perlwin32
(1)
Name
perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
Synopsis
These are instructions for building Perl under Windows
9x/NT/2000/XP on the Intel x86 and Itanium architectures.
Description
Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLWIN32(1)
NAME
perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
SYNOPSIS
These are instructions for building Perl under Windows
9x/NT/2000/XP on the Intel x86 and Itanium architectures.
DESCRIPTION
Before you start, you should glance through the README file
found in the top-level directory to which the Perl
distribution was extracted. Make sure you read and
understand the terms under which this software is being
distributed.
Also make sure you read "BUGS AND CAVEATS" below for the
known limitations of this port.
The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information
that is only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like
systems. In 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.
This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called
"native" port of Perl to Win32 platforms. 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 on
the Intel x86 architecture:
Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
Microsoft Visual C++ version 2.0 or later
MinGW with gcc gcc version 2.95.2 or later
Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 2.95.2 or later
Gcc by mingw-w64.sf.net gcc version 4.4.3 or later
Note that the last two of these are actually competing
projects both delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS
Windows: - http://mingw.org - delivers gcc toolchain
targeting 32-bit Windows
platform.
Use version 3.2.x or later for the best results with this
compiler. - http://mingw-w64.sf.net - delivers gcc
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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
+ cross-compilers that are also supported by perl's
makefile.
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.
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 MS Platform SDK can be downloaded from
http://www.microsoft.com/. The MinGW64 compiler is
available at 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
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 "Usage Hints for Perl on Win32" below for
general hints about this.
Setting Up Perl on Win32
Make
You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you
are using Visual C++ or the Platform SDK tools under
Windows NT/2000/XP, nmake will work. All other builds
need dmake.
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dmake is a freely available make that has very nice
macro features and parallelability.
A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/
Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and
Borland C++ compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C
files named with mixed case letters, they will be
compiled into appropriate .obj-files named with all
lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked to
bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such
files again. For example, Tk distribution has a lot of
such files, resulting in needless recompiles every time
dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you may use the script
"sync_ext.pl" after a successful build. It is available
in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source
distribution.
Command Shell
Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some
versions of the popular 4DOS/NT shell have
incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. If the
build fails under that shell, try building again with
the cmd shell.
The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with
the "command.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You
will need to use dmake and makefile.mk to build under
Windows 9x.
The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP,
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.
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 "Make" above.
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 or
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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 under which the Visual C
dmake configuration lives) in your environment and edit
win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into
"make=dmake". The latter step is only essential if you
want to use dmake as your default make for building
extensions using MakeMaker.
Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 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 Platform 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 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
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\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.
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 "Platform 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
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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 Platform 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.
According to the download pages these packages are only
supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003, so trying to use
these tools on Windows 95/98/ME and even Windows NT
probably won't work.
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.
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
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"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
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 Platform 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.
According to the download pages these packages are only
supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003, so trying to use
these tools on Windows 95/98/ME and even Windows NT
probably won't work.
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:
o cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res
file. It is actually installed by the .NET
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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
o 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}.
o 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.
Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You
will need to edit that file to set
CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE
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and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the
environment setup above.
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.
MinGW release 3 with gcc
The latest release of MinGW at the time of writing is
3.1.0, which contains gcc-3.2.3. It can be downloaded
here:
http://www.mingw.org/
Perl also compiles with earlier releases of gcc (2.95.2
and up). See below for notes about using earlier
versions of MinGW/gcc.
And perl also compiles with gcc-4.3.0 and up, and
perhaps even some of the earlier 4.x.x versions.
You also need dmake. See "Make" above on how to get it.
MinGW release 1 with gcc
The MinGW-1.1 bundle contains gcc-2.95.3.
Make sure you install the binaries that work with
MSVCRT.DLL as indicated in the README for the GCC
bundle. You may need to set up a few environment
variables (usually ran from a batch file).
There are a couple of problems with the version of
gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999:
o 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.
o 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.
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:
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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
Building
o 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++ or the Platform 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.
o 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.
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 gcc-4.x.x, you'll also need
to uncomment the assignment to GCC_4XX and uncomment the
assignment to the appropriate GCCHELPERDLL in the
makefile.mk.
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.
You may also need to comment out the "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 are using VC++ 4.2 or earlier then you'll have to
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change the /EHsc option in the CXX_FLAG macro to the
equivalent /GX option.
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.
Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the
makefiles carefully.
o Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
This should build everything. Specifically, it will
create perl.exe, perl512.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.
Testing Perl on Win32
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/2000/XP. Many tests will fail under Windows 9x due to
the inferior command shell.
Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell
other than the native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from
a path that contains spaces. So don't do that.
If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you
may see failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in
that case.
If you'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.
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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.
If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some
failures for "link()" related tests (op/write.t, op/stat.t
...). Testing on NTFS avoids these errors.
Furthermore, you should make sure that during "make test"
you do not have any GNU tool packages in your path: some
toolkits like Unixutils include some tools ("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 "BUGS
AND CAVEATS".
