: |
| 84 | |
| 85 | =over 4 |
| 86 | |
| 87 | =item 1 gunzip/gzip for VMS |
| 88 | |
| 89 | A de-compressor for *.gz and *.tgz files available from a number |
| 90 | of web/ftp sites such as: |
| 91 | |
| 92 | L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/gzip.html> |
| 93 | L<http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?GZIP> |
| 94 | |
| 95 | =item 2 VMS tar |
| 96 | |
| 97 | For reading and writing Unix tape archives (*.tar files). Vmstar is also |
| 98 | available from a number of sites such as: |
| 99 | |
| 100 | L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/vmstar.html> |
| 101 | L<http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?VMSTAR> |
| 102 | |
| 103 | A port of GNU tar is also available as part of the GNV package: |
| 104 | |
| 105 | L<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/opensource/gnv.html> |
| 106 | |
| 107 | =item 3 unzip for VMS |
| 108 | |
| 109 | A combination decompressor and archive reader/writer for *.zip files. |
| 110 | Unzip is available from a number of web/ftp sites. |
| 111 | |
| 112 | L<http://www.info-zip.org/UnZip.html> |
| 113 | L<http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/freeware/> |
| 114 | L<http://vms.process.com/fileserv-software.html> |
| 115 | |
| 116 | =item 5 GNU patch and diffutils for VMS |
| 117 | |
| 118 | Patches to Perl are usually distributed as GNU unified or contextual diffs. |
| 119 | Such patches are created by the GNU diff program (part of the diffutils |
| 120 | distribution) and applied with GNU patch. VMS ports of these utilities are |
| 121 | available here: |
| 122 | |
| 123 | L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/diffutils.html> |
| 124 | L<http://vms.pdv-systeme.de/users/martinv/gnupatch.zip> |
| 125 | |
| 126 | =back |
| 127 | |
| 128 | Please note that unzip and gunzip are not the same thing (they work with |
| 129 | different formats). Many of the useful files from CPAN (the Comprehensive |
| 130 | Perl Archive Network) are in *.tar.gz or *.tgz format (this includes copies |
| 131 | of the source code for perl as well as modules and scripts that you may |
| 132 | wish to add later) hence you probably want to have GUNZIP.EXE and |
| 133 | VMSTAR.EXE on your VMS machine. |
| 134 | |
| 135 | If you want to include socket support, you'll need a TCP/IP stack and either |
| 136 | DEC C, or socket libraries. See the "Socket Support (optional)" topic |
| 137 | for more details. |
| 138 | |
| 139 | =head1 Unpacking the Perl source code |
| 140 | |
| 141 | You may need to set up a foreign symbol for the unpacking utility of |
| 142 | choice. Once you have done so, use a command like the following to |
| 143 | unpack the archive: |
| 144 | |
| 145 | vmstar -xvf perl-5^.33^.5.tar |
| 146 | |
| 147 | Then set default to the top-level source directory like so: |
| 148 | |
| 149 | set default [.perl-5^.33^.5] |
| 150 | |
| 151 | and proceed with configuration as described in the next section. |
| 152 | |
| 153 | |
| 154 | =head1 Configuring the Perl build |
| 155 | |
| 156 | To configure perl (a necessary first step), issue the command |
| 157 | |
| 158 | @configure.com |
| 159 | |
| 160 | from the top of an unpacked perl source directory. You will be asked a |
| 161 | series of questions, and the answers to them (along with the capabilities |
| 162 | of your C compiler and network stack) will determine how perl is custom- |
| 163 | built for your machine. |
| 164 | |
| 165 | If you have any symbols or logical names in your environment that may |
| 166 | interfere with the build or regression testing of perl then F<configure.com> |
| 167 | will try to warn you about them. If a logical name is causing |
