deliberate in your decision.
The material below is separated into three main sections: main issues of
-portability (L<"ISSUES">, platform-specific issues (L<"PLATFORMS">, and
+portability (L<"ISSUES">), platform-specific issues (L<"PLATFORMS">), and
built-in perl functions that behave differently on various ports
-(L<"FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS">.
+(L<"FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS">).
This information should not be considered complete; it includes possibly
transient information about idiosyncrasies of some of the ports, almost
Unix does the same thing on ttys in canonical mode. C<\015\012>
is commonly referred to as CRLF.
-A common cause of unportable programs is the misuse of chop() to trim
-newlines:
-
- # XXX UNPORTABLE!
- while(<FILE>) {
- chop;
- @array = split(/:/);
- #...
- }
-
-You can get away with this on Unix and MacOS (they have a single
-character end-of-line), but the same program will break under DOSish
-perls because you're only chop()ing half the end-of-line. Instead,
-chomp() should be used to trim newlines. The Dunce::Files module can
-help audit your code for misuses of chop().
+To trim trailing newlines from text lines use chomp(). With default
+settings that function looks for a trailing C<\n> character and thus
+trims in a portable way.
When dealing with binary files (or text files in binary mode) be sure
to explicitly set $/ to the appropriate value for your file format
"\n", and "\n" on output becomes CRLF.
These are just the most common definitions of C<\n> and C<\r> in Perl.
-There may well be others. For example, on an EBCDIC implementation such
-as z/OS or OS/400 the above material is similar to "Unix" but the code
-numbers change:
+There may well be others. For example, on an EBCDIC implementation
+such as z/OS (OS/390) or OS/400 (using the ILE, the PASE is ASCII-based)
+the above material is similar to "Unix" but the code numbers change:
- LF eq \025 eq \x15 eq chr(21) eq CP-1047 21
- LF eq \045 eq \x25 eq \cU eq chr(37) eq CP-0037 37
+ LF eq \025 eq \x15 eq \cU eq chr(21) eq CP-1047 21
+ LF eq \045 eq \x25 eq chr(37) eq CP-0037 37
CR eq \015 eq \x0D eq \cM eq chr(13) eq CP-1047 13
CR eq \015 eq \x0D eq \cM eq chr(13) eq CP-0037 13
connections use the C<pack> and C<unpack> formats C<n> and C<N>, the
"network" orders. These are guaranteed to be portable.
+As of perl 5.9.2, you can also use the C<E<gt>> and C<E<lt>> modifiers
+to force big- or little-endian byte-order. This is useful if you want
+to store signed integers or 64-bit integers, for example.
+
You can explore the endianness of your platform by unpacking a
data structure packed in native format such as:
and even on systems where it might be tolerated, some utilities
might become confused by such whitespace.
-Many systems (DOS, VMS) cannot have more than one C<.> in their filenames.
+Many systems (DOS, VMS ODS-2) cannot have more than one C<.> in their
+filenames.
Don't assume C<< > >> won't be the first character of a filename.
Always use C<< < >> explicitly to open a file for reading, or even
where it is undesirable.
Don't use C<:> as a part of a filename since many systems use that for
-their own semantics (MacOS Classic for separating pathname components,
+their own semantics (Mac OS Classic for separating pathname components,
many networking schemes and utilities for separating the nodename and
the pathname, and so on). For the same reasons, avoid C<@>, C<;> and
C<|>.
not work everywhere. This is probably for the user of the program
to deal with, so don't stay up late worrying about it.
-Some platforms can't delete or rename files held open by the system.
-Remember to C<close> files when you are done with them. Don't
-C<unlink> or C<rename> an open file. Don't C<tie> or C<open> a
-file already tied or opened; C<untie> or C<close> it first.
+Some platforms can't delete or rename files held open by the system,
+this limitation may also apply to changing filesystem metainformation
+like file permissions or owners. Remember to C<close> files when you
+are done with them. Don't C<unlink> or C<rename> an open file. Don't
+C<tie> or C<open> a file already tied or opened; C<untie> or C<close>
+it first.
Don't open the same file more than once at a time for writing, as some
operating systems put mandatory locks on such files.
Don't count on per-program environment variables, or per-program current
directories.
-Don't count on specific values of C<$!>.
+Don't count on specific values of C<$!>, neither numeric nor
+especially the strings values-- users may switch their locales causing
+error messages to be translated into their languages. If you can
+trust a POSIXish environment, you can portably use the symbols defined
+by the Errno module, like ENOENT. And don't trust on the values of C<$!>
+at all except immediately after a failed system call.
=head2 Command names versus file pathnames
To convert $^X to a file pathname, taking account of the requirements
of the various operating system possibilities, say:
+
use Config;
$thisperl = $^X;
if ($^O ne 'VMS')
{$thisperl .= $Config{_exe} unless $thisperl =~ m/$Config{_exe}$/i;}
To convert $Config{perlpath} to a file pathname, say:
+
use Config;
$thisperl = $Config{perlpath};
if ($^O ne 'VMS')
{$thisperl .= $Config{_exe} unless $thisperl =~ m/$Config{_exe}$/i;}
+=head2 Networking
+
+Don't assume that you can reach the public Internet.
