=head1 NAME
-perlwin32 - Perl under WindowsNT [XXX and perhaps under Windows95]
+perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
=head1 SYNOPSIS
-These are instructions for building Perl under WindowsNT (versions
-3.51 or 4.0), using Visual C++.
+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
+2000).
=head1 DESCRIPTION
Before you start, you should glance through the README file
-found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution
+found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution
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, each of which 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 on the platforms.
+system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
+following compilers:
-=head2 Setting Up
+ 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 for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this.
+
+=head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32
=over 4
-=item *
+=item Make
+
+You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
+Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000, nmake will work. All other
+builds need dmake.
+
+dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
+and parallelability.
+
+A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
+
+ http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
+
+(This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources obtained from
+http://www.wticorp.com/. 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.)
+
+Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow the instructions
+in the README.NOW file).
+
+There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++
+compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed
+case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named
+with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked
+to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files again.
+For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files, resulting in
+needless recompiles every time dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you
+may use the script "sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is
+available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source distribution.
+
+=item Command Shell
+
+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 incompatibilities with the
+"command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to
+use dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
+
+The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the cmd shell.
+
+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.
+(The make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not
+work for MakeMaker builds.)
+
+See L</"Make"> above.
+
+=item Microsoft Visual C++
+
+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, however,
+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:
-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.
+ ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
+
+You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
+
+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 ran from a batch file).
+
+There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe
+released 7 November 1999:
+
+=over
=item *
-Run the VCVARS32.BAT file usually found somewhere like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN.
-This will set your build environment.
+It left out a fix for certain command line quotes. To fix this, be sure
+to download and install the file fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above
+ftp location.
=item *
-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:
+The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may be wrong. If your
+stdio.h has this problem, you will see an exception when running the
+test t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the typedef for fpos_t from
+"long" to "long long" in the file i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h,
+and rebuild.
+
+=back
- attrib -R *.* /S
+A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-to-be-outdated) bundle
+of the above package with the mentioned fixes already applied is available
+here:
-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.
+ http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
+ ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
=back
-=head2 Building and Installation
+=head2 Building
=over 4
=item *
-The "win32" directory contains *.mak files for use with the NMAKE that
-comes with Visual C++ ver. 4.0 and above. If you wish to build perl
-using Visual C++ versions between 2.0 and 4.0, do the following two
-additional steps (these steps are not required if you are
-using Visual C++ versions 4.0 and above):
-
-=over 8
+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++, and a dmake "makefile.mk"
+that will work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the dmake
+makefile are setup to build using the GCC compiler.
-=item 1.
+=item *
-Overwrite the *.mak files in the win32 subdirectory with the versions
-in the win32\VC-2.0 directory.
+Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
+the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable various
+build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
-=item 2.
+You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
+CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
-Reset your INCLUDE environment variable to the MSVC include directory.
-For example:
+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.
- set INCLUDE=E:\MSVC20\INCLUDE
+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://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/"). 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.
-This must have only one directory (a list of directories will not work).
-VCVARS32.BAT may put multiple locations in there, which is why this step
-is required.
+An easier alternative may be to get the pre-patched and ready-to-use
+fcrypt.c that can be found here:
-=back
+ http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
+ ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
-=item *
+Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
+fail at run time.
-Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel.
+Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
=item *
-Type "nmake" while in the "win32" subdirectory. 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
+Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
+
+This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
+perl56.dll 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.
-=item *
+=back
-Type "nmake install". This will put the newly built perl and the
-libraries under C:\PERL. If you want to alter this location, to say,
-D:\FOO\PERL, you will have to say:
+=head2 Testing Perl on Win32
- nmake install INST_TOP=D:\FOO\PERL
+Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
+the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
-instead. To use the Perl you just installed, make sure you set your
-PATH environment variable to C:\PERL\BIN (or D:\FOO\PERL\BIN).
+There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT 4.0 or
+Windows 2000. Many tests I<will> fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior
+command shell.
-=back
+Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
+native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
+spaces. So don't do that.
-=head2 Testing
+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.
-Type "nmake test". This will run most of the tests from the
-testsuite (many tests will be skipped, and some tests will fail).
-Most failures are due to UNIXisms in the standard perl testsuite.
+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.
-To get a more detailed breakdown of the tests that failed, say:
+If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run into
+problems finding the correct header files when building extensions. For
+example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both perl and Tk
+contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland compiler
+(v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even supports an
+option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the old Borland
+search algorithm to locate header files.