| 168 | you trouble but is in an LNM table that you do not have write access to |
| 169 | then try defining your own to a harmless equivalence string in a table |
| 170 | such that it is resolved before the other (e.g. if TMP is defined in the |
| 171 | SYSTEM table then try DEFINE TMP "NL:" or somesuch in your process table) |
| 172 | otherwise simply deassign the dangerous logical names. The potentially |
| 173 | troublesome logicals and symbols include: |
| 174 | |
| 175 | COMP "LOGICAL" |
| 176 | EXT "LOGICAL" |
| 177 | FOO "LOGICAL" |
| 178 | LIB "LOGICAL" |
| 179 | LIST "LOGICAL" |
| 180 | MIME "LOGICAL" |
| 181 | POSIX "LOGICAL" |
| 182 | SYS "LOGICAL" |
| 183 | T "LOGICAL" |
| 184 | THREAD "LOGICAL" |
| 185 | THREADS "LOGICAL" |
| 186 | TIME "LOGICAL" |
| 187 | TMP "LOGICAL" |
| 188 | UNICODE "LOGICAL" |
| 189 | UTIL "LOGICAL" |
| 190 | TEST "SYMBOL" |
| 191 | |
| 192 | As a handy shortcut, the command: |
| 193 | |
| 194 | @configure "-des" |
| 195 | |
| 196 | (note the quotation marks and case) will choose reasonable defaults |
| 197 | automatically. Some options can be given explicitly on the command line; |
| 198 | the following example specifies a non-default location for where Perl |
| 199 | will be installed: |
| 200 | |
| 201 | @configure "-d" "-Dprefix=dka100:[utils.perl5.]" |
| 202 | |
| 203 | Note that the installation location would be by default where you unpacked |
| 204 | the source with a "_ROOT." appended. For example if you unpacked the perl |
| 205 | source into: |
| 206 | |
| 207 | F<DKA200:[PERL-5^.18^.0...]> |
| 208 | |
| 209 | Then the F<PERL_SETUP.COM> that gets written out by F<configure.com> will |
| 210 | try to DEFINE your installation PERL_ROOT to be: |
| 211 | |
| 212 | F<DKA200:[PERL-5^.18^.0_ROOT.]> |
| 213 | |
| 214 | More help with configure.com is available from: |
| 215 | |
| 216 | @configure "-h" |
| 217 | |
| 218 | If you find yourself reconfiguring and rebuilding then be sure to also follow |
| 219 | the advice in the "Cleaning up and starting fresh (optional)" and the checklist |
| 220 | of items in the "CAVEATS" sections below. |
| 221 | |
| 222 | =head2 Changing compile-time options (optional) for Perl on VMS |
| 223 | |
| 224 | Most of the user-definable features of Perl are enabled or disabled in |
| 225 | configure.com, which processes the hints file config_h.SH. There is |
| 226 | code in there to Do The Right Thing, but that may end up being the |
| 227 | wrong thing for you. Make sure you understand what you are doing since |
| 228 | inappropriate changes to configure.com or config_h.SH can render perl |
| 229 | unbuildable; odds are that there's nothing in there you'll need to |
| 230 | change. Note also that non-default options are tested less than default |
| 231 | options, so you may end up being more of a pioneer than you intend to be. |
| 232 | |
| 233 | =head2 Socket Support (optional) for Perl on VMS |
| 234 | |
| 235 | Perl includes a number of functions for IP sockets, which are available if |
| 236 | you choose to compile Perl with socket support. It does this via the socket |
| 237 | routines built into the CRTL regarless of which TCP/IP stack your system |
| 238 | has. |
| 239 | |
| 240 | =head1 Building Perl |
| 241 | |
| 242 | The configuration script will print out, at the very end, the MMS or MMK |
| 243 | command you need to compile perl. Issue it (exactly as printed) to start |
| 244 | the build. |
| 245 | |
| 246 | Once you issue your MMS or MMK command, sit back and wait. Perl should |
| 247 | compile and link without a problem. If a problem does occur check the |
| 248 | "CAVEATS" section of this document. If that does not help send some |
