=head1 SYNOPSIS
-These are instructions for building Perl under WindowsNT (versions
-3.51 or 4.0), using Visual C++ (versions 2.0 through 5.0). Currently,
-this port may also build under Windows95, but you can expect problems
-stemming from the unmentionable command shell that infests that
-platform. Note this caveat is only about B<building> perl. Once
-built, you should be able to B<use> it on either Win32 platform (modulo
-the problems arising from the inferior command shell).
+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows NT (versions
+3.51 or 4.0). Currently, this port is reported to build under
+Windows95 using the 4DOS shell--the default shell that infests
+Windows95 may not work fully (but see below). Note that this caveat
+is only about B<building> perl. Once built, you should be able to
+B<use> it on either Win32 platform (modulo the problems arising from
+the inferior command shell).
=head1 DESCRIPTION
was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under
which this software is being distributed.
-Also make sure you read the L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> section below for the
+Also make sure you read L<BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the
known limitations of this port.
The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
"Configure".
-You should probably also read the README.os2 file, which gives a
-different set of rules to build a Perl that will work on Win32
-platforms. That method will probably enable you to build a more
-Unix-compatible perl, but you will also need to download and use
-various other support software described in that file.
+You may also want to look at two other options for building
+a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and
+README.os2 files, which each give a different set of rules to build
+a Perl that will work on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will
+probably enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you
+will also need to download and use various other build-time and
+run-time support software described in those files.
This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no
additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
-system). Currently, this port is only capable of using Microsoft's
-Visual C++ compiler. The ultimate goal is to support the other major
-compilers that can be used to build Win32 applications.
+system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
+following compilers:
+
+ Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
+ Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later
+ Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better
+
+The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Support
+for it is still experimental. (Older versions of GCC are known
+not to work.)
This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be
able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites.
+See L<Usage Hints> below for general hints about this.
=head2 Setting Up
=over 4
-=item *
+=item Command Shell
-Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. In particular, do
-*not* use the 4DOS/NT shell. The Makefile has commands that are not
-compatible with that shell. You are mostly on your own if you can
-muster the temerity to attempt this with Windows95.
+Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the
+popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble.
+If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd
+shell. The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilites with the
+"command.com" shell that comes with Windows95.
-=item *
+However, there have been reports of successful build attempts using
+4DOS/NT version 6.01 under Windows95, using dmake, but your mileage
+may vary. There is also some basic support for building using dmake
+under command.com. Nevertheless, if building under command.com
+doesn't work, try 4DOS/NT.
-Run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN.
-This will set your build environment.
+The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
-=item *
+Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The
+build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail.
+
+=item Borland C++
+
+If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake, a freely
+available make that has very nice macro features and parallelability.
+(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled, and will not
+work for MakeMaker builds.)
+
+A port of dmake for win32 platforms is available from:
+
+ http://cpan.perl.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
+
+(This is a fixed version of original dmake sources obtained from
+http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of version 4.1PL1, the original
+sources did not build as shipped, and had various other problems.
+A patch is included in the above fixed version.)
-Depending on how you extracted the distribution, you have to make sure
-all the files are writable by you. The easiest way to make sure of
-this is to execute:
+Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
+in the README.NOW file).
- attrib -R *.* /S
+=item Microsoft Visual C++
-from the perl toplevel directory. You don't I<have> to do this if you
-used the right tools to extract the files in the standard distribution,
-but it doesn't hurt to do so.
+The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
+You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere
+like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This will set your build environment.
+
+You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++, provided:
+you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
+under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your environment,
+and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into "make=dmake". The
+latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
+make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
+
+=item Mingw32 with GCC
+
+GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
+
+ ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
+
+The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
+
+Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as indicated
+in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up a few environment
+variables (usually run from a batch file).
+
+You also need dmake. See L</"Borland C++"> above on how to get it.
=back
Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
-versions of NMAKE that come with Visual C++ ver. 2.0 and above.
+versions of nmake that come with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
+that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake
+makefile are setup to build using the Borland compiler.
=item *
-Edit the Makefile and change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP
-if you want perl to be installed in a location other than "C:\PERL".
+Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if using nmake) and change the values
+of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various build
+flags.
+
+Beginning with version 5.005, there is experimental support for building
+a perl interpreter that supports the Perl Object abstraction (courtesy
+ActiveState Tool Corp.) PERL_OBJECT uses C++, and the binaries are
+therefore incompatible with the regular C build. However, the
+PERL_OBJECT build does provide something called the C-API, for linking
+it with extensions that won't compile under PERL_OBJECT. Using the C_API
+is typically requested through:
+
+ perl Makefile.PL CAPI=TRUE
+
+PERL_OBJECT requires VC++ 5.0 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or later. It
+is not yet supported under GCC. WARNING: Binaries built with
+PERL_OBJECT enabled are B<not> compatible with binaries built without.