- cd ..\t
- .\perl harness
+Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
-This should produce a summary very similar to the following:
+=head2 Installation of Perl on Win32
- Failed Test Status Wstat Total Fail Failed List of failed
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- io/fs.t 26 16 61.54% 1-5, 7-11, 16-18, 23-25
- lib/anydbm.t 12 1 8.33% 2
- lib/findbin.t 1 1 100.00% 1
- lib/sdbm.t 12 1 8.33% 2
- op/magic.t 28 1 3.57% 16
- op/mkdir.t 7 2 28.57% 3, 7
- op/runlevel.t 8 1 12.50% 4
- op/stat.t 56 3 5.36% 2-3, 20
- op/taint.t 98 20 20.41% 1-6, 14, 16, 19-21, 24, 26, 35-3
- pragma/locale.t 98 40 40.82% 1, 13-14, 21-27, 33, 39, 45-53,
- Failed 10/149 test scripts, 93.29% okay. 86/3871 subtests failed, 97.78% okay.
+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\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
-Check if any additional tests other than the ones shown here
-failed. The standard testsuite will ultimately be modified so
-that the testsuite avoids running irrelevant tests on Win32.
+If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the makefiles, the
+installation structure is much simpler. In that case, it will be
+sufficient to add a single entry to the path, for instance:
-=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
+ set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
-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 that supports the Win32 environment may ultimately
-be supported as either core modules or extensions.
+=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
-Many tests from the standard testsuite either fail or produce different
-results under this port. Most of the problems fall under one of these
-categories
+=over 4
-=over 8
+=item Environment Variables
-=item *
+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).
-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.
+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>.
-=item *
+You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
+backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>.
-The following functions are currently unavailable: C<fork()>, C<exec()>,
-C<dump()>, C<kill()>, 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 incomplete.
+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:
-=item *
+ lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
+ lib standard library path to add to @INC
+ sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
+ sitelib site library path to add to @INC
+ vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
+ vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
+ PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
-Various C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
-behave as on Unix platforms.
+Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version
+of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be
+separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
-=item *
+=item File Globbing
-The four-argument C<select()> call is only supported on sockets.
+By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension,
+which provides portable globbing.
-=item *
+If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
+filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob
+to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for
+details.
-The behavior of C<system()> or the C<qx[]> operator (a.k.a. "backticks"),
-when used to call interactive commands, is ill-defined.
+=item Using perl from the command line
-=item *
+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 offers by way of a command shell.
-C<$!> doesn't work reliably yet.
+The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that
+the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it.
+First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and
+COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to handle
+redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of the
+executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remaining
+command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime library
+upon which Perl was built.
-=item *
+It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
+runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
+wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
+shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are
+using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote
+character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
+and other special characters in arguments.
-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.
+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 C runtime breaks arguments at spaces and
+passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes 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 C runtime.
-=item *
+The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
+double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always
+be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or
+the C runtime, they 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, but this appears
+to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command
+line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat
+the caret as a quote character).
-C<utime()>, C<times()> and process-related functions may not
-behave as described in the documentation, and some of the
-returned values or effects may be bogus.
+Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
-=item *
+This prints two doublequotes:
-Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms.
+ perl -e "print '\"\"' "
-=item *
+This does the same:
-File globbing may not behave as on Unix platforms.
+ perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
-=item *
+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 Windows 9x
+is left as an exercise to the reader :)
+
+One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
+Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating
+that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
+therefore important to always double any % characters which you want
+Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are
+quoted.
+
+=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.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
+
+Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
+in the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
+http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
+porting modules that don't readily build.
+
+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.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/
+
+You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
-Not all of the utilities that come with the Perl distribution
-are supported yet.
+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 are 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; and
+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.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.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
+
+Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if
+set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications
+the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the
+the AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly.
+Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages
+as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure
+files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
+or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl
+updating it). The build does complete with
+
+ set PERLIO=perlio
+
+but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
+
+Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
+L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid
+surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl
+in other operating environments or if you intend to write code
+that will be portable to other environments. See L<perlport>
+for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
+
+Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly
+in the Win32 environment. See L</"Building Extensions">.
+
+Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
+behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
+
+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.
+
Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
by C<perl -V>.
=over 4
-=item Gary Ng <F<71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>>
+=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
-=item Gurusamy Sarathy <F<gsar@umich.edu>>
+=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
-=item Nick Ing-Simmons <F<nick@ni-s.u-net.com>>
+=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<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.
-Nick Ing-Simmons and Gurusamy Sarathy have made numerous and
-sundry hacks since then.
+Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
-Last updated: 19 March 1997
+GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
-=cut
+Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
+
+Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
+Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
+
+Last updated: 1 April 2001
+
+=cut
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