| 249 | mail to the VMSPERL mailing list. Instructions are in the L</"Mailing Lists"> |
| 250 | section of this document. |
| 251 | |
| 252 | =head1 Testing Perl |
| 253 | |
| 254 | Once Perl has built cleanly you need to test it to make sure things work. |
| 255 | This step is very important since there are always things that can go wrong |
| 256 | somehow and yield a dysfunctional Perl for you. |
| 257 | |
| 258 | Testing is very easy, though, as there's a full test suite in the perl |
| 259 | distribution. To run the tests, enter the I<exact> MMS line you used to |
| 260 | compile Perl and add the word "test" to the end, like this: |
| 261 | |
| 262 | If the compile command was: |
| 263 | |
| 264 | MMK |
| 265 | |
| 266 | then the test command ought to be: |
| 267 | |
| 268 | MMK test |
| 269 | |
| 270 | MMK (or MMS) will run all the tests. This may take some time, as there are |
| 271 | a lot of tests. If any tests fail, there will be a note made on-screen. |
| 272 | At the end of all the tests, a summary of the tests, the number passed and |
| 273 | failed, and the time taken will be displayed. |
| 274 | |
| 275 | The test driver invoked via MMK TEST has a DCL wrapper ([.VMS]TEST.COM) that |
| 276 | downgrades privileges to NETMBX, TMPMBX for the duration of the test run, |
| 277 | and then restores them to their prior state upon completion of testing. |
| 278 | This is done to ensure that the tests run in a private sandbox and can do no |
| 279 | harm to your system even in the unlikely event something goes badly wrong in |
| 280 | one of the test scripts while running the tests from a privileged account. |
| 281 | A side effect of this safety precaution is that the account used to run the |
| 282 | test suite must be the owner of the directory tree in which Perl has been |
| 283 | built; otherwise the manipulations of temporary files and directories |
| 284 | attempted by some of the tests will fail. |
| 285 | |
| 286 | If any tests fail, it means something is wrong with Perl, or at least |
| 287 | with the particular module or feature that reported failure. If the test suite |
| 288 | hangs (some tests can take upwards of two or three minutes, or more if |
| 289 | you're on an especially slow machine, depending on your machine speed, so |
| 290 | don't be hasty), then the test I<after> the last one displayed failed. Don't |
| 291 | install Perl unless you're confident that you're OK. Regardless of how |
| 292 | confident you are, make a bug report to the VMSPerl mailing list. |
| 293 | |
| 294 | If one or more tests fail, you can get more information on the failure by |
| 295 | issuing this command sequence: |
| 296 | |
| 297 | @[.vms]test .typ "" "-v" [.subdir]test.t |
| 298 | |
| 299 | where ".typ" is the file type of the Perl images you just built (if you |
| 300 | didn't do anything special, use .EXE), and "[.subdir]test.t" is the test |
| 301 | that failed. For example, with a normal Perl build, if the test indicated |
| 302 | that t/op/time failed, then you'd do this: |
| 303 | |
| 304 | @ .vms]test .EXE "" "-v" [.OP]TIME.t |
| 305 | |
| 306 | Note that test names are reported in UNIX syntax and relative to the |
| 307 | top-level build directory. When supplying them individually to the test |
| 308 | driver, you can use either UNIX or VMS syntax, but you must give the path |
| 309 | relative to the [.t] directory and you must also add the .t extension to the |
| 310 | filename. So, for example if the test lib/Math/Trig fails, you would run: |
| 311 | |
| 312 | @[.vms]test .EXE "" -"v" [-.lib.math]trig.t |
| 313 | |
| 314 | When you send in a bug report for failed tests, please include the output |
