"Fossies" - the Fresh Open Source Software Archive 
"Fossies" - the Fresh Open Source Software Archive 
5.35.7_vs_5.35.8.A hint: This file contains one or more very long lines, so maybe it is better readable using the pure text view mode that shows the contents as wrapped lines within the browser window.
1 If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you 2 see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is 3 specially designed to be readable as is. 4 5 =head1 NAME 6 7 perlwin32 - Perl under Windows 8 9 =head1 SYNOPSIS 10 11 These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 2000 and later. 12 13 =head1 DESCRIPTION 14 15 Before you start, you should glance through the README file 16 found in the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution 17 was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under 18 which this software is being distributed. 19 20 Also make sure you read L</BUGS AND CAVEATS> below for the 21 known limitations of this port. 22 23 The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is 24 only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In 25 particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about 26 "Configure". 27 28 You may also want to look at one other option for building a perl that 29 will work on Windows: the README.cygwin file, which give a different 30 set of rules to build a perl for Windows. This method will probably 31 enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you will also 32 need to download and use various other build-time and run-time support 33 software described in that file. 34 35 This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" 36 port of Perl to the Windows platform. This includes both 32-bit and 37 64-bit Windows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no 38 additional software to run (other than what came with your operating 39 system). Currently, this port is capable of using one of the 40 following compilers on the Intel x86 architecture: 41 42 Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later 43 Intel C++ Compiler (experimental) 44 Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.4.5 or later 45 with runtime < 3.21 46 Gcc by mingw-w64.org gcc version 4.4.3 or later 47 48 Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both 49 delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows: 50 51 =over 4 52 53 =item L<http://mingw.org> 54 55 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform. 56 57 =item L<http://mingw-w64.org> 58 59 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting both 64-bit Windows and 32-bit Windows 60 platforms (despite the project name "mingw-w64" they are not only 64-bit 61 oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers and cross-compilers 62 that are also supported by perl's makefile. 63 64 =back 65 66 The Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given away free. They are 67 available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++ 2005-2019 Express [or 68 Community, from 2017] Edition" (and also as part of the ".NET Framework SDK") 69 and are the same compilers that ship with "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" 70 or "Visual C++ 2005-2019 Professional" respectively. 71 72 This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using: 73 74 Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools) 75 MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later) 76 77 The Windows SDK can be downloaded from L<https://developer.microsoft.com/windows/downloads/sdk-archive>. 78 The MinGW64 compiler is available at L<http://mingw-w64.org>. 79 The latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a trimmed 80 down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl available at: 81 L<http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/> 82 83 NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit Windows 84 operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment variable to "undef". 85 Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests when USE_ITHREADS *= define 86 (as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *= Debug line is commented out. 87 88 This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that 89 is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be 90 able to build and install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. 91 See L</Usage Hints for Perl on Windows> below for general hints about this. 92 93 =head2 Setting Up Perl on Windows 94 95 =over 4 96 97 =item Make 98 99 You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using 100 Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, you can use nmake supplied with Visual C++ 101 or Windows SDK. You may also use, for Visual C++ or Windows SDK, dmake or gmake 102 instead of nmake. dmake is open source software, but is not included with 103 Visual C++ or Windows SDK. Builds using gcc need dmake or gmake. nmake is not 104 supported for gcc builds. Parallel building is only supported with dmake and 105 gmake, not nmake. When using dmake it is recommended to use dmake 4.13 or newer 106 for parallel building. Older dmakes, in parallel mode, have very high CPU usage 107 and pound the disk/filing system with duplicate I/O calls in an aggressive 108 polling loop. 109 110 A port of dmake for Windows is available from: 111 112 L<https://metacpan.org/release/dmake> 113 114 Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path. 115 116 =item Command Shell 117 118 Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows. Some versions of the 119 popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you trouble. 120 If the build fails under that shell, try building again with the cmd 121 shell. 122 123 Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces. The 124 build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will fail. 125 126 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 127 128 The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building. Visual C++ 129 requires that certain things be set up in the console before Visual C++ will 130 sucessfully run. To make a console box be able to run the C compiler, you will 131 need to beforehand, run C<vcvarsall.bat x86> to compile for x86-32 and for 132 x86-64 C<vcvarsall.bat amd64>. On a typical install of a Microsoft C++ 133 compiler product, these batch files will already be in your C<PATH> 134 environment variable so you may just type them without an absolute path into 135 your console. If you need to find the absolute path to the batch file, it is 136 usually found somewhere like 137 C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC. 138 With some newer Micrsoft C products (released after ~2004), the installer will 139 put a shortcut in the start menu to launch a new console window with the 140 console already set up for your target architecture (x86-32 or x86-64 or IA64). 