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.
7 perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
11 These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 2000 and later.
15 Before you start, you should glance through the README file
16 found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution
17 was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
18 which this software is being distributed.
20 Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
21 known limitations of this port.
23 The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
24 only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In
25 particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
28 You may also want to look at one other option for building a perl that
29 will work on Windows: the README.cygwin file, which give a different
30 set of rules to build a perl for Windows. This method will probably
31 enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you will also
32 need to download and use various other build-time and run-time support
33 software described in that file.
35 This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
36 port of Perl to the Windows platform. This includes both 32-bit and
37 64-bit Windows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no
38 additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
39 system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
40 following compilers on the Intel x86 architecture:
42 Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
43 Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
44 Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.2 or later
45 Gcc by mingw-w64.sf.net gcc version 4.4.3 or later
47 Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
48 delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:
52 =item L<http://mingw.org>
54 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.
56 =item L<http://mingw-w64.sf.net>
58 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting both 64-bit Windows and 32-bit Windows
59 platforms (despite the project name "mingw-w64" they are not only 64-bit
60 oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers and cross-compilers
61 that are also supported by perl's makefile.
65 The Borland C++ and Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given
66 away free. The Borland compiler is available as "Borland C++ Compiler Free
67 Command Line Tools" and is the same compiler that ships with the full
68 "Borland C++ Builder" product. The Microsoft compiler is available as
69 "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008/2010 Express Edition" (and
70 also as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") and is the same compiler that ships
71 with "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008/2010
72 Professional" respectively.
74 This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using:
76 Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
77 MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)
79 The Windows SDK can be downloaded from L<http://www.microsoft.com/>.
80 The MinGW64 compiler is available at L<http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64>.
81 The latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a trimmed
82 down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl available at:
83 L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/mingw64-w64-20100123-kmx-v2.zip>
85 NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit Windows
86 operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment variable to "undef".
87 Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests when USE_ITHREADS *= define
88 (as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *= Debug line is commented out.
90 This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
91 is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
92 able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
93 See L<Usage Hints for Perl on Windows> below for general hints about this.
95 =head2 Setting Up Perl on Windows
101 You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
102 Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, nmake will work. Builds using
103 the Borland compiler or gcc need dmake.
105 dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
108 A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
110 L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>
112 Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
114 There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++
115 compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed
116 case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named
117 with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked
118 to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again.
119 For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files, resulting in
120 needless recompiles every time dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you
121 may use the script "sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is
122 available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution.
126 Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows. Some versions of the
127 popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
128 If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
131 Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The
132 build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
136 If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake.
137 (The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not
138 work for MakeMaker builds.)
140 See L</"Make"> above.
142 =item Microsoft Visual C++
144 The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
145 You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere
146 like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin.
147 This will set your build environment.
149 You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however,
150 you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
151 under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment
152 and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The
153 latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
154 make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
156 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008/2010 Express Edition
158 These free versions of Visual C++ 2008/2010 Professional contain the same
159 compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions, and also contain
160 everything necessary to build Perl, rather than requiring a separate download
161 of the Windows SDK like previous versions did.
163 These packages can be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
164 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
165 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
168 Install Visual C++ 2008/2010 Express, then setup your environment using, e.g.
170 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
172 (assuming the default installation location was chosen).
174 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
175 file to set CCTYPE to MSVC90FREE or MSVC100FREE first.
177 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
179 This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same compiler
180 and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't contain everything
181 necessary to build Perl.
183 You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
184 SDK" components are required) for more header files and libraries.
186 These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
187 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
188 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
191 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
192 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
193 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
194 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
196 Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK. Setup your environment
197 as follows (assuming default installation locations were chosen):
199 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
201 SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\BIN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\bin;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\VCPackages;%PlatformSDKDir%\Bin
203 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include
205 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib
207 SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
209 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
210 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
211 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
212 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
214 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
219 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
221 =item Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
223 This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship with
224 Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain everything
225 necessary to build Perl.
227 You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
228 SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries and rc.exe, and
229 ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and nmake.exe. Note that the latter
230 (which also includes the free compiler and linker) requires the ".NET
231 Framework Redistributable" to be installed first. This can be downloaded and
232 installed separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway.