| 315 | from this command, which is run from the main source directory: |
| 316 | |
| 317 | MCR []MINIPERL "-Ilib" "-V" |
| 318 | |
| 319 | Note that -"V" really is a capital V in double quotes. This will dump out a |
| 320 | couple of screens worth of configuration information, and can help us |
| 321 | diagnose the problem. If (and only if) that did not work then try enclosing |
| 322 | the output of: |
| 323 | |
| 324 | MMK printconfig |
| 325 | |
| 326 | If (and only if) that did not work then try enclosing the output of: |
| 327 | |
| 328 | @[.vms]myconfig |
| 329 | |
| 330 | You may also be asked to provide your C compiler version ("CC/VERSION NL:" |
| 331 | with DEC C, "gcc --version" with GNU CC). To obtain the version of MMS or |
| 332 | MMK you are running try "MMS/ident" or "MMK /ident". The GNU make version |
| 333 | can be identified with "make --version". |
| 334 | |
| 335 | =head2 Cleaning up and starting fresh (optional) installing Perl on VMS |
| 336 | |
| 337 | If you need to recompile from scratch, you have to make sure you clean up |
| 338 | first. There is a procedure to do it--enter the I<exact> MMK line you used |
| 339 | to compile and add "realclean" at the end, like this: |
| 340 | |
| 341 | if the compile command was: |
| 342 | |
| 343 | MMK |
| 344 | |
| 345 | then the cleanup command ought to be: |
| 346 | |
| 347 | MMK realclean |
| 348 | |
| 349 | If you do not do this things may behave erratically during the subsequent |
| 350 | rebuild attempt. They might not, too, so it is best to be sure and do it. |
| 351 | |
| 352 | =head1 Installing Perl |
| 353 | |
| 354 | There are several steps you need to take to get Perl installed and |
| 355 | running. |
| 356 | |
| 357 | =over 4 |
| 358 | |
| 359 | =item 1 |
| 360 | |
| 361 | Check your default file protections with |
| 362 | |
| 363 | SHOW PROTECTION /DEFAULT |
| 364 | |
| 365 | and adjust if necessary with C<SET PROTECTION=(code)/DEFAULT>. |
| 366 | |
| 367 | =item 2 |
| 368 | |
| 369 | Decide where you want Perl to be installed (unless you have already done so |
| 370 | by using the "prefix" configuration parameter -- see the example in the |
| 371 | "Configuring the Perl build" section). |
| 372 | |
| 373 | The DCL script PERL_SETUP.COM that is written by configure.com will help you |
| 374 | with the definition of the PERL_ROOT and PERLSHR logical names and the PERL |
| 375 | foreign command symbol. Take a look at PERL_SETUP.COM and modify it if you |
| 376 | want to. The installation process will execute PERL_SETUP.COM and copy |
| 377 | files to the directory tree pointed to by the PERL_ROOT logical name defined |
| 378 | there, so make sure that you have write access to the parent directory of |
| 379 | what will become the root of your Perl installation. |
| 380 | |
| 381 | =item 3 |
| 382 | |
| 383 | Run the install script via: |
| 384 | |
| 385 | MMK install |
| 386 | |
| 387 | If for some reason it complains about target INSTALL being up to date, |
| 388 | throw a /FORCE switch on the MMS or MMK command. |
| 389 | |
| 390 | =back |
| 391 | |
| 392 | Installation will copy F<PERL_SETUP.COM> to the root of your installation |
| 393 | tree. If you want to give everyone on the system access to Perl (and you |
| 394 | have, for example, installed to F<dsa0:[utils.perl_root]>) then add a line |
| 395 | that reads: |
| 396 | |
| 397 | $ @dsa0:[utils.perl_root]perl_setup |
| 398 | |
| 399 | to F<SYS$MANAGER:SYLOGIN.COM>. Or for your own use only, simply place |
| 400 | that line in F<SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM>. |
| 401 | |
| 402 | Two alternatives to the foreign symbol would be to install PERL into |
