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) which is
3 specially designed to be readable as is.
7 perlvms - Configuring, building, testing, and installing perl on VMS
11 To configure, build, test, and install perl on VMS:
20 =head2 Important safety tip
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>.
27 =head2 Introduction to Perl on VMS
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.
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!
41 =head2 Other required software for Compiling Perl on VMS
43 In addition to VMS and DCL you will need three things:
49 VSI (formerly DEC/Compaq/HP/HPE) C for VMS (Alpha or Itanium). Various
50 ancient versions of DEC C had some caveats, so if you're using a version
51 older than 7.x, you may need to upgrade to get a successful build.
53 There have been no recent reports of builds using Gnu C, but latent
54 (and most likely outdated) support for it is still present in various
57 There is rudimentary but not quite complete support for HP C++; to try it out,
58 configure with C<-"Dusecxx" -"Duser_c_flags=/WARN=INFORMATIONAL=NOCTOBUTCONREFM">.
62 You will need the free MMS analog MMK (available from
63 L<http://ftp.endlesssoftware.com.au/mmk/kits/> or
64 L<https://github.com/endlesssoftware/mmk>). HP's MMS has not been known to work for
65 some time as Perl's automatically-generated description files are too complex for it,
66 but MMS support may return in the future. Gnu Make might work, but it's been so long
67 since anyone's tested it that we're not sure.
69 =item 3 ODS-5 and Extended Parse
71 All development and testing of Perl on VMS takes place on ODS-5 volumes with
72 extended parse enabled in the environment via the command C<SET PROCESS/PARSE=EXTENDED>.
73 Latent support for ODS-2 volumes is still present, but there have been some reports
74 that it no longer works, and even if it builds, there will be many test failures,
75 mostly related to the failure to preserve filename case. ODS-2 support may be
76 explicity disabled in a future release.
80 =head2 Additional software that is optional for Perl on VMS
82 You may also want to have on hand:
86 =item 1 gunzip/gzip for VMS
88 A de-compressor for *.gz and *.tgz files available from a number
89 of web/ftp sites such as:
91 L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/gzip.html>
92 L<http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?GZIP>
96 For reading and writing Unix tape archives (*.tar files). Vmstar is also
97 available from a number of sites such as:
99 L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/vmstar.html>
100 L<http://vms.process.com/scripts/fileserv/fileserv.com?VMSTAR>
102 A port of GNU tar is also available as part of the GNV package:
104 L<http://h71000.www7.hp.com/opensource/gnv.html>
106 =item 3 unzip for VMS
108 A combination decompressor and archive reader/writer for *.zip files.
109 Unzip is available from a number of web/ftp sites.
111 L<http://www.info-zip.org/UnZip.html>
112 L<http://www.hp.com/go/openvms/freeware/>
113 L<http://vms.process.com/fileserv-software.html>
115 =item 5 GNU patch and diffutils for VMS
117 Patches to Perl are usually distributed as GNU unified or contextual diffs.
118 Such patches are created by the GNU diff program (part of the diffutils
119 distribution) and applied with GNU patch. VMS ports of these utilities are
122 L<http://www.antinode.info/dec/sw/diffutils.html>
123 L<http://vms.pdv-systeme.de/users/martinv/gnupatch.zip>
127 Please note that unzip and gunzip are not the same thing (they work with
128 different formats). Many of the useful files from CPAN (the Comprehensive
129 Perl Archive Network) are in *.tar.gz or *.tgz format (this includes copies
130 of the source code for perl as well as modules and scripts that you may
131 wish to add later) hence you probably want to have GUNZIP.EXE and
132 VMSTAR.EXE on your VMS machine.
134 =head1 Unpacking the Perl source code
136 You may need to set up a foreign symbol for the unpacking utility of
137 choice. Once you have done so, use a command like the following to
140 vmstar -xvf perl-5^.37^.4.tar
142 Then set default to the top-level source directory like so:
144 set default [.perl-5^.37^.4]
146 and proceed with configuration as described in the next section.