+Perl installs PERL_OBJECT binaries under a distinct architecture name,
+so they B<can> coexist, though.
+
+Beginning with version 5.005, there is experimental support for building
+a perl interpreter that is capable of native threading. Binaries built
+with thread support enabled are also incompatible with the vanilla C
+build. WARNING: Binaries built with threads enabled are B<not> compatible
+with binaries built without. Perl installs threads enabled binaries under
+a distinct architecture name, so they B<can> coexist, though.
+
+At the present time, you cannot enable both threading and PERL_OBJECT.
+You can get only one of them in a Perl interpreter.
+
+If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
+enable the appropriate option in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not
+bundled with the distribution due to US Government restrictions
+on the export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this routine
+is part of the "libdes" library (written by Eric Young) which is widely
+available worldwide, usually along with SSLeay (for example:
+"ftp://fractal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to the
+name of the file that implements des_fcrypt(). Alternatively, if
+you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(), you can set
+CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name. The location above contains
+many versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly different
+implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older versions have a single,
+self-contained file (fcrypt.c) that implements crypt(), so they may be
+easier to use. A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is
+in des_fcrypt.patch.
+
+Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
+fail at run time.
+
+You will also have to make sure CCHOME points to wherever you installed
+your compiler.
+
+The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++
+may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists
+and is valid.
+
+Other options are explained in the makefiles. Be sure to read the
+instructions carefully.
=item *
-If you are using Visual C++ ver. 4.0 and above: type "nmake".
-If you are using a Visual C++ ver. 2.0: type "nmake CCTYPE=MSVC20".
+Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
-perl.dll, and perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and various other
-extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the make fails for
-any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
+perl.dll (or perl56.dll), and perlglob.exe at the perl toplevel, and
+various other extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build
+fails for any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
+
+The build process may produce "harmless" compiler warnings (more or
+less copiously, depending on how picky your compiler gets). The
+maintainers are aware of these warnings, thankyouverymuch. :)
=back
=head2 Testing
-Type "nmake test". This will run most of the tests from the
-testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and but no test should fail).
+Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
+the testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and but no test should fail).
If some tests do fail, it may be because you are using a different command
-shell than the native "cmd.exe".
+shell than the native "cmd.exe", or because you are building from a path
+that contains spaces. So don't do that.
+
+If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
+failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
-Please report any failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
+If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in op/taint.t
+arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs on the system
+default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages
+from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system directory
+(usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32), and rerun the test.
+
+Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
=head2 Installation
-Type "nmake install". This will put the newly built perl and the
-libraries under "C:\PERL" (actually whatever you set INST_TOP to
-in the Makefile). To use the Perl you just installed, set your
-PATH environment variable to "C:\PERL\BIN" (or $(INST_TOP)\BIN, if you
-changed the default as above).
+Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
+built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
+Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html>. To use the Perl you just installed,
+you will need to add two components to your PATH environment variable,
+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin>, and C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
+For example:
+
+ set PATH c:\perl\5.005\bin;c:\perl\5.005\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
+
+
+=head2 Usage Hints
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Environment Variables
+
+The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
+into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
+using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
+
+If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB
+to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl
+to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
+variables you can set in L<perlrun>.
+
+You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
+backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
+
+Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default
+values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to read entries from
+C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>.
+Entries in the former override entries in the latter. One or more of the
+following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
+
+ lib-$] version-specific path to add to @INC
+ lib path to add to @INC
+ sitelib-$] version-specific path to add to @INC
+ sitelib path to add to @INC
+ PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
+
+Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
+of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.00502>. Paths must be
+separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
+
+=item File Globbing
+
+By default, perl spawns an external program to do file globbing.
+The install process installs both a perlglob.exe and a perlglob.bat
+that perl can use for this purpose. Note that with the default
+installation, perlglob.exe will be found by the system before
+perlglob.bat.
+
+perlglob.exe relies on the argv expansion done by the C Runtime of
+the particular compiler you used, and therefore behaves very
+differently depending on the Runtime used to build it. To preserve
+compatiblity, perlglob.bat (a perl script that can be used portably)
+is installed. Besides being portable, perlglob.bat also offers
+enhanced globbing functionality.
+
+If you want perl to use perlglob.bat instead of perlglob.exe, just
+delete perlglob.exe from the install location (or move it somewhere
+perl cannot find). Using File::DosGlob.pm (which implements the core
+functionality of perlglob.bat) to override the internal CORE::glob()
+works about 10 times faster than spawing perlglob.exe, and you should
+take this approach when writing new modules. See File::DosGlob for
+details.
+
+=item Using perl from the command line
+
+If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
+shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
+with what Windows NT offers by way of a command shell.
