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 Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
43 Intel C++ Compiler (experimental)
44 Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.4.5 or later
45 Gcc by mingw-w64.org 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.org>
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 Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given away free. They are
66 available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005-2013 Express
67 Edition" (and also as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") and are the same
68 compilers that ship with "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++
69 2005-2013 Professional" respectively.
71 This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using:
73 Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
74 MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)
76 The Windows SDK can be downloaded from L<http://www.microsoft.com/>.
77 The MinGW64 compiler is available at L<http://mingw-w64.org>.
78 The latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a trimmed
79 down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl available at:
80 L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/>
82 NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit Windows
83 operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment variable to "undef".
84 Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests when USE_ITHREADS *= define
85 (as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *= Debug line is commented out.
87 This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
88 is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
89 able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
90 See L<Usage Hints for Perl on Windows> below for general hints about this.
92 =head2 Setting Up Perl on Windows
98 You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
99 Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, you can use nmake supplied with Visual C++
100 or Windows SDK. You may also use, for Visual C++ or Windows SDK, dmake instead
101 of nmake. dmake is open source software, but is not included with Visual C++ or
102 Windows SDK. Builds using gcc need dmake or gmake. nmake is not supported for
103 gcc builds. gmake only supports gcc builds, not any other compiler.
104 Parallel building is only supported with dmake with any compiler. It is
105 recommended to use dmake 4.13 or newer for parallel building. Older dmakes,
106 in parallel mode, have very high CPU usage and pound the disk/filing system
107 with duplicate I/O calls in an aggressive polling loop.
109 A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
111 L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>
113 Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
117 Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows. Some versions of the
118 popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
119 If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
122 Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The
123 build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
125 =item Microsoft Visual C++
127 The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. Visual C
128 requires that certain things be set up in the console before Visual C will
129 sucessfully run. To make a console box be able to run the C compiler, you will
130 need to beforehand, run the C<vcvars32.bat> file to compile for x86-32 and for
131 x86-64 C<vcvarsall.bat x64> or C<vcvarsamd64.bat>. On a typical install of a
132 Microsoft C compiler product, these batch files will already be in your C<PATH>
133 environment variable so you may just type them without an absolute path into
134 your console. If you need to find the absolute path to the batch file, it is
135 usually found somewhere like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin.
136 With some newer Micrsoft C products (released after ~2004), the installer will
137 put a shortcut in the start menu to launch a new console window with the
138 console already set up for your target architecture (x86-32 or x86-64 or IA64).
139 With the newer compilers, you may also use the older batch files if you choose
142 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express Edition
144 These free versions of Visual C++ 2008-2013 Professional contain the same
145 compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions, and also contain
146 everything necessary to build Perl, rather than requiring a separate download
147 of the Windows SDK like previous versions did.
149 These packages can be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
150 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
151 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
154 Install Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express, then setup your environment using, e.g.
156 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
158 (assuming the default installation location was chosen).
160 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
161 file to set CCTYPE to one of MSVC90FREE-MSVC120FREE first.
163 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
165 This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same compiler
166 and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't contain everything
167 necessary to build Perl.
169 You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
170 SDK" components are required) for more header files and libraries.
172 These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
173 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
174 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
177 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
178 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
179 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
180 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
182 Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK. Setup your environment
183 as follows (assuming default installation locations were chosen):
185 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
187 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
189 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include
191 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib
193 SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
195 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
196 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
197 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
198 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
200 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
205 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
207 =item Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
209 This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship with
210 Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain everything
211 necessary to build Perl.
213 You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
214 SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries and rc.exe, and
215 ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and nmake.exe. Note that the latter
216 (which also includes the free compiler and linker) requires the ".NET
217 Framework Redistributable" to be installed first. This can be downloaded and
218 installed separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway.
220 These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
221 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
222 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
225 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
226 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
227 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
228 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
230 Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET Framework SDK.
231 Setup your environment as follows (assuming default installation locations
234 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
236 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
238 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include
240 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib
242 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
243 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
244 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
245 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
247 Several required files will still be missing:
253 cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It is actually
254 installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a location such as the
257 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
259 Copy it from there to %PlatformSDKDir%\Bin
263 lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with the /lib
264 option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it instead:
266 Change the line reading:
274 It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
275 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin containing:
280 for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you might want to build
281 later which explicitly reference "lib" rather than taking their value from
286 setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if the USE_SETARGV
287 option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies this object file in source form
288 in %PlatformSDKDir%\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and
289 internal.h from there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using
291 cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c
293 Then copy setargv.obj to %PlatformSDKDir%\lib
295 Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to enable the
296 USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove all mention of $(GLOBEXE)
297 from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj won't be required anyway.
301 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
306 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
308 =item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
310 The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building
311 Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment"
312 shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu.