141 With the newer compilers, you may also use the older batch files if you choose 142 so. 143 144 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2008-2019 Express/Community Edition 145 146 These free versions of Visual C++ 2008-2019 Professional contain the same 147 compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions, and also contain 148 everything necessary to build Perl, rather than requiring a separate download 149 of the Windows SDK like previous versions did. 150 151 These packages can be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at 152 L<https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact 153 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on 154 changing so often.) 155 156 Install Visual C++ 2008-2019 Express/Community, then setup your environment 157 using, e.g. 158 159 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat 160 161 (assuming the default installation location was chosen). 162 163 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that 164 file to set CCTYPE to one of MSVC90-MSVC142 first. 165 166 =item Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition 167 168 This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same compiler 169 and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't contain everything 170 necessary to build Perl. 171 172 You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC 173 SDK" components are required) for more header files and libraries. 174 175 These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at 176 L<http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact 177 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on 178 changing so often.) 179 180 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages 181 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on 182 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK" 183 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000. 184 185 Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK. Setup your environment 186 as follows (assuming default installation locations were chosen): 187 188 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK 189 190 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 191 192 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include 193 194 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib 195 196 SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727 197 198 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version 199 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", 200 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as 201 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".) 202 203 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that 204 file to set 205 206 CCTYPE = MSVC80 207 208 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above. 209 210 =item Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003 211 212 This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship with 213 Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain everything 214 necessary to build Perl. 215 216 You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK" and "MDAC 217 SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries and rc.exe, and 218 ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and nmake.exe. Note that the latter 219 (which also includes the free compiler and linker) requires the ".NET 220 Framework Redistributable" to be installed first. This can be downloaded and 221 installed separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway. 222 223 These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download Center at 224 L<https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>. (Providing exact 225 links to these packages has proven a pointless task because the links keep on 226 changing so often.) 227 228 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes these packages 229 contain a particular Windows OS version in their name, but actually work on 230 other OS versions too. For example, the "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK" 231 also runs on Windows XP SP2 and Windows 2000. 232 233 Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET Framework SDK. 234 Setup your environment as follows (assuming default installation locations 235 were chosen): 236 237 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK 238 239 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 240 241 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include 242 243 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib 244 245 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on which version 246 you are using. Earlier versions installed into "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", 247 while the latest versions install into version-specific locations such as 248 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".) 249 250 Several required files will still be missing: 251 252 =over 4 253 254 =item * 255 256 cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It is actually 257 installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a location such as the 258 following: 259 260 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322 261 262 Copy it from there to %PlatformSDKDir%\Bin 263 264 =item * 265 266 lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with the /lib 267 option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it instead: 268 269 Change the line reading: 270 271 ar='lib' 272 273 to: 274 275 ar='link /lib' 276 277 It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in 278 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin containing: 279 280 @echo off 281 link /lib %* 282 283 for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you might want to build 284 later which explicitly reference "lib" rather than taking their value from 285 $Config{ar}. 286 287 =item * 288 289 setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if the USE_SETARGV 290 option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies this object file in source form 291 in %PlatformSDKDir%\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and 292 internal.h from there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using 293 294 cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c 295 296 Then copy setargv.obj to %PlatformSDKDir%\lib 297 298 Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to enable the 299 USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove all mention of $(GLOBEXE) 300 from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj won't be required anyway. 301 302 =back 303 304 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to edit that 305 file to set 306 307 CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE 308 309 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment setup above. 310 311 =item Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler 312 313 The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for building 314 Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build Environment" 315 shells available after you install the Platform SDK from the Start Menu. 316 317 =item GCC 318 319 Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW (version 3.4.5 or later) or from 320 MinGW64 (version 4.4.3 or later). It can be downloaded here: 321 322 L<http://www.mingw.org/> 323 L<http://www.mingw-w64.org/> 324 325 You also need dmake or gmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. 