+
+Don't assume that there is only one way to get through firewalls
+to the public Internet.
+
+Don't assume that you can reach outside world through any other port
+than 80, or some web proxy. ftp is blocked by many firewalls.
+
+Don't assume that you can send email by connecting to the local SMTP port.
+
+Don't assume that you can reach yourself or any node by the name
+'localhost'. The same goes for '127.0.0.1'. You will have to try both.
+
+Don't assume that the host has only one network card, or that it
+can't bind to many virtual IP addresses.
+
+Don't assume a particular network device name.
+
+Don't assume a particular set of ioctl()s will work.
+
+Don't assume that you can ping hosts and get replies.
+
+Don't assume that any particular port (service) will respond.
+
+Don't assume that Sys::Hostname (or any other API or command)
+returns either a fully qualified hostname or a non-qualified hostname:
+it all depends on how the system had been configured. Also remember
+things like DHCP and NAT-- the hostname you get back might not be very
+useful.
+
+All the above "don't":s may look daunting, and they are -- but the key
+is to degrade gracefully if one cannot reach the particular network
+service one wants. Croaking or hanging do not look very professional.
+
=head2 Interprocess Communication (IPC)
In general, don't directly access the system in code meant to be
The system's notion of time of day and calendar date is controlled in
widely different ways. Don't assume the timezone is stored in C<$ENV{TZ}>,
and even if it is, don't assume that you can control the timezone through
-that variable.
+that variable. Don't assume anything about the three-letter timezone
+abbreviations (for example that MST would be the Mountain Standard Time,
+it's been known to stand for Moscow Standard Time). If you need to
+use timezones, express them in some unambiguous format like the
+exact number of minutes offset from UTC, or the POSIX timezone
+format.
Don't assume that the epoch starts at 00:00:00, January 1, 1970,
-because that is OS- and implementation-specific. It is better to store a date
-in an unambiguous representation. The ISO-8601 standard defines
-"YYYY-MM-DD" as the date format. A text representation (like "1987-12-18")
-can be easily converted into an OS-specific value using a module like
-Date::Parse. An array of values, such as those returned by
-C<localtime>, can be converted to an OS-specific representation using
-Time::Local.
+because that is OS- and implementation-specific. It is better to
+store a date in an unambiguous representation. The ISO 8601 standard
+defines YYYY-MM-DD as the date format, or YYYY-MM-DDTHH-MM-SS
+(that's a literal "T" separating the date from the time).
+Please do use the ISO 8601 instead of making us to guess what
+date 02/03/04 might be. ISO 8601 even sorts nicely as-is.
+A text representation (like "1987-12-18") can be easily converted
+into an OS-specific value using a module like Date::Parse.
+An array of values, such as those returned by C<localtime>, can be
+converted to an OS-specific representation using Time::Local.
When calculating specific times, such as for tests in time or date modules,
it may be appropriate to calculate an offset for the epoch.
some large number. C<$offset> can then be added to a Unix time value
to get what should be the proper value on any system.
+On Windows (at least), you shouldn't pass a negative value to C<gmtime> or
+C<localtime>.
+
=head2 Character sets and character encoding
Assume very little about character sets.
Do not assume anything about the ordering of the characters.
The lowercase letters may come before or after the uppercase letters;
-the lowercase and uppercase may be interlaced so that both `a' and `A'
-come before `b'; the accented and other international characters may
-be interlaced so that E<auml> comes before `b'.
+the lowercase and uppercase may be interlaced so that both "a" and "A"
+come before "b"; the accented and other international characters may
+be interlaced so that E<auml> comes before "b".
=head2 Internationalisation
users. The system affects character sets and encoding, and date
and time formatting--amongst other things.
+If you really want to be international, you should consider Unicode.
+See L<perluniintro> and L<perlunicode> for more information.
+
+If you want to use non-ASCII bytes (outside the bytes 0x00..0x7f) in
+the "source code" of your code, to be portable you have to be explicit
+about what bytes they are. Someone might for example be using your
+code under a UTF-8 locale, in which case random native bytes might be
+illegal ("Malformed UTF-8 ...") This means that for example embedding
+ISO 8859-1 bytes beyond 0x7f into your strings might cause trouble
+later. If the bytes are native 8-bit bytes, you can use the C<bytes>
+pragma. If the bytes are in a string (regular expression being a
+curious string), you can often also use the C<\xHH> notation instead
+of embedding the bytes as-is. If they are in some particular legacy
+encoding (ether single-byte or something more complicated), you can
+use the C<encoding> pragma. (If you want to write your code in UTF-8,
+you can use either the C<utf8> pragma, or the C<encoding> pragma.)
+The C<bytes> and C<utf8> pragmata are available since Perl 5.6.0, and
+the C<encoding> pragma since Perl 5.8.0.