314 =item MinGW release 3 with gcc
316 Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.4.5
317 and later). It can be downloaded here:
319 L<http://www.mingw.org/>
321 You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
323 =item Intel C++ Compiler
325 Experimental support for using Intel C++ Compiler has been added. Edit
326 win32/Makefile and pick the correct CCTYPE for the Visual C that Intel C was
327 installed into. Also uncomment __ICC to enable Intel C on Visual C support.
328 To set up the build enviroment, from the Start Menu run
329 IA-32 Visual Studio 20__ mode or Intel 64 Visual Studio 20__ mode as
330 appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that prompt box.
332 Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions probably will
333 work. Using Intel C++ Compiler instead of Visual C has the benefit of C99
334 compatibility which is needed by some CPAN XS modules, while maintaining
335 compatibility with Visual C object code and Visual C debugging infrastructure
346 Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
347 This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
348 versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Windows SDK, and
349 a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers. The
350 defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using MinGW/gcc.
354 Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
355 the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various
356 build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
358 Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with
359 INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous
360 build. In particular, this may cause problems with the
361 lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and
362 may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather
363 than the one being tested.
365 You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
366 CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
368 If building with the cross-compiler provided by
369 mingw-w64.org you'll need to uncomment the line that sets
370 GCCCROSS in the makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie
371 only if the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler
372 does not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these
373 executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.)
375 The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
376 may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists
379 You may also need to comment out the C<DELAYLOAD = ...> line in the
380 Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack and
381 the linker reports an internal error.
383 If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll, specify
384 them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
386 NOTE: The USE_64_BIT_INT build option is not supported with the 32-bit
387 Visual C++ 6.0 compiler.
389 Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
393 Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
395 This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
396 perl523.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
397 under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
398 sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
400 To try dmake's parallel mode, type "dmake -P2", where 2, is the maximum number
401 of parallel jobs you want to run. A number of things in the build process will
402 run in parallel, but there are serialization points where you will see just 1
403 CPU maxed out. This is normal.
405 If you are advanced enough with building C code, here is a suggestion to speed
406 up building perl, and the later C<make test>. Try to keep your PATH enviromental
407 variable with the least number of folders possible (remember to keep your C
408 compiler's folders there). C<C:\WINDOWS\system32> or C<C:\WINNT\system32>
409 depending on your OS version should be first folder in PATH, since "cmd.exe"
410 is the most commonly launched program during the build and later testing.
414 =head2 Testing Perl on Windows
416 Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
417 the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
419 There should be no test failures.
421 If you build with Visual C++ 2013 then three tests currently may fail with
422 Daylight Saving Time related problems: F<t/io/fs.t>,
423 F<cpan/HTTP-Tiny/t/110_mirror.t> and F<lib/File.Copy.t>. The failures are
424 caused by bugs in the CRT in VC++ 2013 which will be fixed in future releases
425 of VC++, as explained by Microsoft here:
426 L<https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/811534/utime-sometimes-fails-to-set-the-correct-file-times-in-visual-c-2013>. In the meantime,
427 if you need fixed C<stat> and C<utime> functions then have a look at the
428 CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime.
430 If you build with certain versions (e.g. 4.8.1) of gcc from www.mingw.org then
431 F<ext/POSIX/t/time.t> may fail test 17 due to a known bug in those gcc builds:
432 see L<http://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2152/>.
434 Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
435 native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
436 spaces. So don't do that.
438 If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
439 failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
441 Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not
442 have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
443 include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows
444 ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
447 Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
449 =head2 Installation of Perl on Windows
451 Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
452 built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
453 Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
454 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
455 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html>.
457 To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
458 your PATH environment variable: C<$INST_TOP\bin>, e.g.
460 set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
462 If you opted to uncomment C<INST_VER> and C<INST_ARCH> in the makefile
463 then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you will
464 need to add two new PATH components instead: C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin> and
465 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME>, e.g.
467 set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
469 =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Windows
473 =item Environment Variables
475 The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
476 into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
477 using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
479 If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
480 to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
481 to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
482 variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
484 You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
485 backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
487 Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
488 values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
489 C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
490 Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
491 following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
493 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
494 lib standard library path to add to @INC
495 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
496 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
497 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
498 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
499 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
501 Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
502 of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
503 separated with semicolons, as usual on Windows.
507 By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
508 which provides portable globbing.
510 If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
511 filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
512 to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
515 =item Using perl from the command line
517 If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
518 shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
519 with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
521 The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
522 the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
523 First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE) preprocesses the command
524 line, to handle redirection, environment variable expansion, and
525 location of the executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits
526 the remaining command line into individual arguments, using the
527 C runtime library upon which Perl was built.
529 It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
530 runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
531 wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
532 shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
533 using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
534 character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
535 and other special characters in arguments.
537 The Windows documentation describes the shell parsing rules here:
538 L<http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/cmd.mspx?mfr=true>
539 and the C runtime parsing rules here:
540 L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/17w5ykft%28v=VS.100%29.aspx>.
542 Here are some further observations based on experiments: The C runtime
543 breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to programs in argc/argv.