326 327 Note that the MinGW build currently requires a MinGW runtime version earlier 328 than 3.21 (check __MINGW32_MAJOR_VERSION and __MINGW32_MINOR_VERSION). 329 330 Note also that the C++ mode build currently fails with MinGW 3.4.5 and 4.7.2 331 or later, and with MinGW64 64-bit 6.3.0 or later. 332 333 =item Intel C++ Compiler 334 335 Experimental support for using Intel C++ Compiler has been added. Edit 336 win32/Makefile and pick the correct CCTYPE for the Visual C that Intel C was 337 installed into. Also uncomment __ICC to enable Intel C on Visual C support. 338 To set up the build environment, from the Start Menu run 339 IA-32 Visual Studio 20__ mode or Intel 64 Visual Studio 20__ mode as 340 appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that prompt box. 341 342 Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions probably will 343 work. Using Intel C++ Compiler instead of Visual C has the benefit of C99 344 compatibility which is needed by some CPAN XS modules, while maintaining 345 compatibility with Visual C object code and Visual C debugging infrastructure 346 unlike GCC. 347 348 =back 349 350 =head2 Building 351 352 =over 4 353 354 =item * 355 356 Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl toplevel. 357 This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with 358 versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Windows SDK, and 359 a GNU make "GNUmakefile" or dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all 360 supported compilers. The defaults in the gmake and dmake makefile are 361 setup to build using MinGW/gcc. 362 363 =item * 364 365 Edit the GNUmakefile, makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) 366 and change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable 367 various build flags. These are explained in the makefiles. 368 369 Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl with 370 INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a previous 371 build. In particular, this may cause problems with the 372 lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program and 373 may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE directory rather 374 than the one being tested. 375 376 You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that 377 CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. For GCC this 378 should be the directory that contains the F<bin>, F<include> and 379 F<lib> directories. 380 381 If building with the cross-compiler provided by 382 mingw-w64.org you'll need to uncomment the line that sets 383 GCCCROSS in the makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie 384 only if the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler 385 does not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these 386 executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.) 387 388 The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ 389 may not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists 390 and is valid. 391 392 If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll, specify 393 them in the STATIC_EXT macro. 394 395 Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles carefully. 396 397 =item * 398 399 Type "dmake" ("gmake" for GNU make, or "nmake" if you are using that make). 400 401 This should build everything. Specifically, it will create perl.exe, 402 perl532.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other extension dll's 403 under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for any reason, make 404 sure you have done the previous steps correctly. 405 406 To try dmake's parallel mode, type "dmake -P2", where 2, is the maximum number 407 of parallel jobs you want to run. A number of things in the build process will 408 run in parallel, but there are serialization points where you will see just 1 409 CPU maxed out. This is normal. 410 411 Similarly you can build in parallel with GNU make, type "gmake -j2" to 412 build with two parallel jobs, or higher for more. 413 414 If you are advanced enough with building C code, here is a suggestion to speed 415 up building perl, and the later C<make test>. Try to keep your PATH environmental 416 variable with the least number of folders possible (remember to keep your C 417 compiler's folders there). C<C:\WINDOWS\system32> or C<C:\WINNT\system32> 418 depending on your OS version should be first folder in PATH, since "cmd.exe" 419 is the most commonly launched program during the build and later testing. 420 421 =back 422 423 =head2 Testing Perl on Windows 424 425 Type "dmake test" (or "gmake test", "nmake test"). This will run most 426 of the tests from the testsuite (many tests will be skipped). 427 428 There should be no test failures. 429 430 If you build with Visual C++ 2013 then three tests currently may fail with 431 Daylight Saving Time related problems: F<t/io/fs.t>, 432 F<cpan/HTTP-Tiny/t/110_mirror.t> and F<lib/File/Copy.t>. The failures are 433 caused by bugs in the CRT in VC++ 2013 which are fixed in VC++2015 and 434 later, as explained by Microsoft here: 435 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, 436 if you need fixed C<stat> and C<utime> functions then have a look at the 437 CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime. 438 439 If you build with Visual C++ 2015 or later then F<ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t> 440 may crash (after all its tests have passed). This is due to a regression in the 441 Universal CRT introduced in the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and will be fixed 442 in the May 2019 Update, as explained here: L<https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/519486/setlocalelc-numeric-iso-latin-16-fails-then-succee.html>. 443 444 If you build with certain versions (e.g. 4.8.1) of gcc from www.mingw.org then 445 F<ext/POSIX/t/time.t> may fail test 17 due to a known bug in those gcc builds: 446 see L<https://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2152/>. 447 448 Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the 449 native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains 450 spaces. So don't do that. 451 452 If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see 453 failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case. 454 455 Furthermore, you should make sure that during C<make test> you do not 456 have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils 457 include some tools (C<type> for instance) which override the Windows 458 ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to 459 avoid these errors. 460 461 To see the output of specific failing tests run the harness from the t 462 directory: 463 464 # assuming you're starting from the win32 directory 465 cd ..\win32 466 .\perl harness <list of tests> 467 468 Please report any other failures as described under L</BUGS AND CAVEATS>. 469 470 =head2 Installation of Perl on Windows 471 472 Type "dmake install" (or "gmake install", "nmake install"). This will 473 put the newly built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> 474 points to in the Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation 475 under C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same 476 under C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html>. 