234 These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
235 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
236 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
239 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
240 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
241 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
242 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
244 Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET Framework SDK.
245 Setup your environment as follows (assuming default installation locations
248 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
250 SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin;%PlatformSDKDir%\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin
252 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include
254 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib
256 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
257 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
258 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
259 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
261 Several required files will still be missing:
267 cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It is actually
268 installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a location such as the
271 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
273 Copy it from there to %PlatformSDKDir%\Bin
277 lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with the /lib
278 option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it instead:
280 Change the line reading:
288 It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
289 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin containing:
294 for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you might want to build
295 later which explicitly reference "lib" rather than taking their value from
300 setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if the USE_SETARGV
301 option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies this object file in source form
302 in %PlatformSDKDir%\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and
303 internal.h from there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using
305 cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c
307 Then copy setargv.obj to %PlatformSDKDir%\lib
309 Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to enable the
310 USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove all mention of $(GLOBEXE)
311 from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj won't be required anyway.
315 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
320 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
322 =item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
324 The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building
325 Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment"
326 shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu.
328 =item MinGW release 3 with gcc
330 Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.2.x
331 and later). It can be downloaded here:
333 L<http://www.mingw.org/>
335 You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
345 Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
346 This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
347 versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Windows SDK, and
348 a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers. The
349 defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using MinGW/gcc.
353 Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
354 the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various
355 build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
357 Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with
358 INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous
359 build. In particular, this may cause problems with the
360 lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and
361 may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather
362 than the one being tested.
364 You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
365 CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. If building with
366 gcc-4.x.x, you'll also need to uncomment the assignment to GCC_4XX and
367 uncomment the assignment to the appropriate GCCHELPERDLL in the makefile.mk.
369 If building with the cross-compiler provided by
370 mingw-w64.sourceforge.net you'll need to uncomment the line that sets
371 GCCCROSS in the makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie
372 only if the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler
373 does not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these
374 executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.)
376 The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
377 may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists
380 You may also need to comment out the C<DELAYLOAD = ...> line in the
381 Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack and
382 the linker reports an internal error.
384 If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll, specify
385 them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
387 Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
391 Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
393 This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
394 perl513.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
395 under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
396 sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
400 =head2 Testing Perl on Windows
402 Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
403 the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
405 There should be no test failures.
407 Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
408 native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
409 spaces. So don't do that.
411 If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
412 failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
414 If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
415 arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
416 default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
417 from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
418 (usually somewhere like C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test.
420 If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into
421 problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For
422 example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk
423 contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler
424 (v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an
425 option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland
426 search algorithm to locate header files.
428 If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for
429 C<link()> related tests (I<op/write.t>, I<op/stat.t> ...). Testing on
430 NTFS avoids these errors.
432 Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not
433 have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
434 include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows
435 ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
438 Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
440 =head2 Installation of Perl on Windows
442 Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
443 built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
444 Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
445 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
446 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html>.
448 To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
449 your PATH environment variable: C<$INST_TOP\bin>, e.g.
451 set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
453 If you opted to uncomment C<INST_VER> and C<INST_ARCH> in the makefile
454 then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you will
455 need to add two new PATH components instead: C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin> and
456 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME>, e.g.
458 set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
460 =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Windows
464 =item Environment Variables
466 The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
467 into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
468 using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
470 If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
471 to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
472 to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
473 variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
475 You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
476 backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
478 Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
479 values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
480 C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
481 Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
482 following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
484 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
485 lib standard library path to add to @INC
486 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
487 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
488 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
489 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
490 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
492 Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
493 of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
494 separated with semicolons, as usual on Windows.
498 By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
499 which provides portable globbing.
501 If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
502 filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
503 to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
506 =item Using perl from the command line
508 If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
509 shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
510 with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
512 The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
513 the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
514 First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE) preprocesses the command
515 line, to handle redirection, environment variable expansion, and
516 location of the executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits
517 the remaining command line into individual arguments, using the
518 C runtime library upon which Perl was built.
520 It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
521 runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
522 wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
523 shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
524 using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
525 character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
526 and other special characters in arguments.