Installation of Perl on Win32
Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put
the newly built perl and the libraries under whatever
"INST_TOP" points to in the Makefile. It will also install
the pod documentation under "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod"
and HTML versions of the same under
"$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html".
To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a
new entry to your PATH environment variable:
"$INST_TOP\bin", e.g.
set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
If you opted to uncomment "INST_VER" and "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: "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin" and
"$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME", e.g.
set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
Environment Variables
The installation paths that you set during the build get
compiled into perl, so you don't have to do anything
additional to start using that perl (except add its
location to your PATH variable).
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If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set
PERL5LIB to a list of paths separated by semicolons
where you want perl to look for libraries. Look for
descriptions of other environment variables you can set
in perlrun.
You can also control the shell that perl uses to run
system() and backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See
perlrun.
Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up
certain default values if you choose to put them there.
Perl attempts to read entries from
"HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl" and
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl". Entries in the
former override entries in the latter. One or more of
the following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ)
may be set:
lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
lib standard library path to add to @INC
sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
sitelib site library path to add to @INC
vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
Note the $] in the above is not literal. Substitute
whatever version of perl you want to honor that entry,
e.g. 5.6.0. Paths must be separated with semicolons, as
usual on win32.
File Globbing
By default, perl handles file globbing using the
File::Glob extension, which provides portable globbing.
If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the
quirks of DOS filename conventions, you might want to
consider using File::DosGlob to override the internal
glob() implementation. See File::DosGlob for details.
Using perl from the command line
If you are accustomed to using perl from various
command-line shells found in UNIX environments, you will
be less than pleased with what Windows offers by way of
a command shell.
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
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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 wildcards need not be
quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the shell and
the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you
are using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The
only (useful) quote character is the double quote (").
It can be used to protect spaces and other special
characters in arguments.
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 double quotes (although there are suggestions
that this may not always be true). Single quotes are
not treated as quotes by the shell or the C runtime,
they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make this
type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has
also been observed to behave as a quoting character, but
this appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not
stripped from the command line, so Perl still sees it
(and the C runtime phase does not treat the caret as a
quote character).
Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
This prints two doublequotes:
perl -e "print '\"\"' "
This does the same:
perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
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perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file
"blurch":
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on
the console:
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the
file "blurch":
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on
Windows 9x is left as an exercise to the reader :)
One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command
shell for Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a
% character as indicating that environment variable
expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is therefore
important to always double any % characters which you
want Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even
when they are quoted.
Building Extensions
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a
wealth of extensions, some of which require a C compiler
to build. Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more
information on CPAN.
Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN
may work in the Win32 environment; you should check the
information at http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing
too much effort into porting modules that don't readily
build.
Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or
not) can be built, tested and installed with the
standard mantra:
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perl Makefile.PL
$MAKE
$MAKE test
$MAKE install
where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have
configured perl to use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out
what this is. Some extensions may not provide a
testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or fail),
but most serious ones do.
It is important that you use a supported 'make' program,
and ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have
nmake, you can either get dmake from the location
mentioned earlier or get an old version of nmake
reportedly available from:
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/
You may also use dmake. See "Make" above on how to get
it.
Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with
different syntax depending on what 'make' it thinks you
are using. Therefore, it is important that one of the
following values appears in Config.pm:
make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
(e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want
to use, edit Config.pm to fix it.
If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the
supported C compilers. You must make sure you have set
up the environment for the compiler for command-line
compilation.
If a module does not build for some reason, look
carefully for why it failed, and report problems to the
module author. If it looks like the extension building
support is at fault, report that with full details of
how the build failed using the perlbug utility.
Command-line Wildcard Expansion
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The default command shells on DOS descendant operating
systems (such as they are) usually do not expand
wildcard arguments supplied to programs. They consider
it the application's job to handle that. This is
commonly achieved by linking the application (in our
case, perl) with startup code that the C runtime
libraries usually provide. However, doing that results
in incompatible perl versions (since the behavior of the
argv expansion code differs depending on the compiler,
and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it
may be a source of frustration if you use such a perl
binary with an alternate shell that *does* expand
wildcards.
Instead, the following solution works rather well. The
nice things about it are 1) you can start using it right
away; 2) it is more powerful, because it will do the
right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c; 3) you can
decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and 4) you
can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
# Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
use File::DosGlob;
@ARGV = map {
my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
@g ? @g : $_;
} @ARGV;
1;
^Z
C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
p4view/perl/perl.c
p4view/perl/perlio.c
p4view/perl/perly.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have
to create Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory.
2) You'll need to set the PERL5OPT environment variable.
If you want argv expansion to be the default, just set
PERL5OPT in your default startup environment.
If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the
C runtime's command line wildcard expansion built into
perl binary. The resulting binary will always expand
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unquoted command lines, which may not be what you want
if you use a shell that does that for you. The
expansion done is also somewhat less powerful than the
approach suggested above.