+
=head2 System Resources
If your code is destined for systems with severely constrained (or
Module code may be fully portable, but its tests might not be. This
often happens when tests spawn off other processes or call external
programs to aid in the testing, or when (as noted above) the tests
-assume certain things about the filesystem and paths. Be careful
-not to depend on a specific output style for errors, such as when
-checking C<$!> after a system call. Some platforms expect a certain
-output format, and perl on those platforms may have been adjusted
-accordingly. Most specifically, don't anchor a regex when testing
-an error value.
+assume certain things about the filesystem and paths. Be careful not
+to depend on a specific output style for errors, such as when checking
+C<$!> after a failed system call. Using C<$!> for anything else than
+displaying it as output is doubtful (though see the Errno module for
+testing reasonably portably for error value). Some platforms expect
+a certain output format, and Perl on those platforms may have been
+adjusted accordingly. Most specifically, don't anchor a regex when
+testing an error value.
=head1 CPAN Testers
platforms; two, to provide users with information about whether
a given module works on a given platform.
+Also see:
+
=over 4
-=item Mailing list: cpan-testers@perl.org
+=item *
-=item Testing results: http://testers.cpan.org/
+Mailing list: cpan-testers@perl.org
+
+=item *
+
+Testing results: http://testers.cpan.org/
=back
Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 4 xx
Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-ALPHA 2 4 xx
Windows NT MSWin32 MSWin32-ppc 2 4 xx
- Windows 2000 MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 5 xx
- Windows XP MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 ?
+ Windows 2000 MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 5 00
+ Windows XP MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 5 01
+ Windows 2003 MSWin32 MSWin32-x86 2 5 02
Windows CE MSWin32 ? 3
- Cygwin cygwin ?
+ Cygwin cygwin cygwin
The various MSWin32 Perl's can distinguish the OS they are running on
via the value of the fifth element of the list returned from
print +('3.1','95','NT')[$os_version_info[4]],"\n";
}
-There are also Win32::IsWinNT()and Win32::IsWin95().,
-try C<perldoc Win32>.
+There are also Win32::IsWinNT() and Win32::IsWin95(), try C<perldoc Win32>,
+and as of libwin32 0.19 (not part of the core Perl distribution)
+Win32::GetOSName(). The very portable POSIX::uname() will work too:
+
+ c:\> perl -MPOSIX -we "print join '|', uname"
+ Windows NT|moonru|5.0|Build 2195 (Service Pack 2)|x86
Also see:
The MacPerl mailing lists, http://lists.perl.org/ .
+=item *
+
+MPW, ftp://ftp.apple.com/developer/Tool_Chest/Core_Mac_OS_Tools/
+
=back
=head2 VMS
Perl on VMS is discussed in L<perlvms> in the perl distribution.
+
+The official name of VMS as of this writing is OpenVMS.
+
Perl on VMS can accept either VMS- or Unix-style file
specifications as in either of the following:
Do take care with C<$ ASSIGN/nolog/user SYS$COMMAND: SYS$INPUT> if your
perl-in-DCL script expects to do things like C<< $read = <STDIN>; >>.
-Filenames are in the format "name.extension;version". The maximum
-length for filenames is 39 characters, and the maximum length for
+The VMS operating system has two filesystems, known as ODS-2 and ODS-5.
+
+For ODS-2, filenames are in the format "name.extension;version". The
+maximum length for filenames is 39 characters, and the maximum length for
extensions is also 39 characters. Version is a number from 1 to
32767. Valid characters are C</[A-Z0-9$_-]/>.
-VMS's RMS filesystem is case-insensitive and does not preserve case.
-C<readdir> returns lowercased filenames, but specifying a file for
-opening remains case-insensitive. Files without extensions have a
-trailing period on them, so doing a C<readdir> with a file named F<A.;5>
-will return F<a.> (though that file could be opened with
+The ODS-2 filesystem is case-insensitive and does not preserve case.
+Perl simulates this by converting all filenames to lowercase internally.
+
+For ODS-5, filenames may have almost any character in them and can include
+Unicode characters. Characters that could be misinterpreted by the DCL
+shell or file parsing utilities need to be prefixed with the C<^>
+character, or replaced with hexadecimal characters prefixed with the
+C<^> character. Such prefixing is only needed with the pathnames are
+in VMS format in applications. Programs that can accept the UNIX format
+of pathnames do not need the escape characters. The maximum length for
+filenames is 255 characters. The ODS-5 file system can handle both
+a case preserved and a case sensitive mode.
+
+ODS-5 is only available on the OpenVMS for 64 bit platforms.
+
+Support for the extended file specifications is being done as optional
+settings to preserve backward compatibility with Perl scripts that
+assume the previous VMS limitations.
+
+In general routines on VMS that get a UNIX format file specification
+should return it in a UNIX format, and when they get a VMS format
+specification they should return a VMS format unless they are documented
+to do a conversion.
+
+For routines that generate return a file specification, VMS allows setting
+if the C library which Perl is built on if it will be returned in VMS
+format or in UNIX format.
