following compilers on the Intel x86 architecture:
Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
- Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
+ Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later (*)
Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.2 or later
Gcc by mingw-w64.sf.net gcc version 4.4.3 or later
+(*) NOTE: Support for Visual C++ 2010 is not yet complete. This latest
+version of VC++ introduces some new C<errno.h> constants which conflict
+with Perl's current setting of them to match the corresponding WSAE*
+constants' values. Until this issue is resolved you will see several test
+failures (in F<cpan/autodie/t/flock.t>, F<dist/IO/t/io_multihomed.t >,
+F<dist/Net-Ping/t/450_service.t> and F<dist/Net-Ping/t/510_ping_udp.t>)
+and experience other problems in code involving sockets.
+
Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:
-- http://mingw.org - delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows
- platform.
+=over 4
+
+=item L<http://mingw.org>
+
+Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.
-- http://mingw-w64.sf.net - 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 oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers
- and cross-compilers that are also supported by perl's makefile.
+=item L<http://mingw-w64.sf.net>
+
+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
+oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers and cross-compilers
+that are also supported by perl's makefile.
+
+=back
The Borland C++ and Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given
away free. The Borland compiler is available as "Borland C++ Compiler Free
Command Line Tools" and is the same compiler that ships with the full
"Borland C++ Builder" product. The Microsoft compiler is available as
-"Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008 Express Edition" (and also
-as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") and is the same compiler that ships with
-"Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008 Professional"
-respectively.
+"Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008/2010 Express Edition" (and
+also as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") and is the same compiler that ships
+with "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++ 2005/2008/2010
+Professional" respectively.
This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using:
Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)
-The Windows SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/.
-The MinGW64 compiler is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw-w64.
+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 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:
-http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/mingw64-w64-20100123-kmx-v2.zip
+L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/mingw64-w64-20100123-kmx-v2.zip>
NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit Windows
operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment variable to "undef".
A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
- http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>
Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
=item Command Shell
-Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of the
+Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows. 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.
latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
-=item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Express Edition
+=item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008/2010 Express Edition
-This free version of Visual C++ 2008 Professional contains the same compiler
-and linker that ship with the full version, and also contains everything
-necessary to build Perl, rather than requiring a separate download of the
-Windows SDK like previous versions did.
+These free versions of Visual C++ 2008/2010 Professional contain the same
+compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions, and also contain
+everything necessary to build Perl, rather than requiring a separate download
+of the Windows SDK like previous versions did.
-This package can be downloaded by searching for "Visual Studio 2008 Express
-Edition" in the Download Center at
-http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. (Providing exact
+These packages can be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
+L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
changing so often.)
-Install Visual C++ 2008, then setup your environment using
+Install Visual C++ 2008/2010 Express, then setup your environment using, e.g.
- C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
+ C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
(assuming the default installation location was chosen).
Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
-file to set
-
- CCTYPE = MSVC90FREE
-
-first.
+file to set CCTYPE to MSVC90FREE or MSVC100FREE first.
=item Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
SDK" components are required) for more header files and libraries.
These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
-http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. (Providing exact
+L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
changing so often.)
installed separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway.
These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at
-http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en. (Providing exact
+L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact
links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on
changing so often.)
Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.2.x
and later). It can be downloaded here:
- http://www.mingw.org/
+L<http://www.mingw.org/>
You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack and
the linker reports an internal error.
-If you have either the source or a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
-enable the appropriate option in the makefile. A ready-to-use version
-of fcrypt.c, based on the version originally written by Eric Young at
-ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/, is bundled with the
-distribution and CRYPT_SRC is set to use it.
-Alternatively, if you have built a library that contains des_fcrypt(),
-you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to the library name.
-Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
-fail at run time.
-
If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll, specify
them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
There should be no test failures.
+(If you're using VC++ 2010 then you will currently see several test failures,
+as noted in the list of supported compilers above.)
+
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.
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.
+(usually somewhere like C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32) and rerun the test.
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
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.
+First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE) 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.
It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C
runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces
and other special characters in arguments.
-The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
+The Windows 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
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
+Windows 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
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.
+Look in L<http://www.cpan.org/> for more information on CPAN.
Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work
in the Windows environment; you should check the information at
-http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
+L<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
either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an
old version of nmake reportedly available from:
- http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe
+L<http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe>
Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
CPAN.
- http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/
+L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/>
You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
=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? :).
+There is a facility called "file extension associations". This can be
+manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come
+standard with Windows. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how
+to set this up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows
+wasn't perl-ready? :).
=item 2
Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list.
-Perl requires Winsock2 to be installed on the system. If you're
-running Win95, you can download Winsock upgrade from here:
-
-http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WUAdminTools/S_WUNetworkingTools/W95Sockets2/Default.asp
-
-Later OS versions already include Winsock2 support.
Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()>
=item Jan Dubois E<lt>jand@activestate.comE<gt>
-=item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.hay@uk.radan.comE<gt>
+=item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.m.hay@googlemail.comE<gt>
=back
Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
-Last updated: 6 August 2010
+Last updated: 18 November 2010
=cut