| 403 | DCLTABLES.EXE (Check out the section "Installing Perl into DCLTABLES |
| 404 | (optional)" for more information), or put the image in a |
| 405 | directory that's in your DCL$PATH. |
| 406 | |
| 407 | See also the "INSTALLing images (optional)" section. |
| 408 | |
| 409 | =head2 Installing Perl into DCLTABLES (optional) on VMS |
| 410 | |
| 411 | Execute the following command file to define PERL as a DCL command. |
| 412 | You'll need CMKRNL privilege to install the new dcltables.exe. |
| 413 | |
| 414 | $ create perl.cld |
| 415 | ! |
| 416 | ! modify to reflect location of your perl.exe |
| 417 | ! |
| 418 | define verb perl |
| 419 | image perl_root:[000000]perl.exe |
| 420 | cliflags (foreign) |
| 421 | $! |
| 422 | $ set command perl /table=sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe - |
| 423 | /output=sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe |
| 424 | $ install replace sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe |
| 425 | $ exit |
| 426 | |
| 427 | =head2 INSTALLing Perl images (optional) on VMS |
| 428 | |
| 429 | On systems that are using perl quite a bit, and particularly those with |
| 430 | minimal RAM, you can boost the performance of perl by INSTALLing it as |
| 431 | a known image. PERLSHR.EXE is typically larger than 3000 blocks |
| 432 | and that is a reasonably large amount of IO to load each time perl is |
| 433 | invoked. |
| 434 | |
| 435 | INSTALL ADD PERLSHR/SHARE |
| 436 | INSTALL ADD PERL/HEADER |
| 437 | |
| 438 | should be enough for F<PERLSHR.EXE> (/share implies /header and /open), |
| 439 | while /HEADER should do for FPERL.EXE> (perl.exe is not a shared image). |
| 440 | |
| 441 | If your code 'use's modules, check to see if there is a shareable image for |
| 442 | them, too. In the base perl build, POSIX, IO, Fcntl, Opcode, SDBM_File, |
| 443 | DCLsym, and Stdio, and other extensions all have shared images that can be |
| 444 | installed /SHARE. |
| 445 | |
| 446 | How much of a win depends on your memory situation, but if you are firing |
| 447 | off perl with any regularity (like more than once every 20 seconds or so) |
| 448 | it is probably beneficial to INSTALL at least portions of perl. |
| 449 | |
| 450 | While there is code in perl to remove privileges as it runs you are advised |
| 451 | to NOT INSTALL F<PERL.EXE> with PRIVs! |
| 452 | |
| 453 | =head2 Running h2ph to create perl header files (optional) on VMS |
| 454 | |
| 455 | If using HP C, ensure that you have extracted loose versions of your |
| 456 | compiler's header or *.H files. Be sure to check the contents of: |
| 457 | |
| 458 | SYS$LIBRARY:DECC$RTLDEF.TLB |
| 459 | SYS$LIBRARY:SYS$LIB_C.TLB |
| 460 | SYS$LIBRARY:SYS$STARLET_C.TLB |
| 461 | |
| 462 | etcetera. |
| 463 | |
| 464 | If using GNU cc then also check your GNU_CC:[000000...] tree for the locations |
| 465 | of the GNU cc headers. |
| 466 | |
| 467 | =head1 Reporting Bugs |
| 468 | |
| 469 | If you come across what you think might be a bug in Perl, please report |
| 470 | it. The issue tracker at L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> walks you |
| 471 | through the process of creating a bug report and including details of your |
| 472 | installation. |
| 473 | |
| 474 | =head1 CAVEATS |
| 475 | |
| 476 | Probably the single biggest gotcha in compiling Perl is giving the wrong |
| 477 | switches to MMS/MMK when you build. Use I<exactly> what the configure.com |
| 478 | script prints! |
| 479 | |
| 480 | Be sure that the process that you use to build perl has a PGFLQ greater |
| 481 | than 100000. Be sure to have a correct local time zone to UTC offset |
| 482 | defined (in seconds) in the logical name SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL before |