+
+With the ODS-2 file system, there is not much difference in syntax of
+filenames without paths for VMS or UNIX. With the extended character
+set available with ODS-5 there can be a significant difference.
+
+Because of this, existing Perl scripts written for VMS were sometimes
+treating VMS and UNIX filenames interchangeably. Without the extended
+character set enabled, this behavior will mostly be maintained for
+backwards compatibility.
+
+When extended characters are enabled with ODS-5, the handling of
+UNIX formatted file specifications is to that of a UNIX system.
+
+VMS file specifications without extensions have a trailing dot. An
+equivalent UNIX file specification should not show the trailing dot.
+
+The result of all of this, is that for VMS, for portable scripts, you
+can not depend on Perl to present the filenames in lowercase, to be
+case sensitive, and that the filenames could be returned in either
+UNIX or VMS format.
+
+And if a routine returns a file specification, unless it is intended to
+convert it, it should return it in the same format as it found it.
+
+C<readdir> by default has traditionally returned lowercased filenames.
+When the ODS-5 support is enabled, it will return the exact case of the
+filename on the disk.
+
+Files without extensions have a trailing period on them, so doing a
+C<readdir> in the default mode with a file named F<A.;5> will
+return F<a.> when VMS is (though that file could be opened with
C<open(FH, 'A')>).
+With support for extended file specifications and if C<opendir> was
+given a UNIX format directory, a file named F<A.;5> will return F<a>
+and optionally in the exact case on the disk. When C<opendir> is given
+a VMS format directory, then C<readdir> should return F<a.>, and
+again with the optionally the exact case.
+
RMS had an eight level limit on directory depths from any rooted logical
(allowing 16 levels overall) prior to VMS 7.2. Hence
C<PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8]> is a valid directory specification but
The VMS::Filespec module, which gets installed as part of the build
process on VMS, is a pure Perl module that can easily be installed on
non-VMS platforms and can be helpful for conversions to and from RMS
-native formats.
+native formats. It is also now the only way that you should check to
+see if VMS is in a case sensitive mode.
What C<\n> represents depends on the type of file opened. It usually
represents C<\012> but it could also be C<\015>, C<\012>, C<\015\012>,
-C<\000>, C<\040>, or nothing depending on the file organiztion and
+C<\000>, C<\040>, or nothing depending on the file organization and
record format. The VMS::Stdio module provides access to the
special fopen() requirements of files with unusual attributes on VMS.
TCP/IP stacks are optional on VMS, so socket routines might not be
implemented. UDP sockets may not be supported.
+The TCP/IP library support for all current versions of VMS is dynamically
+loaded if present, so even if the routines are configured, they may
+return a status indicating that they are not implemented.
+
The value of C<$^O> on OpenVMS is "VMS". To determine the architecture
that you are running on without resorting to loading all of C<%Config>
you can examine the content of the C<@INC> array like so:
} elsif (grep(/VMS_VAX/, @INC)) {
print "I'm on VAX!\n";
+ } elsif (grep(/VMS_IA64/, @INC)) {
+ print "I'm on IA64!\n";
+
} else {
print "I'm not so sure about where $^O is...\n";
}
+In general, the significant differences should only be if Perl is running
+on VMS_VAX or one of the 64 bit OpenVMS platforms.
+
On VMS, perl determines the UTC offset from the C<SYS$TIMEZONE_DIFFERENTIAL>
logical name. Although the VMS epoch began at 17-NOV-1858 00:00:00.00,
calls to C<localtime> are adjusted to count offsets from
renamed before they can be processed by Perl. Note that VOS limits
file names to 32 or fewer characters.
-Perl on VOS can be built using two different compilers and two different
-versions of the POSIX runtime. The recommended method for building full
-Perl is with the GNU C compiler and the generally-available version of
-VOS POSIX support. See F<README.vos> (installed as L<perlvos>) for
-restrictions that apply when Perl is built using the VOS Standard C
-compiler or the alpha version of VOS POSIX support.
-
The value of C<$^O> on VOS is "VOS". To determine the architecture that
you are running on without resorting to loading all of C<%Config> you
can examine the content of the @INC array like so:
die;
}
- if (grep(/860/, @INC)) {
- print "This box is a Stratus XA/R!\n";
-
- } elsif (grep(/7100/, @INC)) {
- print "This box is a Stratus HP 7100 or 8xxx!\n";
-
- } elsif (grep(/8000/, @INC)) {
- print "This box is a Stratus HP 8xxx!\n";
-
- } else {
- print "This box is a Stratus 68K!\n";
- }
-
Also see:
=over 4
systems). On the mainframe perl currently works under the "Unix system
services for OS/390" (formerly known as OpenEdition), VM/ESA OpenEdition, or
the BS200 POSIX-BC system (BS2000 is supported in perl 5.6 and greater).
-See L<perlos390> for details.
+See L<perlos390> for details. Note that for OS/400 there is also a port of
+Perl 5.8.1/5.9.0 or later to the PASE which is ASCII-based (as opposed to
+ILE which is EBCDIC-based), see L<perlos400>.