+
+The crucial thing to understand about the "cmd" shell (which is
+the default on Windows NT) is that it does not do any wildcard
+expansions of command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be
+quoted). It also provides only rudimentary quoting. The only
+(useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to
+protect spaces in arguments and other special characters. The
+Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
+quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observations
+based on experiments: The shell breaks arguments at spaces and
+passes them to programs in argc/argv. Doublequotes can be used
+to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up.
+You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with
+a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes.
+The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the
+argument will be stripped by the shell.
+
+The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" cannot be quoted
+by double quotes (there are probably more such). Single quotes
+will protect those three file redirection characters, but the
+single quotes don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this
+type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also
+been observed to behave as a quoting character (and doesn't get
+stripped by the shell also).
+
+Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
+
+This prints two doublequotes:
+
+ perl -e "print '\"\"' "
+
+This does the same:
+
+ perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
+
+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
+
+This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
+
+This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
+
+This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console:
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
+
+This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
+
+ perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
+
+This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch":
+
+ perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
+
+
+Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows95
+is left as an exercise to the reader :)
+
+=item Building Extensions
+
+The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth
+of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build.
+Look in http://www.perl.com/ for more information on CPAN.
+
+Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can
+be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
+
+ perl Makefile.PL
+ $MAKE
+ $MAKE test
+ $MAKE install
+
+where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
+use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
+may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything, or
+fail), but most serious ones do.
+
+It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and
+ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can
+either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier, or get an
+old version of nmake reportedly available from:
+
+ ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
+
+Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
+CPAN:
+
+ http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
+
+Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
+depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
+important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
+
+ make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
+ make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
+ any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
+ (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
+
+If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use,
+edit Config.pm to fix it.
+
+If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported
+C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
+the compiler for command-line compilation.
+
+If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
+why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
+it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report
+that with full details of how the build failed using the perlbug
+utility.
+
+=item Command-line Wildcard Expansion
+
+The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such
+as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to
+programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that.
+This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case,
+perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide.
+However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the
+behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the
+compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may
+be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an
+alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
+
+Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
+about it: 1) you can start using it right away 2) it is more powerful,
+because it will do the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c
+3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it 4) you can
+extend the method to add any customizations (or even entirely
+different kinds of wildcard expansion).
+
+ C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
+ # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
+ use File::DosGlob;
+ @ARGV = map {
+ my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
+ @g ? @g : $_;
+ } @ARGV;
+ 1;
+ ^Z
+ C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
+ C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
+ p4view/perl/perl.c
+ p4view/perl/perlio.c
+ p4view/perl/perly.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
+ perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
+
+Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
+Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
+set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
+to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
+environment.
+
+If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
+command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting
+binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be
+what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion
+done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above.
+
+=item Win32 Specific Extensions
+
+A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
+from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
+be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
+native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port does not
+have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools, these
+extensions typically do not support those tools either, and therefore
+cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the previous section.
+
+To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
+ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that contains
+all of the ActiveState extensions and most other Win32 extensions from
+CPAN in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with MakeMaker
+support. This bundle is available at:
+
+ http://www.perl.com/CPAN/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.14.zip
+
+See the README in that distribution for building and installation
+instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
+same location.
+
+=item Running Perl Scripts
+
+Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
+indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl.
+Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are
+executables.
+
+Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on
+Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods
+to use this to execute perl scripts:
+
+=over 8
+
+=item 1
+
+There is a facility called "file extension associations" that will
+work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the two
+commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Windows NT
+4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to set this
+up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT wasn't
+perl-ready? :).
+
+=item 2
+
+Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
+reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
+old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
+regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
+makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
+perl scripts into batch files. For example:
+
+ pl2bat foo.pl
+
+will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any
+.pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
+
+If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
+"pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
+refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make
+sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
+4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their
+4NT.INI file, or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT
+startup file to enable this to work.
+
+=item 3
+
+Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
+so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not
+run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
+original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive
+if the originals get updated often. A different approach that
+avoids both problems is possible.
+
+A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
+to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example,
+if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
+executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply
+by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively
+runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat".
+With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location
+than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on
+the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic
+links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
+
+Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
+"runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
+Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
+
+=back
+
+=item Miscellaneous Things
+
+A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be
+able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your
+system.
+
+C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
+in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
+like C<less> (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may
+have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
+"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator
+"foo".
+
+If you find bugs in perl, you can run C<perlbug> to create a
+bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
+find a mailer on your system).
+
+=back
=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
-This is still very much an experimental port, and should be considered
-alpha quality software. You can expect changes in virtually all of
-these areas: build process, installation structure, supported
-utilities/modules, and supported perl functionality. Specifically,
-functionality specific to the Win32 environment may ultimately
-be supported as either core modules or extensions.
