Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
Intel C++ Compiler (experimental)
- Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.2 or later
- Gcc by mingw-w64.sf.net gcc version 4.4.3 or later
+ Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.4.5 or later
+ Gcc by mingw-w64.org gcc version 4.4.3 or later
Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:
Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.
-=item L<http://mingw-w64.sf.net>
+=item L<http://mingw-w64.org>
Delivers gcc toolchain targeting both 64-bit Windows and 32-bit Windows
platforms (despite the project name "mingw-w64" they are not only 64-bit
MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)
The Windows SDK can be downloaded from L<http://www.microsoft.com/>.
-The MinGW64 compiler is available at L<http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64>.
+The MinGW64 compiler is available at L<http://mingw-w64.org>.
The latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a trimmed
down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl available at:
L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/>
=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:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin.
-This will set your build environment.
+The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. Visual C
+requires that certain things be set up in the console before Visual C will
+sucessfully run. To make a console box be able to run the C compiler, you will
+need to beforehand, run the C<vcvars32.bat> file to compile for x86-32 and for
+x86-64 C<vcvarsall.bat x64> or C<vcvarsamd64.bat>. On a typical install of a
+Microsoft C compiler product, these batch files will already be in your C<PATH>
+environment variable so you may just type them without an absolute path into
+your console. If you need to find the absolute path to the batch file, it is
+usually found somewhere like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin.
+With some newer Micrsoft C products (released after ~2004), the installer will
+put a shortcut in the start menu to launch a new console window with the
+console already set up for your target architecture (x86-32 or x86-64 or IA64).
+With the newer compilers, you may also use the older batch files if you choose
+so.
You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, however,
you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory name
=item MinGW release 3 with gcc
-Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.2.x
+Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.4.5
and later). It can be downloaded here:
L<http://www.mingw.org/>
appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that prompt box.
Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions probably will
-work.
+work. Using Intel C++ Compiler instead of Visual C has the benefit of C99
+compatibility which is needed by some CPAN XS modules, while maintaining
+compatibility with Visual C object code and Visual C debugging infrastructure
+unlike GCC.
=back
CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
If building with the cross-compiler provided by
-mingw-w64.sourceforge.net you'll need to uncomment the line that sets
+mingw-w64.org you'll need to uncomment the line that sets
GCCCROSS in the makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie
only if the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler
does not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these
Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe,
-perl519.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's
+perl523.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.
+If you are advanced enough with building C code, here is a suggestion to speed
+up building perl, and the later C<make test>. Try to keep your PATH enviromental
+variable with the least number of folders possible (remember to keep your C
+compiler's folders there). C<C:\WINDOWS\system32> or C<C:\WINNT\system32>
+depending on your OS version should be first folder in PATH, since "cmd.exe"
+is the most commonly launched program during the build and later testing.
+
=back
=head2 Testing Perl on Windows
if you need fixed C<stat> and C<utime> functions then have a look at the
CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime.
+If you build with certain versions (e.g. 4.8.1) of gcc from www.mingw.org then
+F<ext/POSIX/t/time.t> may fail test 17 due to a known bug in those gcc builds:
+see L<http://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2152/>.
+
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.
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.
-If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for
-C<link()> related tests (I<op/write.t>, I<op/stat.t> ...). Testing on
-NTFS avoids these errors.
-
Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not
have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows
Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
in the Windows environment; you should check the information at
-L<http://testers.cpan.org/> before investing too much effort into
+L<http://www.cpantesters.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
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.
+the compiler for command-line compilation before running C<perl Makefile.PL>
+or any invocation of make.
If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for
why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If
but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues.
+A git GUI shell extension for Windows such as TortoiseGit will cause the build
+and later C<make test> to run much slower since every file is checked for its
+git status as soon as it is created and/or modified. TortoiseGit doesn't cause
+any test failures or build problems unlike the antivirus software described
+above, but it does cause similar slowness. It is suggested to use Task Manager
+to look for background processes which use high CPU amounts during the building
+process.
+
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
Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
-Last updated: 22 October 2013
+Last updated: 07 October 2014
=cut