As of R2.5 of USS for OS/390 and Version 2.3 of VM/ESA these Unix
sub-systems do not support the C<#!> shebang trick for script invocation.
=item *
-*
-
L<perlos390>, F<README.os390>, F<perlbs2000>, F<README.vmesa>,
L<perlebcdic>.
general usage issues for all EBCDIC Perls. Send a message body of
"subscribe perl-mvs" to majordomo@perl.org.
-=item *
+=item *
AS/400 Perl information at
http://as400.rochester.ibm.com/
=item *
-Plan 9, F<README.plan9>
+S<Plan 9>, F<README.plan9>
=back
=over 8
-=item -X FILEHANDLE
-
-=item -X EXPR
-
=item -X
C<-r>, C<-w>, and C<-x> have a limited meaning only; directories
C<-x> (or C<-X>) determine if a file has an executable file type.
(S<RISC OS>)
-=item alarm SECONDS
+=item atan2
-=item alarm
+Due to issues with various CPUs, math libraries, compilers, and standards,
+results for C<atan2()> may vary depending on any combination of the above.
+Perl attempts to conform to the Open Group/IEEE standards for the results
+returned from C<atan2()>, but cannot force the issue if the system Perl is
+run on does not allow it. (Tru64, HP-UX 10.20)
-Not implemented. (Win32)
+The current version of the standards for C<atan2()> is available at
+L<http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/009695399/functions/atan2.html>.
-=item binmode FILEHANDLE
+=item binmode
Meaningless. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
The value returned by C<tell> may be affected after the call, and
the filehandle may be flushed. (Win32)
-=item chmod LIST
+=item chmod
Only limited meaning. Disabling/enabling write permission is mapped to
locking/unlocking the file. (S<Mac OS>)
The actual permissions set depend on the value of the C<CYGWIN>
in the SYSTEM environment settings. (Cygwin)
-=item chown LIST
+=item chown
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>)
Does nothing, but won't fail. (Win32)
-=item chroot FILENAME
+A little funky, because VOS's notion of ownership is a little funky (VOS).
=item chroot
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
-=item crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT
+=item crypt
May not be available if library or source was not provided when building
perl. (Win32)
-Not implemented. (VOS)
+=item dbmclose
-=item dbmclose HASH
+Not implemented. (VMS, S<Plan 9>, VOS)
-Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS)
+=item dbmopen
-=item dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MODE
+Not implemented. (VMS, S<Plan 9>, VOS)
-Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9, VOS)
-
-=item dump LABEL
+=item dump
Not useful. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
-Not implemented. (Win32)
+Not supported. (Cygwin, Win32)
Invokes VMS debugger. (VMS)
-=item exec LIST
+=item exec
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
Does not automatically flush output handles on some platforms.
(SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX)
-=item exit EXPR
-
=item exit
Emulates UNIX exit() (which considers C<exit 1> to indicate an error) by
with the pragma C<use vmsish 'exit'>. As with the CRTL's exit()
function, C<exit 0> is also mapped to an exit status of SS$_NORMAL
(C<1>); this mapping cannot be overridden. Any other argument to exit()
-is used directly as Perl's exit status. (VMS)
+is used directly as Perl's exit status. On VMS, unless the future
+POSIX_EXIT mode is enabled, the exit code should always be a valid
+VMS exit code and not a generic number. When the POSIX_EXIT mode is
+enabled, a generic number will be encoded in a method compatible with
+the C library _POSIX_EXIT macro so that it can be decoded by other
+programs, particularly ones written in C, like the GNV package. (VMS)
-=item fcntl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
+=item fcntl
-Not implemented. (Win32, VMS)
+Not implemented. (Win32)
+Some functions available based on the version of VMS. (VMS)
-=item flock FILEHANDLE,OPERATION
+=item flock
Not implemented (S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS).
=item fork
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, AmigaOS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, AmigaOS, S<RISC OS>, VM/ESA, VMS)
Emulated using multiple interpreters. See L<perlfork>. (Win32)
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, S<RISC OS>)
-=item getpgrp PID
+=item getpgrp
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item getppid
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
-=item getpriority WHICH,WHO
+=item getpriority
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
-=item getpwnam NAME
+=item getpwnam
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
-=item getgrnam NAME
+=item getgrnam
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-=item getnetbyname NAME
+=item getnetbyname
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
-=item getpwuid UID
+=item getpwuid
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
-=item getgrgid GID
+=item getgrgid
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-=item getnetbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE
+=item getnetbyaddr
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
-=item getprotobynumber NUMBER
+=item getprotobynumber
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
-=item getservbyport PORT,PROTO
+=item getservbyport
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, VM/ESA)
+=item gethostbyname
+
+C<gethostbyname('localhost')> does not work everywhere: you may have
+to use C<gethostbyname('127.0.0.1')>. (S<Mac OS>, S<Irix 5>)
+
=item gethostent
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32)
=item getnetent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
=item getprotoent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
=item getservent
-Not implemented. (Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (Win32, S<Plan 9>)
-=item sethostent STAYOPEN
+=item sethostent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>)
-=item setnetent STAYOPEN
+=item setnetent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>)
-=item setprotoent STAYOPEN
+=item setprotoent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>)
-=item setservent STAYOPEN
+=item setservent
-Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Plan 9>, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
=item endpwent
=item endnetent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
=item endprotoent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, S<Plan 9>)
=item endservent
-Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32)
+Not implemented. (S<Plan 9>, Win32)
=item getsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME
-Not implemented. (Plan9)
-
-=item glob EXPR
+Not implemented. (S<Plan 9>)
=item glob
This operator is implemented via the File::Glob extension on most
platforms. See L<File::Glob> for portability information.