| 483 | running the regression test suite. The SYS$MANAGER:UTC$CONFIGURE_TDF.COM |
| 484 | procedure will help you set that logical for your system but may require |
| 485 | system privileges. For example, a location 5 hours west of UTC (such as |
| 486 | the US East coast while not on daylight savings time) would have: |
| 487 | |
| 488 | DEFINE SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL "-18000" |
| 489 | |
| 490 | A final thing that causes trouble is leftover pieces from a failed |
| 491 | build. If things go wrong make sure you do a "(MMK|MMS|make) realclean" |
| 492 | before you rebuild. |
| 493 | |
| 494 | =head2 GNU issues with Perl on VMS |
| 495 | |
| 496 | It has been a while since the GNU utilities such as GCC or GNU make |
| 497 | were used to build perl on VMS. Hence they may require a great deal |
| 498 | of source code modification to work again. |
| 499 | |
| 500 | =head2 Floating Point Considerations |
| 501 | |
| 502 | Prior to 5.8.0, Perl simply accepted the default floating point options of the |
| 503 | C compiler, namely representing doubles with D_FLOAT on VAX and G_FLOAT on |
| 504 | Alpha. Single precision floating point values are represented in F_FLOAT |
| 505 | format when either D_FLOAT or G_FLOAT is in use for doubles. Beginning with |
| 506 | 5.8.0, Alpha builds now use IEEE floating point formats by default, which in |
| 507 | VMS parlance are S_FLOAT for singles and T_FLOAT for doubles. IEEE is not |
| 508 | available on VAX, so F_FLOAT and D_FLOAT remain the defaults for singles and |
| 509 | doubles respectively. Itanium builds have always used IEEE by default. The |
| 510 | available non-default options are G_FLOAT on VAX and D_FLOAT or G_FLOAT on |
| 511 | Alpha or Itanium. |
| 512 | |
| 513 | The use of IEEE on Alpha or Itanium introduces NaN, infinity, and denormalization |
| 514 | capabilities not available with D_FLOAT and G_FLOAT. When using one of those |
| 515 | non-IEEE formats, silent underflow and overflow are emulated in the conversion |
| 516 | of strings to numbers, but it is preferable to get the real thing by using |
| 517 | IEEE where possible. |
| 518 | |
| 519 | Regardless of what floating point format you consider preferable, be aware |
| 520 | that the choice may have an impact on compatibility with external libraries, |
| 521 | such as database interfaces, and with existing data, such as data created with |
| 522 | the C<pack> function and written to disk, or data stored via the Storable |
| 523 | extension. For example, a C<pack("d", $foo)")> will create a D_FLOAT, |
| 524 | G_FLOAT, or T_FLOAT depending on what your Perl was configured with. When |
| 525 | written to disk, the value can only be retrieved later by a Perl configured |
| 526 | with the same floating point option that was in effect when it was created. |
| 527 | |
| 528 | To obtain a non-IEEE build on Alpha or Itanium, simply answer no to the |
| 529 | "Use IEEE math?" question during the configuration. To obtain an option |
| 530 | different from the C compiler default on any platform, put in the option that |
| 531 | you want in answer to the "Any additional cc flags?" question. For example, to |
| 532 | obtain a G_FLOAT build on VAX, put in C</FLOAT=G_FLOAT>. |
| 533 | |
| 534 | =head1 Mailing Lists |
| 535 | |
| 536 | There are several mailing lists available to the Perl porter. For VMS |
| 537 | specific issues (including both Perl questions and installation problems) |
| 538 | there is the VMSPERL mailing list. It is usually a low-volume (10-12 |
| 539 | messages a week) mailing list. |
| 540 | |