477 478 To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to 479 your PATH environment variable: C<$INST_TOP\bin>, e.g. 480 481 set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH% 482 483 If you opted to uncomment C<INST_VER> and C<INST_ARCH> in the makefile 484 then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you will 485 need to add two new PATH components instead: C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin> and 486 C<$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME>, e.g. 487 488 set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH% 489 490 =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Windows 491 492 =over 4 493 494 =item Environment Variables 495 496 The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled 497 into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start 498 using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable). 499 500 If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB 501 to a list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl 502 to look for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment 503 variables you can set in L<perlrun>. 504 505 You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and 506 backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See L<perlrun>. 507 508 Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain default 509 values if you choose to put them there unless disabled at build time with 510 USE_NO_REGISTRY. On Perl process start Perl checks if 511 C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl> 512 exist. If the keys exists, they will be checked for remainder of the Perl 513 process's run life for certain entries. Entries in 514 C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> override entries in 515 C<HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl>. One or more of the following entries 516 (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set in the keys: 517 518 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC 519 lib standard library path to add to @INC 520 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC 521 sitelib site library path to add to @INC 522 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC 523 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC 524 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL" 525 526 Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever version 527 of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>. Paths must be 528 separated with semicolons, as usual on Windows. 529 530 =item File Globbing 531 532 By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob extension, 533 which provides portable globbing. 534 535 If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS 536 filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::DosGlob 537 to override the internal glob() implementation. See L<File::DosGlob> for 538 details. 539 540 =item Using perl from the command line 541 542 If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line 543 shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased 544 with what Windows offers by way of a command shell. 545 546 The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is that 547 the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl sees it. 548 First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE) preprocesses the command 549 line, to handle redirection, environment variable expansion, and 550 location of the executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits 551 the remaining command line into individual arguments, using the 552 C runtime library upon which Perl was built. 553 554 It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the C 555 runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so 556 wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the 557 shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you are 558 using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (useful) quote 559 character is the double quote ("). It can be used to protect spaces 560 and other special characters in arguments. 561 562 The Windows documentation describes the shell parsing rules here: 563 L<https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/cmd> 564 and the C runtime parsing rules here: 565 L<https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/17w5ykft%28v=VS.100%29.aspx>. 566 567 Here are some further observations based on experiments: The C runtime 568 breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to programs in argc/argv. 569 Double quotes can be used to prevent arguments with spaces in them from 570 being split up. You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping 571 it with a backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes. 572 The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will 573 be stripped by the C runtime. 574 575 The file redirection characters "E<lt>", "E<gt>", and "|" can be quoted by 576 double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not always 577 be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or 578 the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to make 579 this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^" has also 580 been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this appears 581 to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from the command 582 line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does not treat 583 the caret as a quote character). 584 585 Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell: 586 587 This prints two doublequotes: 588 589 perl -e "print '\"\"' " 590 591 This does the same: 592 593 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" " 594 595 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch": 596 597 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch 598 599 This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland): 600 601 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul 602 603 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch": 604 605 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch 606 607 This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the console: 608 609 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less 610 611 This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager: 612 613 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less 614 615 This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file "blurch": 616 617 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less 618 619 620 Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x 621 is left as an exercise to the reader :) 622 623 One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for 624 Windows is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indicating 625 that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is 626 therefore important to always double any % characters which you want 627 Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even when they are 628 quoted. 629 630 =item Building Extensions 631 632 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth 633 of extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. 