+=item gmtime
+
+Same portability caveats as L<localtime>.
+
=item ioctl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR
Not implemented. (VMS)
Available only for socket handles. (S<RISC OS>)
-=item kill SIGNAL, LIST
+=item kill
C<kill(0, LIST)> is implemented for the sake of taint checking;
use with other signals is unimplemented. (S<Mac OS>)
$sig is 0 and the specified process exists, it returns true without
actually terminating it. (Win32)
-=item link OLDFILE,NEWFILE
+Is not supported for process identification number of 0 or negative
+numbers. (VMS)
+
+=item link
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, S<RISC OS>)
Link count not updated because hard links are not quite that hard
(They are sort of half-way between hard and soft links). (AmigaOS)
Hard links are implemented on Win32 (Windows NT and Windows 2000)
under NTFS only.
-=item lstat FILEHANDLE
+Available on 64 bit OpenVMS 8.2 and later. (VMS)
-=item lstat EXPR
+=item localtime
+
+Because Perl currently relies on the native standard C localtime()
+function, it is only safe to use times between 0 and (2**31)-1. Times
+outside this range may result in unexpected behavior depending on your
+operating system's implementation of localtime().
=item lstat
-Not implemented. (VMS, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<RISC OS>)
Return values (especially for device and inode) may be bogus. (Win32)
-=item msgctl ID,CMD,ARG
-
-=item msgget KEY,FLAGS
+=item msgctl
-=item msgsnd ID,MSG,FLAGS
+=item msgget
-=item msgrcv ID,VAR,SIZE,TYPE,FLAGS
+=item msgsnd
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, Plan9, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
+=item msgrcv
-=item open FILEHANDLE,EXPR
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<Plan 9>, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
-=item open FILEHANDLE
+=item open
The C<|> variants are supported only if ToolServer is installed.
(S<Mac OS>)
Opening a process does not automatically flush output handles on some
platforms. (SunOS, Solaris, HP-UX)
-=item pipe READHANDLE,WRITEHANDLE
+=item pipe
Very limited functionality. (MiNT)
-=item readlink EXPR
-
=item readlink
Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-=item select RBITS,WBITS,EBITS,TIMEOUT
+=item rename
+
+Can't move directories between directories on different logical volumes. (Win32)
+
+=item select
Only implemented on sockets. (Win32, VMS)
Note that the C<select FILEHANDLE> form is generally portable.
-=item semctl ID,SEMNUM,CMD,ARG
+=item semctl
-=item semget KEY,NSEMS,FLAGS
+=item semget
-=item semop KEY,OPSTRING
+=item semop
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item setgrent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, VMS, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, VMS, Win32, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
-=item setpgrp PID,PGRP
+=item setpgrp
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
-=item setpriority WHICH,WHO,PRIORITY
+=item setpriority
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
=item setpwent
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, Win32, S<RISC OS>)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, MPE/iX, Win32, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
-=item setsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME,OPTVAL
+=item setsockopt
-Not implemented. (Plan9)
+Not implemented. (S<Plan 9>)
-=item shmctl ID,CMD,ARG
+=item shmctl
-=item shmget KEY,SIZE,FLAGS
+=item shmget
-=item shmread ID,VAR,POS,SIZE
+=item shmread
-=item shmwrite ID,STRING,POS,SIZE
+=item shmwrite
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS)
-=item sockatmark SOCKET
+=item sockatmark
A relatively recent addition to socket functions, may not
be implemented even in UNIX platforms.
-=item socketpair SOCKET1,SOCKET2,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL
-
-Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
+=item socketpair
-=item stat FILEHANDLE
+Not implemented. (Win32, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
-=item stat EXPR
+Available on 64 bit OpenVMS 8.2 and later. (VMS)
=item stat
some versions of cygwin when doing a stat("foo") and if not finding it
may then attempt to stat("foo.exe") (Cygwin)
-=item symlink OLDFILE,NEWFILE
+=item symlink
Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
-=item syscall LIST
+=item syscall
Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, Win32, VMS, S<RISC OS>, VOS, VM/ESA)
-=item sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE,PERMS
+=item sysopen
The traditional "0", "1", and "2" MODEs are implemented with different
numeric values on some systems. The flags exported by C<Fcntl>
(O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) should work everywhere though. (S<Mac
OS>, OS/390, VM/ESA)
-=item system LIST
-
-In general, do not assume the UNIX/POSIX semantics that you can shift
-C<$?> right by eight to get the exit value, or that C<$? & 127>
-would give you the number of the signal that terminated the program,
-or that C<$? & 128> would test true if the program was terminated by a
-coredump. Instead, use the POSIX W*() interfaces: for example, use
-WIFEXITED($?) and WEXITVALUE($?) to test for a normal exit and the exit
-value, WIFSIGNALED($?) and WTERMSIG($?) for a signal exit and the
-signal. Core dumping is not a portable concept, so there's no portable
-way to test for that.