149 =head1 Configuring the Perl build
151 To configure perl (a necessary first step), issue the command
155 from the top of an unpacked perl source directory. You will be asked a
156 series of questions, and the answers to them (along with the capabilities
157 of your C compiler and network stack) will determine how perl is custom-
158 built for your machine.
160 If you have any symbols or logical names in your environment that may
161 interfere with the build or regression testing of perl then F<configure.com>
162 will try to warn you about them. If a logical name is causing
163 you trouble but is in an LNM table that you do not have write access to
164 then try defining your own to a harmless equivalence string in a table
165 such that it is resolved before the other (e.g. if TMP is defined in the
166 SYSTEM table then try DEFINE TMP "NL:" or somesuch in your process table)
167 otherwise simply deassign the dangerous logical names. The potentially
168 troublesome logicals and symbols include:
187 As a handy shortcut, the command:
191 (note the quotation marks and case) will choose reasonable defaults
192 automatically. Some options can be given explicitly on the command line;
193 the following example specifies a non-default location for where Perl
196 @configure "-d" "-Dprefix=dka100:[utils.perl5.]"
198 Note that the installation location would be by default where you unpacked
199 the source with a "_ROOT." appended. For example if you unpacked the perl
202 F<DKA200:[PERL-5^.18^.0...]>
204 Then the F<PERL_SETUP.COM> that gets written out by F<configure.com> will
205 try to DEFINE your installation PERL_ROOT to be:
207 F<DKA200:[PERL-5^.18^.0_ROOT.]>
209 More help with configure.com is available from:
213 If you find yourself reconfiguring and rebuilding then be sure to also follow
214 the advice in the "Cleaning up and starting fresh (optional)" and the checklist
215 of items in the "CAVEATS" sections below.
217 =head2 Changing compile-time options (optional) for Perl on VMS
219 Most of the user-definable features of Perl are enabled or disabled in
220 configure.com, which processes the hints file config_h.SH. There is
221 code in there to Do The Right Thing, but that may end up being the
222 wrong thing for you. Make sure you understand what you are doing since
223 inappropriate changes to configure.com or config_h.SH can render perl
224 unbuildable; odds are that there's nothing in there you'll need to
225 change. Note also that non-default options are tested less than default
226 options, so you may end up being more of a pioneer than you intend to be.
230 The configuration script will print out, at the very end, the MMS or MMK
231 command you need to compile perl. Issue it (exactly as printed) to start
234 Once you issue your MMS or MMK command, sit back and wait. Perl should
235 compile and link without a problem. If a problem does occur check the
236 "CAVEATS" section of this document. If that does not help send some
237 mail to the VMSPERL mailing list. Instructions are in the L</"Mailing Lists">
238 section of this document.
242 Once Perl has built cleanly you need to test it to make sure things work.
243 This step is very important since there are always things that can go wrong
244 somehow and yield a dysfunctional Perl for you.
246 Testing is very easy, though, as there's a full test suite in the perl
247 distribution. To run the tests, enter the I<exact> MMS line you used to
248 compile Perl and add the word "test" to the end, like this:
250 If the compile command was:
254 then the test command ought to be:
258 MMK (or MMS) will run all the tests. This may take some time, as there are
259 a lot of tests. If any tests fail, there will be a note made on-screen.
260 At the end of all the tests, a summary of the tests, the number passed and
261 failed, and the time taken will be displayed.
263 The test driver invoked via MMK TEST has a DCL wrapper ([.VMS]TEST.COM) that
264 downgrades privileges to NETMBX, TMPMBX for the duration of the test run,
265 and then restores them to their prior state upon completion of testing.
266 This is done to ensure that the tests run in a private sandbox and can do no
267 harm to your system even in the unlikely event something goes badly wrong in
268 one of the test scripts while running the tests from a privileged account.
269 A side effect of this safety precaution is that the account used to run the
270 test suite must be the owner of the directory tree in which Perl has been
271 built; otherwise the manipulations of temporary files and directories
272 attempted by some of the tests will fail.