528 The Windows documentation has almost no description of how the
529 quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
530 based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and
531 passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to
532 prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up. You can
533 put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a backslash and
534 enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. The backslash and
535 the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by
538 The file redirection characters "E<lt>", "E<gt>", and "|" can be quoted by
539 double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
540 be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
541 the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make
542 this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
543 been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears
544 to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
545 line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
546 the caret as a quote character).
548 Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
550 This prints two doublequotes:
552 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
556 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
558 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
560 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
562 This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
564 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
566 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
568 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
570 This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
572 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
574 This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
576 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
578 This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
580 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
583 Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
584 is left as an exercise to the reader :)
586 One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
587 Windows is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
588 that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
589 therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
590 Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
593 =item Building Extensions
595 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
596 of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
597 Look in L<http://www.cpan.org/> for more information on CPAN.
599 Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
600 in the Windows environment; you should check the information at
601 L<http://testers.cpan.org/> before investing too much effort into
602 porting modules that don't readily build.
604 Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
605 be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
612 where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
613 use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
614 may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
615 fail), but most serious ones do.
617 It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
618 ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
619 either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
620 old version of nmake reportedly available from:
622 L<http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe>
624 Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
627 L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/>
629 You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
631 Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
632 depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
633 important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
635 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
636 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
637 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
638 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
640 If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
641 edit Config.pm to fix it.
643 If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
644 C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
645 the compiler for command-line compilation.
647 If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
648 why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
649 it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
650 that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
653 =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
655 The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
656 as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
657 programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
658 This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
659 perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
660 However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
661 behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
662 compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
663 be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
664 alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
666 Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
667 about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
668 powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
669 */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
670 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
671 entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
673 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
674 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
677 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
682 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
683 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
687 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
688 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
689 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
690 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
691 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
692 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
694 Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
695 Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
696 set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
697 to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
700 If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
701 command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
702 binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
703 what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
704 done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
706 =item Notes on 64-bit Windows
708 Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium
711 The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the
712 norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are
713 both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition,
714 there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast,
715 the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int>
716 as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of
717 64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of
720 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
721 binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build
722 of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build
723 a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother:
729 A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
734 There is no 2GB limit on process size.
738 Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
743 Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
749 =head2 Running Perl Scripts
751 Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
752 indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
753 Windows has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
756 Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
757 Windows rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
758 to use this to execute perl scripts:
764 There is a facility called "file extension associations". This can be
765 manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come
766 standard with Windows. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how
767 to set this up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows
768 wasn't perl-ready? :).
772 Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
773 reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
774 old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
775 regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
776 makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
777 perl scripts into batch files. For example:
781 will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
782 .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
784 If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
785 "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
786 refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
787 sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
788 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
789 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
790 startup file to enable this to work.
794 Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
795 so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
796 run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
797 original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
798 if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
799 avoids both problems is possible.
801 A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
802 to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
803 if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
804 executed. Since you can run batch files on Windows platforms simply
805 by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
806 runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
807 With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
808 than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
809 the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
810 links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
812 Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
813 "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
814 Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
818 =head2 Miscellaneous Things
820 A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
821 able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
824 C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
825 in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
826 like C<less> (recent versions of which have Windows support). You may
827 have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
828 "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
831 One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk>
832 is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line
833 window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy
834 of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl>
835 executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly
836 the same as normal C<perl> on Windows, except that options like C<-h>
837 don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
839 If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
840 bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
841 find a mailer on your system).
843 =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
845 Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
846 set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
847 the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
848 the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
849 Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
850 as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
851 files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
852 or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
853 updating it). The build does complete with
857 but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
859 Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
860 L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
861 surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
862 in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
863 that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport>
864 for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
866 Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
867 in the Windows environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
869 Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
870 behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
872 Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
873 doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
874 or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
875 implementations of C<signal()> on Windows are severely crippled.
876 Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
877 variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
878 currently be considered unsupported.
880 Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
881 you may find to E<lt>F<perlbug@perl.org>E<gt>, along with the output
882 produced by C<perl -V>.
884 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
886 The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark
887 of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
893 =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
895 =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
897 =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
899 =item Jan Dubois E<lt>jand@activestate.comE<gt>
901 =item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.m.hay@googlemail.comE<gt>
905 This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
913 This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
914 and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
915 at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
918 Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
920 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
922 Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
924 Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
926 Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
928 Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
930 Last updated: 18 November 2010