+=item system
Only implemented if ToolServer is installed. (S<Mac OS>)
The return value is POSIX-like (shifted up by 8 bits), which only allows
room for a made-up value derived from the severity bits of the native
32-bit condition code (unless overridden by C<use vmsish 'status'>).
+If the native condition code is one that has a POSIX value encoded, the
+POSIX value will be decoded to extract the expected exit value.
For more details see L<perlvms/$?>. (VMS)
=item times
Not useful. (S<RISC OS>)
-=item truncate FILEHANDLE,LENGTH
-
-=item truncate EXPR,LENGTH
+=item truncate
Not implemented. (Older versions of VMS)
-Truncation to zero-length only. (VOS)
+Truncation to same-or-shorter lengths only. (VOS)
If a FILEHANDLE is supplied, it must be writable and opened in append
mode (i.e., use C<<< open(FH, '>>filename') >>>
or C<sysopen(FH,...,O_APPEND|O_RDWR)>. If a filename is supplied, it
should not be held open elsewhere. (Win32)
-=item umask EXPR
-
=item umask
Returns undef where unavailable, as of version 5.005.
C<umask> works but the correct permissions are set only when the file
is finally closed. (AmigaOS)
-=item utime LIST
+=item utime
Only the modification time is updated. (S<BeOS>, S<Mac OS>, VMS, S<RISC OS>)
=item wait
-=item waitpid PID,FLAGS
+=item waitpid
-Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>, VOS)
+Not implemented. (S<Mac OS>)
Can only be applied to process handles returned for processes spawned
using C<system(1, ...)> or pseudo processes created with C<fork()>. (Win32)
=back
-=head1 CHANGES
-
-=over 4
-
-=item v1.48, 02 February 2001
-
-Various updates from perl5-porters over the past year, supported
-platforms update from Jarkko Hietaniemi.
-
-=item v1.47, 22 March 2000
-
-Various cleanups from Tom Christiansen, including migration of
-long platform listings from L<perl>.
-
-=item v1.46, 12 February 2000
-
-Updates for VOS and MPE/iX. (Peter Prymmer) Other small changes.
-
-=item v1.45, 20 December 1999
-
-Small changes from 5.005_63 distribution, more changes to EBCDIC info.
-
-=item v1.44, 19 July 1999
-
-A bunch of updates from Peter Prymmer for C<$^O> values,
-endianness, File::Spec, VMS, BS2000, OS/400.
-
-=item v1.43, 24 May 1999
-
-Added a lot of cleaning up from Tom Christiansen.
-
-=item v1.42, 22 May 1999
-
-Added notes about tests, sprintf/printf, and epoch offsets.
-
-=item v1.41, 19 May 1999
-
-Lots more little changes to formatting and content.
-
-Added a bunch of C<$^O> and related values
-for various platforms; fixed mail and web addresses, and added
-and changed miscellaneous notes. (Peter Prymmer)
-
-=item v1.40, 11 April 1999
-
-Miscellaneous changes.
-
-=item v1.39, 11 February 1999
-
-Changes from Jarkko and EMX URL fixes Michael Schwern. Additional
-note about newlines added.
-
-=item v1.38, 31 December 1998
-
-More changes from Jarkko.
-
-=item v1.37, 19 December 1998
-
-More minor changes. Merge two separate version 1.35 documents.
-
-=item v1.36, 9 September 1998
-
-Updated for Stratus VOS. Also known as version 1.35.
-
-=item v1.35, 13 August 1998
-
-Integrate more minor changes, plus addition of new sections under
-L<"ISSUES">: L<"Numbers endianness and Width">,
-L<"Character sets and character encoding">,
-L<"Internationalisation">.
-
-=item v1.33, 06 August 1998
-
-Integrate more minor changes.
-
-=item v1.32, 05 August 1998
-
-Integrate more minor changes.
-
-=item v1.30, 03 August 1998
-
-Major update for RISC OS, other minor changes.
-
-=item v1.23, 10 July 1998
-
-First public release with perl5.005.