274 If any tests fail, it means something is wrong with Perl, or at least
275 with the particular module or feature that reported failure. If the test suite
276 hangs (some tests can take upwards of two or three minutes, or more if
277 you're on an especially slow machine, depending on your machine speed, so
278 don't be hasty), then the test I<after> the last one displayed failed. Don't
279 install Perl unless you're confident that you're OK. Regardless of how
280 confident you are, make a bug report to the VMSPerl mailing list.
282 If one or more tests fail, you can get more information on the failure by
283 issuing this command sequence:
285 @[.vms]test .typ "" "-v" [.subdir]test.t
287 where ".typ" is the file type of the Perl images you just built (if you
288 didn't do anything special, use .EXE), and "[.subdir]test.t" is the test
289 that failed. For example, with a normal Perl build, if the test indicated
290 that t/op/time failed, then you'd do this:
292 @ .vms]test .EXE "" "-v" [.op]time.t
294 Note that test names are reported in UNIX syntax and relative to the
295 top-level build directory. When supplying them individually to the test
296 driver, you must specify them in Unix format if they are outside of the [.t]
297 directory; otherwise VMS syntax is ok. Note that you must also give the path
298 relative to the [.t] directory and you must also add the .t extension to the
299 filename. So, for example if the test lib/warnings.t fails, you would run:
301 @[.vms]test .EXE "" -"v" "../lib/warnings.t"
303 When you send in a bug report for failed tests, please include the output
304 from this command, which is run from the main source directory:
306 MCR []MINIPERL "-Ilib" "-V"
308 Note that -"V" really is a capital V in double quotes. This will dump out a
309 couple of screens worth of configuration information, and can help us
310 diagnose the problem. If (and only if) that did not work then try enclosing
315 If (and only if) that did not work then try enclosing the output of:
319 You may also be asked to provide your C compiler version ("CC/VERSION NL:"
320 with DEC C, "gcc --version" with GNU CC). To obtain the version of MMS or
321 MMK you are running try "MMS/ident" or "MMK /ident". The GNU make version
322 can be identified with "make --version".
324 =head2 Cleaning up and starting fresh (optional) installing Perl on VMS
326 If you need to recompile from scratch, you have to make sure you clean up
327 first. There is a procedure to do it--enter the I<exact> MMK line you used
328 to compile and add "realclean" at the end, like this:
330 if the compile command was:
334 then the cleanup command ought to be:
338 If you do not do this things may behave erratically during the subsequent
339 rebuild attempt. They might not, too, so it is best to be sure and do it.
341 =head1 Installing Perl
343 There are several steps you need to take to get Perl installed and
350 Check your default file protections with
352 SHOW PROTECTION /DEFAULT
354 and adjust if necessary with C<SET PROTECTION=(code)/DEFAULT>.
358 Decide where you want Perl to be installed (unless you have already done so
359 by using the "prefix" configuration parameter -- see the example in the
360 "Configuring the Perl build" section).
362 The DCL script PERL_SETUP.COM that is written by configure.com will help you
363 with the definition of the PERL_ROOT and PERLSHR logical names and the PERL
364 foreign command symbol. Take a look at PERL_SETUP.COM and modify it if you
365 want to. The installation process will execute PERL_SETUP.COM and copy
366 files to the directory tree pointed to by the PERL_ROOT logical name defined
367 there, so make sure that you have write access to the parent directory of
368 what will become the root of your Perl installation.
372 Run the install script via:
376 If for some reason it complains about target INSTALL being up to date,
377 throw a /FORCE switch on the MMS or MMK command.
381 Installation will copy F<PERL_SETUP.COM> to the root of your installation
382 tree. If you want to give everyone on the system access to Perl (and you
383 have, for example, installed to F<dsa0:[utils.perl_root]>) then add a line
386 $ @dsa0:[utils.perl_root]perl_setup
388 to F<SYS$MANAGER:SYLOGIN.COM>. Or for your own use only, simply place
389 that line in F<SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM>.