634 Look in L<https://www.cpan.org/> for more information on CPAN. 635 636 Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work 637 in the Windows environment; you should check the information at 638 L<https://www.cpantesters.org/> before investing too much effort into 639 porting modules that don't readily build. 640 641 Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can 642 be built, tested and installed with the standard mantra: 643 644 perl Makefile.PL 645 $MAKE 646 $MAKE test 647 $MAKE install 648 649 where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to 650 use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions 651 may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or 652 fail), but most serious ones do. 653 654 It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and 655 ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can 656 either get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an 657 old version of nmake reportedly available from: 658 659 L<http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe> 660 661 Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from 662 CPAN. 663 664 L<https://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/> 665 666 You may also use dmake or gmake. See L</"Make"> above on how to get it. 667 668 Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax 669 depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is 670 important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm: 671 672 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax 673 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax 674 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax 675 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make) 676 677 If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, 678 edit Config.pm to fix it. 679 680 If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported 681 C compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for 682 the compiler for command-line compilation before running C<perl Makefile.PL> 683 or any invocation of make. 684 685 If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for 686 why it failed, and report problems to the module author. If 687 it looks like the extension building support is at fault, report 688 that with full details of how the build failed using the GitHub 689 issue tracker at L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. 690 691 =item Command-line Wildcard Expansion 692 693 The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems (such 694 as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments supplied to 695 programs. They consider it the application's job to handle that. 696 This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in our case, 697 perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usually provide. 698 However, doing that results in incompatible perl versions (since the 699 behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending on the 700 compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers). Besides, it may 701 be a source of frustration if you use such a perl binary with an 702 alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards. 703 704 Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things 705 about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more 706 powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like 707 */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and 708 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even 709 entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion). 710 711 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm 712 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't 713 use File::DosGlob; 714 @ARGV = map { 715 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/; 716 @g ? @g : $_; 717 } @ARGV; 718 1; 719 ^Z 720 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild 721 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c 722 p4view/perl/perl.c 723 p4view/perl/perlio.c 724 p4view/perl/perly.c 725 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c 726 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c 727 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c 728 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c 729 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c 730 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c 731 732 Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create 733 Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to 734 set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion 735 to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup 736 environment. 737 738 If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's 739 command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The resulting 740 binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which may not be 741 what you want if you use a shell that does that for you. The expansion 742 done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach suggested above. 743 744 =item Notes on 64-bit Windows 745 746 Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Itanium 747 architecture. 748 749 The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is the 750 norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, C<int> and C<long> are 751 both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In addition, 752 there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, C<__int64>. In contrast, 753 the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix platforms provides C<int> 754 as the 32-bit type, while both the C<long> type and pointers are of 755 64-bit precision. Note that both models provide for 64-bits of 756 addressability. 757 758 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86 759 binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit build 760 of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want to build 761 a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you would bother: 762 763 =over 764 765 =item * 766 767 A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on 768 Itanium hardware. 769 770 =item * 771 772 There is no 2GB limit on process size. 773 774 =item * 775 776 Perl automatically provides large file support when built under 777 64-bit Windows. 778 779 =item * 780 781 Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application. 782 783 =back 784 785 =back 786 787 =head2 Running Perl Scripts 788 789 Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to 790 indicate to the OS that it should execute the file using perl. 791 Windows has no comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are 792 executables. 793 794 Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on 795 Windows rely on the file "extension". There are three methods 796 to use this to execute perl scripts: 797 798 =over 8 799 800 =item 1 801 802 There is a facility called "file extension associations". This can be 803 manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come 804 standard with Windows. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how 805 to set this up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows 806 wasn't perl-ready? :). 