544 Double quotes can be used to prevent arguments with spaces in them from
545 being split up. You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping
546 it with a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes.
547 The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will
548 be stripped by the C runtime.
550 The file redirection characters "E<lt>", "E<gt>", and "|" can be quoted by
551 double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
552 be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
553 the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make
554 this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
555 been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears
556 to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
557 line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
558 the caret as a quote character).
560 Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
562 This prints two doublequotes:
564 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
568 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
570 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
572 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
574 This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
576 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
578 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
580 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
582 This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
584 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
586 This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
588 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
590 This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
592 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
595 Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
596 is left as an exercise to the reader :)
598 One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
599 Windows is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
600 that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
601 therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
602 Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
605 =item Building Extensions
607 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
608 of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
609 Look in L<http://www.cpan.org/> for more information on CPAN.
611 Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
612 in the Windows environment; you should check the information at
613 L<http://www.cpantesters.org/> before investing too much effort into
614 porting modules that don't readily build.
616 Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
617 be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
624 where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
625 use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
626 may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
627 fail), but most serious ones do.
629 It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
630 ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
631 either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
632 old version of nmake reportedly available from:
634 L<http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe>
636 Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
639 L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/>
641 You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
643 Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
644 depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
645 important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
647 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
648 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
649 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
650 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
652 If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
653 edit Config.pm to fix it.
655 If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
656 C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
657 the compiler for command-line compilation before running C<perl Makefile.PL>
658 or any invocation of make.
660 If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
661 why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
662 it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
663 that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
666 =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
668 The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
669 as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
670 programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
671 This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
672 perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
673 However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
674 behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
675 compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
676 be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
677 alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
679 Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
680 about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
681 powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
682 */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
683 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
684 entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
686 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
687 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
690 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
695 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
696 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
700 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
701 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
702 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
703 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
704 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
705 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
707 Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
708 Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
709 set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
710 to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
713 If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
714 command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
715 binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
716 what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
717 done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
719 =item Notes on 64-bit Windows
721 Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium
724 The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the
725 norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are
726 both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition,
727 there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast,
728 the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int>
729 as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of
730 64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of
733 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
734 binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build
735 of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build
736 a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother:
742 A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
747 There is no 2GB limit on process size.
751 Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
756 Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
762 =head2 Running Perl Scripts
764 Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
765 indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
766 Windows has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
769 Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
770 Windows rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
771 to use this to execute perl scripts:
777 There is a facility called "file extension associations". This can be
778 manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come
779 standard with Windows. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how
780 to set this up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows
781 wasn't perl-ready? :).
785 Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
786 reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
787 old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
788 regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
789 makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
790 perl scripts into batch files. For example:
794 will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
795 .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
797 If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
798 "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
799 refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
800 sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
801 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
802 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
803 startup file to enable this to work.
807 Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
808 so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
809 run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
810 original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
811 if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
812 avoids both problems is possible.
814 A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
815 to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
816 if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
817 executed. Since you can run batch files on Windows platforms simply
818 by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
819 runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
820 With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
821 than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
822 the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
823 links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
825 Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
826 "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
827 Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
831 =head2 Miscellaneous Things
833 A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
834 able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
837 C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
838 in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
839 like C<less> (recent versions of which have Windows support). You may
840 have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
841 "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
844 One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk>
845 is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line
846 window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy
847 of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl>
848 executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly
849 the same as normal C<perl> on Windows, except that options like C<-h>
850 don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
852 If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
853 bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
854 find a mailer on your system).
856 =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
858 Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
859 set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
860 the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
861 the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
862 Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
863 as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
864 files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
865 or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
866 updating it). The build does complete with
870 but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
872 A git GUI shell extension for Windows such as TortoiseGit will cause the build
873 and later C<make test> to run much slower since every file is checked for its
874 git status as soon as it is created and/or modified. TortoiseGit doesn't cause
875 any test failures or build problems unlike the antivirus software described
876 above, but it does cause similar slowness. It is suggested to use Task Manager
877 to look for background processes which use high CPU amounts during the building
880 Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
881 L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
882 surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
883 in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
884 that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport>
885 for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
887 Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
888 in the Windows environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
890 Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
891 behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
893 Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
894 doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
895 or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
896 implementations of C<signal()> on Windows are severely crippled.
897 Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
898 variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
899 currently be considered unsupported.
901 Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
902 you may find to E<lt>F<perlbug@perl.org>E<gt>, along with the output
903 produced by C<perl -V>.
905 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
907 The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark
908 of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
914 =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
916 =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
918 =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
920 =item Jan Dubois E<lt>jand@activestate.comE<gt>
922 =item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.m.hay@googlemail.comE<gt>
926 This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
934 This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
935 and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
936 at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
939 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
941 Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
943 Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
945 Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
947 Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
949 Last updated: 07 October 2014