391 Two alternatives to the foreign symbol would be to install PERL into
392 DCLTABLES.EXE (Check out the section "Installing Perl into DCLTABLES
393 (optional)" for more information), or put the image in a
394 directory that's in your DCL$PATH.
396 See also the "INSTALLing images (optional)" section.
398 =head2 Installing Perl into DCLTABLES (optional) on VMS
400 Execute the following command file to define PERL as a DCL command.
401 You'll need CMKRNL privilege to install the new dcltables.exe.
405 ! modify to reflect location of your perl.exe
408 image perl_root:[000000]perl.exe
411 $ set command perl /table=sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe -
412 /output=sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe
413 $ install replace sys$common:[syslib]dcltables.exe
416 =head2 INSTALLing Perl images (optional) on VMS
418 On systems that are using perl quite a bit, and particularly those with
419 minimal RAM, you can boost the performance of perl by INSTALLing it as
420 a known image. PERLSHR.EXE is typically larger than 3000 blocks
421 and that is a reasonably large amount of IO to load each time perl is
424 INSTALL ADD PERLSHR/SHARE
425 INSTALL ADD PERL/HEADER
427 should be enough for F<PERLSHR.EXE> (/share implies /header and /open),
428 while /HEADER should do for FPERL.EXE> (perl.exe is not a shared image).
430 If your code 'use's modules, check to see if there is a shareable image for
431 them, too. In the base perl build, POSIX, IO, Fcntl, Opcode, SDBM_File,
432 DCLsym, and Stdio, and other extensions all have shared images that can be
435 How much of a win depends on your memory situation, but if you are firing
436 off perl with any regularity (like more than once every 20 seconds or so)
437 it is probably beneficial to INSTALL at least portions of perl.
439 While there is code in perl to remove privileges as it runs you are advised
440 to NOT INSTALL F<PERL.EXE> with PRIVs!
442 =head2 Running h2ph to create perl header files (optional) on VMS
444 If using HP C, ensure that you have extracted loose versions of your
445 compiler's header or *.H files. Be sure to check the contents of:
447 SYS$LIBRARY:DECC$RTLDEF.TLB
448 SYS$LIBRARY:SYS$LIB_C.TLB
449 SYS$LIBRARY:SYS$STARLET_C.TLB
453 If using GNU cc then also check your GNU_CC:[000000...] tree for the locations
454 of the GNU cc headers.
456 =head1 Reporting Bugs
458 If you come across what you think might be a bug in Perl, please report
459 it. The issue tracker at L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues> walks you
460 through the process of creating a bug report and including details of your
465 Probably the single biggest gotcha in compiling Perl is giving the wrong
466 switches to MMS/MMK when you build. Use I<exactly> what the configure.com
469 Be sure that the process that you use to build Perl has a PGFLQUO of at
470 least 400000. Be sure to have a correct local time zone to UTC offset
471 defined (in seconds) in the logical name SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL before
472 running the regression test suite. The SYS$MANAGER:UTC$CONFIGURE_TDF.COM
473 procedure will help you set that logical for your system but may require
474 system privileges. For example, a location 5 hours west of UTC (such as
475 the US East coast while not on daylight savings time) would have:
477 DEFINE SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL "-18000"
479 A final thing that causes trouble is leftover pieces from a failed
480 build. If things go wrong make sure you do a "(MMK|MMS|make) realclean"
483 =head2 Floating Point Considerations
485 Prior to 5.8.0, Perl simply accepted the default floating point options of the
486 C compiler, namely representing doubles with G_FLOAT on Alpha. Single
487 precision floating point values are represented in F_FLOAT format when either
488 D_FLOAT or G_FLOAT is in use for doubles. Beginning with 5.8.0, Alpha builds
489 now use IEEE floating point formats by default, which in VMS parlance are S_FLOAT
490 for singles and T_FLOAT for doubles. Itanium builds have always used IEEE by
491 default. The available non-default options are D_FLOAT or G_FLOAT on Alpha
494 The use of IEEE introduces NaN, infinity, and denormalization capabilities not
495 available with D_FLOAT and G_FLOAT. When using one of those non-IEEE formats,
496 silent underflow and overflow are emulated in the conversion of strings to
497 numbers, but it is preferable to get the real thing by using IEEE where possible.