| 541 | To subscribe, send a mail message to VMSPERL-SUBSCRIBE@PERL.ORG. The VMSPERL |
| 542 | mailing list address is VMSPERL@PERL.ORG. Any mail sent there gets echoed |
| 543 | to all subscribers of the list. There is an archive of the list |
| 544 | on the web at: |
| 545 | |
| 546 | L<https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.vmsperl/> |
| 547 | |
| 548 | To unsubscribe from VMSPERL send a message to VMSPERL-UNSUBSCRIBE@PERL.ORG. |
| 549 | Be sure to do so from the subscribed account that you are canceling. |
| 550 | |
| 551 | =head2 Web sites for Perl on VMS |
| 552 | |
| 553 | Vmsperl pages on the web include: |
| 554 | |
| 555 | L<http://www.sidhe.org/vmsperl/index.html> |
| 556 | L<https://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/VMS/> |
| 557 | L<https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.vmsperl/> |
| 558 | L<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/openvms/products/ips/apache/csws_modperl.html> |
| 559 | |
| 560 | =head1 SEE ALSO |
| 561 | |
| 562 | Perl information for users and programmers about the port of perl to VMS is |
| 563 | available from the [.POD]PERLVMS.POD file that gets installed as L<perlvms>. |
| 564 | For administrators the perlvms document also includes a detailed discussion |
| 565 | of extending vmsperl with CPAN modules after Perl has been installed. |
| 566 | |
| 567 | =head1 AUTHORS |
| 568 | |
| 569 | Originally by Charles Bailey bailey@newman.upenn.edu. See the git repository |
| 570 | for history. |
| 571 | |
| 572 | =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
| 573 | |
| 574 | A real big thanks needs to go to Charles Bailey |
| 575 | bailey@newman.upenn.edu, who is ultimately responsible for Perl 5.004 |
| 576 | running on VMS. Without him, nothing the rest of us have done would be at |
| 577 | all important. |
| 578 | |
| 579 | There are, of course, far too many people involved in the porting and testing |
| 580 | of Perl to mention everyone who deserves it, so please forgive us if we've |
| 581 | missed someone. That said, special thanks are due to the following: |
| 582 | |
| 583 | Tim Adye T.J.Adye@rl.ac.uk |
| 584 | for the VMS emulations of getpw*() |
| 585 | David Denholm denholm@conmat.phys.soton.ac.uk |
| 586 | for extensive testing and provision of pipe and SocketShr code, |
| 587 | Mark Pizzolato mark@infocomm.com |
| 588 | for the getredirection() code |
| 589 | Rich Salz rsalz@bbn.com |
| 590 | for readdir() and related routines |
| 591 | Peter Prymmer pvhp@best.com |
| 592 | for extensive testing, as well as development work on |
| 593 | configuration and documentation for VMS Perl, |
| 594 | Dan Sugalski dan@sidhe.org |
| 595 | for extensive contributions to recent version support, |
| 596 | development of VMS-specific extensions, and dissemination |
| 597 | of information about VMS Perl, |
| 598 | the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the |
| 599 | Laboratory of Nuclear Studies at Cornell University for |
| 600 | the opportunity to test and develop for the AXP, |
| 601 | John Hasstedt John.Hasstedt@sunysb.edu |
| 602 | for VAX VMS V7.2 support |
| 603 | John Malmberg wb8tyw@qsl.net |
| 604 | for ODS-5 filename handling and other modernizations |
| 605 | |
| 606 | and to the entire VMSperl group for useful advice and suggestions. In |
| 607 | addition the perl5-porters deserve credit for their creativity and |
| 608 | willingness to work with the VMS newcomers. Finally, the greatest debt of |
| 609 | gratitude is due to Larry Wall larry@wall.org, for having the ideas which |
| 610 | have made our sleepless nights possible. |
| 611 | |
| 612 | Thanks, |
| 613 | The VMSperl group |
| 614 | |
| 615 | =cut |
| 616 | |