-
-=back
=head1 Supported Platforms
-As of June 2002 (the Perl release 5.8.0), the following platforms are
+As of July 2002 (the Perl release 5.8.0), the following platforms are
able to build Perl from the standard source code distribution
available at http://www.cpan.org/src/index.html
AIX
BeOS
+ BSD/OS (BSDi)
Cygwin
DG/UX
DOS DJGPP 1)
DYNIX/ptx
EPOC R5
FreeBSD
+ HI-UXMPP (Hitachi) (5.8.0 worked but we didn't know it)
HP-UX
IRIX
Linux
- MacOS Classic
- MacOS X (Darwin)
+ Mac OS Classic
+ Mac OS X (Darwin)
MPE/iX
NetBSD
NetWare
NonStop-UX
- ReliantUNIX (SINIX)
+ ReliantUNIX (formerly SINIX)
OpenBSD
- OpenVMS (VMS)
+ OpenVMS (formerly VMS)
+ Open UNIX (Unixware) (since Perl 5.8.1/5.9.0)
OS/2
- POSIX-BC (BS2000)
+ OS/400 (using the PASE) (since Perl 5.8.1/5.9.0)
+ PowerUX
+ POSIX-BC (formerly BS2000)
QNX
Solaris
- SUPER-UX
- Tru64 UNIX (DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX)
+ SunOS 4
+ SUPER-UX (NEC)
+ Tru64 UNIX (formerly DEC OSF/1, Digital UNIX)
UNICOS
UNICOS/mk
UTS
VOS
Win95/98/ME/2K/XP 2)
WinCE
- z/OS (OS/390)
+ z/OS (formerly OS/390)
VM/ESA
1) in DOS mode either the DOS or OS/2 ports can be used
- 2) compilers: Borland, Cygwin (GCC), MinGW (GCC), VC6
+ 2) compilers: Borland, MinGW (GCC), VC6
The following platforms worked with the previous releases (5.6 and
5.7), but we did not manage either to fix or to test these in time
for the 5.8.0 release. There is a very good chance that many of these
-will work fine with the 5.8.0. The only one known for certain to be
-broken for 5.8.0 is the AmigaOS.
+will work fine with the 5.8.0.
- AmigaOS
+ BSD/OS
DomainOS
Hurd
LynxOS
MachTen
PowerMAX
SCO SV
- SunOS 4
SVR4
Unixware
Windows 3.1
+Known to be broken for 5.8.0 (but 5.6.1 and 5.7.2 can be used):
+
+ AmigaOS
+
The following platforms have been known to build Perl from source in
the past (5.005_03 and earlier), but we haven't been able to verify
their status for the current release, either because the
3b1
A/UX
- BSD/OS
ConvexOS
CX/UX
DC/OSx
OpenSTEP
Opus
Plan 9
- PowerUX
RISC/os
- SCO ODT/OSR
+ SCO ODT/OSR
Stellar
SVR2
TI1500
TitanOS
Ultrix
Unisys Dynix
- Unixware
The following platforms have their own source code distributions and
binaries available via http://www.cpan.org/ports/
Perl release
- OS/400 5.005_02
+ OS/400 (ILE) 5.005_02
Tandem Guardian 5.004
The following platforms have only binaries available via
=head1 SEE ALSO
L<perlaix>, L<perlamiga>, L<perlapollo>, L<perlbeos>, L<perlbs2000>,
-L<perlce>, L<perlcygwin>, L<perldgux>, L<perldos>, L<perlepoc>, L<perlebcdic>,
-L<perlhurd>, L<perlhpux>, L<perlmachten>, L<perlmacos>, L<perlmint>,
-L<perlmpeix>, L<perlnetware>, L<perlos2>, L<perlos390>, L<perlplan9>,
-L<perlqnx>, L<perlsolaris>, L<perltru64>, L<perlunicode>,
-L<perlvmesa>, L<perlvms>, L<perlvos>, L<perlwin32>, and L<Win32>.
+L<perlce>, L<perlcygwin>, L<perldgux>, L<perldos>, L<perlepoc>,
+L<perlebcdic>, L<perlfreebsd>, L<perlhurd>, L<perlhpux>, L<perlirix>,
+L<perlmachten>, L<perlmacos>, L<perlmacosx>, L<perlmint>, L<perlmpeix>,
+L<perlnetware>, L<perlos2>, L<perlos390>, L<perlos400>,
+L<perlplan9>, L<perlqnx>, L<perlsolaris>, L<perltru64>,
+L<perlunicode>, L<perlvmesa>, L<perlvms>, L<perlvos>,
+L<perlwin32>, and L<Win32>.
=head1 AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS
Dominic Dunlop <domo@computer.org>,
Neale Ferguson <neale@vma.tabnsw.com.au>,
David J. Fiander <davidf@mks.com>,
-Paul Green <Paul_Green@stratus.com>,
+Paul Green <Paul.Green@stratus.com>,
M.J.T. Guy <mjtg@cam.ac.uk>,
Jarkko Hietaniemi <jhi@iki.fi>,
Luther Huffman <lutherh@stratcom.com>,
Michael G Schwern <schwern@pobox.com>,
Dan Sugalski <dan@sidhe.org>,
Nathan Torkington <gnat@frii.com>.
-
+John Malmberg <wb8tyw@qsl.net>
https://perl5.git.perl.org / perl5.git / blobdiff