498 You are likely to see quite a few test failures when not using IEEE floating point.
500 Regardless of what floating point format you consider preferable, be aware
501 that the choice may have an impact on compatibility with external libraries,
502 such as database interfaces, and with existing data, such as data created with
503 the C<pack> function and written to disk, or data stored via the Storable
504 extension. For example, a C<pack("d", $foo)")> will create a D_FLOAT,
505 G_FLOAT, or T_FLOAT depending on what your Perl was configured with. When
506 written to disk, the value can only be retrieved later by a Perl configured
507 with the same floating point option that was in effect when it was created.
509 To obtain a non-IEEE build, simply answer no to the "Use IEEE math?" question
510 during the configuration or specify -"Uuseieee" as a parameter to configure.com
515 There are several mailing lists available to the Perl porter. For VMS
516 specific issues (including both Perl questions and installation problems)
517 there is the VMSPERL mailing list. It is usually a low-volume (10-12
518 messages a week) mailing list.
520 To subscribe, send a mail message to VMSPERL-SUBSCRIBE@PERL.ORG. The VMSPERL
521 mailing list address is VMSPERL@PERL.ORG. Any mail sent there gets echoed
522 to all subscribers of the list. There is an archive of the list
525 L<https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.vmsperl/>
527 To unsubscribe from VMSPERL send a message to VMSPERL-UNSUBSCRIBE@PERL.ORG.
528 Be sure to do so from the subscribed account that you are canceling.
530 =head2 Web sites for Perl on VMS
532 Vmsperl pages on the web include:
534 L<http://www.sidhe.org/vmsperl/index.html>
535 L<https://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/VMS/>
536 L<https://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.vmsperl/>
537 L<https://sourceforge.net/projects/vmsperlkit/>
541 Perl information for users and programmers about the port of perl to VMS is
542 available from the [.pod]perlvms.pod file that gets installed as L<perlvms>.
543 For administrators the perlvms document also includes a detailed discussion
544 of extending vmsperl with CPAN modules after Perl has been installed.
548 Originally by Charles Bailey bailey@newman.upenn.edu. See the git repository
551 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
553 A real big thanks needs to go to Charles Bailey
554 bailey@newman.upenn.edu, who is ultimately responsible for Perl 5.004
555 running on VMS. Without him, nothing the rest of us have done would be at
558 There are, of course, far too many people involved in the porting and testing
559 of Perl to mention everyone who deserves it, so please forgive us if we've
560 missed someone. That said, special thanks are due to the following:
562 Tim Adye T.J.Adye@rl.ac.uk
563 for the VMS emulations of getpw*()
564 David Denholm denholm@conmat.phys.soton.ac.uk
565 for extensive testing and provision of pipe and SocketShr code,
566 Mark Pizzolato mark@infocomm.com
567 for the getredirection() code
568 Rich Salz rsalz@bbn.com
569 for readdir() and related routines
570 Peter Prymmer pvhp@best.com
571 for extensive testing, as well as development work on
572 configuration and documentation for VMS Perl,
573 Dan Sugalski dan@sidhe.org
574 for extensive contributions to recent version support,
575 development of VMS-specific extensions, and dissemination
576 of information about VMS Perl,
577 the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory and the
578 Laboratory of Nuclear Studies at Cornell University for
579 the opportunity to test and develop for the AXP,
580 John Hasstedt John.Hasstedt@sunysb.edu
581 for VAX VMS V7.2 support
582 John Malmberg wb8tyw@qsl.net
583 for ODS-5 filename handling and other modernizations
585 and to the entire VMSperl group for useful advice and suggestions. In
586 addition the perl5-porters deserve credit for their creativity and
587 willingness to work with the VMS newcomers. Finally, the greatest debt of
588 gratitude is due to Larry Wall larry@wall.org, for having the ideas which
589 have made our sleepless nights possible.