Win32 Specific Extensions
A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform
are available from CPAN. You may find that many of
these extensions are meant to be used under the
Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
native port for the Win32 platform. Since the
Activeware port does not have adequate support for
Perl's extension building tools, these extensions
typically do not support those tools either and,
therefore, cannot be built using the generic steps shown
in the previous section.
To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that
uses the ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32
extensions that contains all of the ActiveState
extensions and several other Win32 extensions from CPAN
in source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with
MakeMaker support. The latest version of this bundle is
available at:
http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwin32/
See the README in that distribution for building and
installation instructions.
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, "int" and "long" are both 32-bit data types,
while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition, there is
a separate 64-bit wide integral type, "__int64". In
contrast, the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix
platforms provides "int" as the 32-bit type, while both
the "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:
o A 64-bit native application will run much more
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efficiently on Itanium hardware.
o There is no 2GB limit on process size.
o Perl automatically provides large file support when
built under 64-bit Windows.
o Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
Running Perl Scripts
Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to
indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using
perl. Win32 has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary
files are executables.
Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files
on Win32 rely on the file "extension". There are three
methods to use this to execute perl scripts:
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? :).
2. Since file associations don't work everywhere, and
there are reportedly bugs with file associations
where it does work, the old method of wrapping the
perl script to make it look like a regular batch
file to the OS, may be used. The install process
makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be
used to wrap perl scripts into batch files. For
example:
pl2bat foo.pl
will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat"
strips any .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the
generated file.
If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell,
note that "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the
generated batch file to refer to all the command
line arguments, so you may need to make sure that
construct works in batch files. As of this writing,
4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *"
statement in their 4NT.INI file or will need to
execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT startup file to
enable this to work.
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3. Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name
gets changed, so scripts that rely on $0 to find
what they must do may not run properly; running
"pl2bat" replicates the contents of the original
script, and so this process can be maintenance
intensive if the originals get updated often. A
different approach that avoids both problems is
possible.
A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can
be copied to any filename (along with the .bat
suffix). For example, if you call it "foo.bat", it
will run the file "foo" when it is executed. Since
you can run batch files on Win32 platforms simply by
typing the name (without the extension), this
effectively runs the file "foo", when you type
either "foo" or "foo.bat". With this method,
"foo.bat" can even be in a different location than
the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available
somewhere on the PATH. If your scripts are on a
filesystem that allows symbolic links, you can even
avoid copying "runperl.bat".
Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to
"runperl", and type "runperl". Explain the observed
behavior, or lack thereof. :) Hint: .gnidnats llits
er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
Miscellaneous Things
A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should
be able to use it if you have a web browser installed on
your system.
"perldoc" is also a useful tool for browsing information
contained in the documentation, especially in conjunction
with a pager like "less" (recent versions of which have
Win32 support). You may have to set the PAGER environment
variable to use a specific pager. "perldoc -f foo" will
print information about the perl operator "foo".
One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library
like "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 "perl" without opening a
command-line window, use the "wperl" executable built during
the installation process. Usage is exactly the same as
normal "perl" on Win32, except that options like "-h" don't
work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
If you find bugs in perl, you can run "perlbug" to create a
bug report (you may have to send it manually if "perlbug"
cannot find a mailer on your system).
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BUGS AND CAVEATS
Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process,
particularly if set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when
Opened". Unlike large applications the perl build process
opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the the AntiVirus
scan each and every one slows build the process
significantly. Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process
fails with peculiar messages as the virus checker interacts
badly with miniperl.exe writing configure files (it seems to
either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious,
or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which
inhibits miniperl updating it). The build does complete with
set PERLIO=perlio
but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have
similar issues.
Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as
documented in 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 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 "Building
Extensions".
Most "socket()" related calls are supported, but they may
not behave as on Unix platforms. See 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 "die()" or "exit()" from signal handlers will cause
an exception, since most implementations of "signal()" on
Win32 are severely crippled. Thus, signals may work only
for simple things like setting a flag variable in the
handler. Using signals under this port should currently be
considered unsupported.
Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and
solutions that you may find to <perlbug@perl.org>, along
with the output produced by "perl -V".
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark of
O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
AUTHORS
Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ing-simmons.net>
Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
Steve Hay <steve.hay@uk.radan.com>
This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
ATTRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following
attributes:
+---------------+------------------+
|ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
+---------------+------------------+
|Availability | runtime/perl-512 |
+---------------+------------------+
|Stability | Uncommitted |
+---------------+------------------+
SEE ALSO
perl
HISTORY
This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around
5.003_24, and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that
was available at the time. 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).
Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState
Tool Corp).
Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
Last updated: 29 August 2007
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NOTES
This software was built from source available at
https://java.net/projects/solaris-userland. The original
community source was downloaded from
http://www.cpan.org/src/5.0/perl-5.12.5.tar.bz2
Further information about this software can be found on the
open source community website at http://www.perl.org/.
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