807 808 =item 2 809 810 Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are 811 reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the 812 old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a 813 regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process 814 makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap 815 perl scripts into batch files. For example: 816 817 pl2bat foo.pl 818 819 will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any 820 .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file. 821 822 If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that 823 "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to 824 refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to make 825 sure that construct works in batch files. As of this writing, 826 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" statement in their 827 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT 828 startup file to enable this to work. 829 830 =item 3 831 832 Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed, 833 so scripts that rely on C<$0> to find what they must do may not 834 run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the 835 original script, and so this process can be maintenance intensive 836 if the originals get updated often. A different approach that 837 avoids both problems is possible. 838 839 A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied 840 to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, 841 if you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is 842 executed. Since you can run batch files on Windows platforms simply 843 by typing the name (without the extension), this effectively 844 runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or "foo.bat". 845 With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a different location 846 than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere on 847 the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesystem that allows symbolic 848 links, you can even avoid copying "runperl.bat". 849 850 Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type 851 "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) 852 Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH 853 854 =back 855 856 =head2 Miscellaneous Things 857 858 A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be 859 able to use it if you have a web browser installed on your 860 system. 861 862 C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained 863 in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager 864 like C<less> (recent versions of which have Windows support). You may 865 have to set the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. 866 "perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl operator 867 "foo". 868 869 One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like C<Tk> 870 is assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line 871 window will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy 872 of C<perl> without opening a command-line window, use the C<wperl> 873 executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly 874 the same as normal C<perl> on Windows, except that options like C<-h> 875 don't work (since they need a command-line window to print to). 876 877 If you find bugs in perl, you can report them to 878 L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>. 879 880 =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS 881 882 Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if 883 set to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications 884 the perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the 885 AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process significantly. 886 Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar messages 887 as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing configure 888 files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat it as suspicious, 889 or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl 890 updating it). The build does complete with 891 892 set PERLIO=perlio 893 894 but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar issues. 895 896 A git GUI shell extension for Windows such as TortoiseGit will cause the build 897 and later C<make test> to run much slower since every file is checked for its 898 git status as soon as it is created and/or modified. TortoiseGit doesn't cause 899 any test failures or build problems unlike the antivirus software described 900 above, but it does cause similar slowness. It is suggested to use Task Manager 901 to look for background processes which use high CPU amounts during the building 902 process. 903 904 Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in 905 L<perlfunc>, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid 906 surprises, particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl 907 in other operating environments or if you intend to write code 908 that will be portable to other environments, see L<perlport> 909 for a reasonably definitive list of these differences. 910 911 Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly 912 in the Windows environment. See L</"Building Extensions">. 913 914 Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not 915 behave as on Unix platforms. See L<perlport> for the full list. 916 917 Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it 918 doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling C<die()> 919 or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most 920 implementations of C<signal()> on Windows are severely crippled. 921 Thus, signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag 922 variable in the handler. Using signals under this port should 923 currently be considered unsupported. 924 925 Please report detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that 926 you may find at E<lt>L<https://github.com/Perl/perl5/issues>E<gt>, 927 along with the output produced by C<perl -V>. 928 929 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 930 931 The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark 932 of O'Reilly and Associates, Inc. Used with permission. 933 934 =head1 AUTHORS 935 936 =over 4 937 938 =item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt> 939 940 =item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt> 941 942 =item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt> 943 944 =item Jan Dubois E<lt>jand@activestate.comE<gt> 945 946 =item Steve Hay E<lt>steve.m.hay@googlemail.comE<gt> 947 948 =back 949 950 This document is maintained by Jan Dubois. 951 952 =head1 SEE ALSO 953 954 L<perl> 955 956 =head1 HISTORY 957 958 This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, 959 and borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available 960 at the time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks 961 since then. 962 963 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons). 964 965 Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp). 966 967 Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp). 968 969 Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl). 970 971 Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp). 972 973 Last updated: 30 April 2019 974 975 =cut