+An effort has been made to ensure that the DLLs produced by the two
+supported compilers are compatible with each other (despite the
+best efforts of the compiler vendors). Extension binaries produced
+by one compiler should also coexist with a perl binary built by
+a different compiler. In order to accomplish this, PERL.DLL provides
+a layer of runtime code that uses the C Runtime that perl was compiled
+with. Extensions which include "perl.h" will transparently access
+the functions in this layer, thereby ensuring that both perl and
+extensions use the same runtime functions.
If you have had prior exposure to Perl on Unix platforms, you will notice
this port exhibits behavior different from what is documented. Most of the
-differences fall under one of these categories.
+differences fall under one of these categories. We do not consider
+any of them to be serious limitations (especially when compared to the
+limited nature of some of the Win32 OSes themselves :)
=over 8
C<stat()> and C<lstat()> functions may not behave as documented. They
may return values that bear no resemblance to those reported on Unix
-platforms, and some fields may be completely bogus.
+platforms, and some fields (like the the one for inode) may be completely
+bogus.
=item *
-The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>, C<exec()>,
+The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>,
C<dump()>, C<chown()>, C<link()>, C<symlink()>, C<chroot()>,
-C<setpgrp()>, C<getpgrp()>, C<setpriority()>, C<getpriority()>,
-C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>, C<flock()>. This list is possibly very
-incomplete.
+C<setpgrp()> and related security functions, C<setpriority()>,
+C<getpriority()>, C<syscall()>, C<fcntl()>, C<getpw*()>,
+C<msg*()>, C<shm*()>, C<sem*()>, C<alarm()>, C<socketpair()>,
+C<*netent()>, C<*protoent()>, C<*servent()>, C<*hostent()>,
+C<getnetby*()>.
+This list is possibly incomplete.
=item *
=item *
-The behavior of C<system()> or the C<qx[]> operator (a.k.a. "backticks"),
-when used to call interactive commands, is ill-defined.
+The C<ioctl()> call is only supported on sockets (where it provides the
+functionality of ioctlsocket() in the Winsock API).
=item *
-C<$?> ends up with the exitstatus of the subprocess (this is different
-from Unix, where the exitstatus is actually given by "$? >> 8").
-Failure to spawn() the subprocess is indicated by setting $? to
-"255<<8". This is subject to change.
+Failure to spawn() a subprocess is indicated by setting $? to "255 << 8".
+C<$?> is set in a way compatible with Unix (i.e. the exitstatus of the
+subprocess is obtained by "$? >> 8", as described in the documentation).
=item *
-Building modules available on CPAN is mostly supported, but this
-hasn't been tested much yet. Expect strange problems, and be
-prepared to deal with the consequences.
+You can expect problems building modules available on CPAN if you
+build perl itself with -DUSE_THREADS. These problems should be resolved
+as we get closer to 5.005.
=item *
=item *
-Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms.
+Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
+doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
+or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
+implementations of C<signal()> on Win32 are severely crippled.
+Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag
+variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should
+currently be considered unsupported.
=item *
-File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms.
+C<kill()> is implemented, but doesn't have the semantics of
+C<raise()>, i.e. it doesn't send a signal to the identified process
+like it does on Unix platforms. Instead it immediately calls
+C<TerminateProcess(process,signal)>. Thus the signal argument is
+used to set the exit-status of the terminated process. In particular,
+C<kill(0,$pid)> will kill the process identified by C<$pid> (unlike
+on Unix). This behavior may change in future.
=item *
-Not all of the utilities that come with the Perl distribution
-are supported yet.
+File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms. In particular,
+if you don't use perlglob.bat for globbing, it will understand
+wildcards only in the filename component (and not in the pathname).
+In other words, something like "print <*/*.pl>" will not print all the
+perl scripts in all the subdirectories one level under the current one
+(like it does on UNIX platforms). perlglob.exe is also dependent on
+the particular implementation of wildcard expansion in the vendor
+libraries used to build it (which varies wildly at the present time).
+Using perlglob.bat (or File::DosGlob) avoids these limitations, but
+still only provides DOS semantics (read "warts") for globbing.
=back
=over 4
-=item Gary Ng <F<71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>>
+Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
-=item Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@umich.edu>>
+Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
-=item Nick Ing-Simmons <F<nick@ni-s.u-net.com>>
+Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ni-s.u-net.comE<gt>
=back
+This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
+
=head1 SEE ALSO
L<perl>
This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24,
and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available
-at the time.
+at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks
+since then.
+
+Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
+
+GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
+
+Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
+
+Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
-Nick Ing-Simmons and Gurusamy Sarathy have made numerous and
-sundry hacks since then.
+Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
-Last updated: 13 April 1997
+Last updated: 28 December 1999
=cut
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff