=head1 NAME
-perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
+perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
=head1 SYNOPSIS
-These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
-2000).
+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 2000 and later.
=head1 DESCRIPTION
particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
"Configure".
-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.
+You may also want to look at one other option for building a perl that
+will work on Windows: the README.cygwin file, which give a different
+set of rules to build a perl for Windows. This method 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 that file.
This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native"
-port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting Perl requires no
+port of Perl to the Windows platform. This includes both 32-bit and
+64-bit Windows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no
additional software to run (other than what came with your operating
system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the
-following compilers:
+following compilers on the Intel x86 architecture:
- Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
- Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later
- Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better
+ 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
-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.)
+Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
+delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:
-This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that
+=over 4
+
+=item L<http://mingw.org>
+
+Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.
+
+=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 Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given away free. They are
+available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005-2013 Express
+Edition" (and also as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") and are the same
+compilers that ship with "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++
+2005-2013 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 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:
+L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/>
+
+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".
+Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests when USE_ITHREADS *= define
+(as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *= Debug line is commented out.
+
+This port fully 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.
+See L<Usage Hints for Perl on Windows> below for general hints about this.
-=head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32
+=head2 Setting Up Perl on Windows
=over 4
=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.
+Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, nmake will work. Builds using
+the gcc 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/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.)
+L<http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>
-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 everytime 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.
+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.
-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.
+like C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\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
latter step is only essential if you want to use dmake as your default
make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
-=item Mingw32 with GCC
+=item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express Edition
-GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
+These free versions of Visual C++ 2008-2013 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.
- ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
+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.)
-You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
+Install Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express, then setup your environment using, e.g.
-The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and headers.
+ C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
-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).
+(assuming the default installation location was chosen).
-There are a couple of problems with the version of gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe
-released 7 November 1999:
+Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
+file to set CCTYPE to one of MSVC90FREE-MSVC120FREE first.
-=over
+=item Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
+
+This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same compiler
+and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't contain everything
+necessary to build Perl.
+
+You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
+SDK" components are required) for more header files and libraries.
+
+These packages can both 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.)
+
+Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
+contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
+other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
+also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
+
+Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK. Setup your environment
+as follows (assuming default installation locations were chosen):
+
+ SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
+
+ 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
+
+ SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include
+
+ SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib
+
+ SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
+
+(The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
+you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
+while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
+"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
+
+Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
+file to set
+
+ CCTYPE = MSVC80FREE
+
+and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
+
+=item Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
+
+This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship with
+Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain everything
+necessary to build Perl.
+
+You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC
+SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries and rc.exe, and
+".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and nmake.exe. Note that the latter
+(which also includes the free compiler and linker) requires the ".NET
+Framework Redistributable" to be installed first. This can be downloaded and
+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
+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.)
+
+Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages
+contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on
+other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK"
+also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000.
+
+Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET Framework SDK.
+Setup your environment as follows (assuming default installation locations
+were chosen):
+
+ SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
+
+ 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
+
+ SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include
+
+ SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib
+
+(The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version
+you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK",
+while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as
+"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
+
+Several required files will still be missing:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It is actually
+installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a location such as the
+following:
+
+ C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
+
+Copy it from there to %PlatformSDKDir%\Bin
=item *
-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.
+lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with the /lib
+option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it instead:
+
+Change the line reading:
+
+ ar='lib'
+
+to:
+
+ ar='link /lib'
+
+It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
+C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin containing:
+
+ @echo off
+ link /lib %*
+
+for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you might want to build
+later which explicitly reference "lib" rather than taking their value from
+$Config{ar}.
=item *
-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.
+setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if the USE_SETARGV
+option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies this object file in source form
+in %PlatformSDKDir%\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and
+internal.h from there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using
+
+ cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c
+
+Then copy setargv.obj to %PlatformSDKDir%\lib
+
+Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to enable the
+USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove all mention of $(GLOBEXE)
+from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj won't be required anyway.
=back
-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:
+Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that
+file to set
+
+ CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE
+
+and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above.
+
+=item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
+
+The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building
+Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment"
+shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu.
- 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
+=item MinGW release 3 with gcc
+
+Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using gcc 3.2.x
+and later). It can be downloaded here:
+
+L<http://www.mingw.org/>
+
+You also need dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
+
+=item Intel C++ Compiler
+
+Experimental support for using Intel C++ Compiler has been added. Edit
+win32/Makefile and pick the correct CCTYPE for the Visual C that Intel C was
+installed into. Also uncomment __ICC to enable Intel C on Visual C support.
+To set up the build enviroment, from the Start Menu run
+IA-32 Visual Studio 20__ mode or Intel 64 Visual Studio 20__ mode as
+appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that prompt box.
+
+Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions probably will
+work.
=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++, 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.
+versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Windows SDK, and
+a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers. The
+defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using MinGW/gcc.
=item *
-Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and change
+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.
-You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
+Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with
+INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous
+build. In particular, this may cause problems with the
+lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and
+may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather
+than the one being tested.
+
+You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
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
+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
+executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.)
+
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.
-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.
-
-An easier alternative may be to get the pre-patched and ready-to-use
-fcrypt.c that can be found here:
-
- http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
- ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
-
-Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the crypt() builtin will
-fail at run time.
+You may also need to comment out the C<DELAYLOAD = ...> line in the
+Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack and
+the linker reports an internal error.
+
+If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll, specify
+them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
+
+NOTE: The USE_64_BIT_INT build option is not supported with the 32-bit
+Visual C++ 6.0 compiler.
Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully.
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
+perl519.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.
=back
-=head2 Testing Perl on Win32
+=head2 Testing Perl on Windows
Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests from
the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
-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.
+There should be no test failures.
+
+If you build with Visual C++ 2013 then three tests currently may fail with
+Daylight Saving Time related problems: F<t/io/fs.t>,
+F<cpan/HTTP-Tiny/t/110_mirror.t> and F<lib/File.Copy.t>. The failures are
+caused by bugs in the CRT in VC++ 2013 which will be fixed in future releases
+of VC++, as explained by Microsoft here:
+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,
+if you need fixed C<stat> and C<utime> functions then have a look at the
+CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime.
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
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'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.
+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.
-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.
+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
+ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
+avoid these errors.
Please report any other failures as described under L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
-=head2 Installation of Perl on Win32
+=head2 Installation of Perl on Windows
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<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME>.
-For example:
+C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
+C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html>.
+
+To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
+your PATH environment variable: C<$INST_TOP\bin>, e.g.
- set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
+ set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
-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:
+If you opted to uncomment C<INST_VER> and C<INST_ARCH> in the makefile
+then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you will
+need to add two new PATH components instead: C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin> and
+C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME>, e.g.
- set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
+ set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
-=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
+=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Windows
=over 4
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.
+separated with semicolons, as usual on Windows.
=item File Globbing
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
-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.
-
-The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
+The Windows documentation describes the shell parsing rules here:
+L<http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/cmd.mspx?mfr=true>
+and the C runtime parsing rules here:
+L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/17w5ykft%28v=VS.100%29.aspx>.
+
+Here are some further 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.
+
+The file redirection characters "E<lt>", "E<gt>", 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
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 Win32 environment; you should check the information at
-http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
+in the Windows environment; you should check the information at
+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:
- ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/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:
+CPAN.
- http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
+L<http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/>
You may also use dmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it.
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
+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
+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
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
+=item Notes on 64-bit Windows
+
+Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium
+architecture.
+
+The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the
+norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are
+both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition,
+there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast,
+the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int>
+as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of
+64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of
+addressability.
+
+64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
+binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build
+of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build
+a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother:
+
+=over
+
+=item *
-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.
+A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
+Itanium hardware.
-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:
+=item *
- http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
+There is no 2GB limit on process size.
-See the README in that distribution for building and installation
-instructions. Look for later versions that may be available at the
-same location.
+=item *
-=item Running Perl Scripts
+Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
+64-bit Windows.
+
+=item *
+
+Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
+
+=back
+
+=back
+
+=head2 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
+Windows 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
+Windows 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? :).
+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
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
+executed. Since you can run batch files on Windows 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
=back
-=item Miscellaneous Things
+=head2 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
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
+like C<less> (recent versions of which have Windows 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".
+One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk>
+is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line
+window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy
+of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl>
+executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly
+the same as normal C<perl> on Windows, except that options like C<-h>
+don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
+
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
+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
+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
+updating it). The build does complete with
set PERLIO=perlio
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>
+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">.
+in the Windows 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.
+implementations of C<signal()> on Windows 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>.
+Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
+you may find to E<lt>F<perlbug@perl.org>E<gt>, along with the output
+produced by C<perl -V>.
+
+=head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
+
+The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark
+of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
=head1 AUTHORS
=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
+=item Jan Dubois E<lt>jand@activestate.comE<gt>
+
+=item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.m.hay@googlemail.comE<gt>
+
=back
-This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
+This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
=head1 SEE ALSO
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).
Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
-Last updated: 1 April 2001
+Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
+
+Last updated: 22 October 2013
=cut
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