1PERLWIN32(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLWIN32(1)
2
6 perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
7
9 These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 2000 and later.
10
12 Before you start, you should glance through the README file found in
13 the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution was extracted.
14 Make sure you read and understand the terms under which this software
15 is being distributed.
16 Also make sure you read "BUGS AND CAVEATS" below for the known
18 limitations of this port.
19 The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
21 only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In
22 particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
23 "Configure".
24 You may also want to look at one other option for building a perl that
26 will work on Windows: the README.cygwin file, which give a different
27 set of rules to build a perl for Windows. This method will probably
28 enable you to build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you will also need
29 to download and use various other build-time and run-time support
30 software described in that file.
31 This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" port
33 of Perl to the Windows platform. This includes both 32-bit and 64-bit
34 Windows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no additional
35 software to run (other than what came with your operating system).
36 Currently, this port is capable of using one of the following compilers
37 on the Intel x86 architecture:
38 Microsoft Visual C++ version 6.0 or later
40 Intel C++ Compiler (experimental)
41 Gcc by mingw.org gcc version 3.4.5 or later
42 with runtime < 3.21
43 Gcc by mingw-w64.org gcc version 4.4.3 or later
44 Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
46 delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:
47 <http://mingw.org>
49 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.
50 <http://mingw-w64.org>
52 Delivers gcc toolchain targeting both 64-bit Windows and 32-bit
53 Windows platforms (despite the project name "mingw-w64" they are
54 not only 64-bit oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers
55 and cross-compilers that are also supported by perl's makefile.
56 The Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given away free.
58 They are available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++
59 2005-2019 Express [or Community, from 2017] Edition" (and also as part
60 of the ".NET Framework SDK") and are the same compilers that ship with
61 "Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional" or "Visual C++ 2005-2019
62 Professional" respectively.
63 This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using:
65 Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
67 MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)
68 The Windows SDK can be downloaded from <http://www.microsoft.com/>.
70 The MinGW64 compiler is available at <http://mingw-w64.org>. The
71 latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a
72 trimmed down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl
73 available at: <http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/>
74 NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit
76 Windows operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment
77 variable to "undef". Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests
78 when USE_ITHREADS *= define (as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *=
79 Debug line is commented out.
80 This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that is used to
82 build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be able to build and
83 install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. See "Usage Hints for
84 Perl on Windows" below for general hints about this.
85 Setting Up Perl on Windows
87 Make
88 You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
89 Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, you can use nmake supplied
90 with Visual C++ or Windows SDK. You may also use, for Visual C++ or
91 Windows SDK, dmake or gmake instead of nmake. dmake is open source
92 software, but is not included with Visual C++ or Windows SDK.
93 Builds using gcc need dmake or gmake. nmake is not supported for
94 gcc builds. Parallel building is only supported with dmake and
95 gmake, not nmake. When using dmake it is recommended to use dmake
96 4.13 or newer for parallel building. Older dmakes, in parallel
97 mode, have very high CPU usage and pound the disk/filing system
98 with duplicate I/O calls in an aggressive polling loop.
99 A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
101 <http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>
103 Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
105 Command Shell
107 Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows. Some versions
108 of the popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause
109 you trouble. If the build fails under that shell, try building
110 again with the cmd shell.
111 Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.
113 The build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will
114 fail.
115 Microsoft Visual C++
117 The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
118 Visual C requires that certain things be set up in the console
119 before Visual C will sucessfully run. To make a console box be able
120 to run the C compiler, you will need to beforehand, run the
121 "vcvars32.bat" file to compile for x86-32 and for x86-64
122 "vcvarsall.bat x64" or "vcvarsamd64.bat". On a typical install of a
123 Microsoft C compiler product, these batch files will already be in
124 your "PATH" environment variable so you may just type them without
125 an absolute path into your console. If you need to find the
126 absolute path to the batch file, it is usually found somewhere like
127 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin. With some newer
128 Micrsoft C products (released after ~2004), the installer will put
129 a shortcut in the start menu to launch a new console window with
130 the console already set up for your target architecture (x86-32 or
131 x86-64 or IA64). With the newer compilers, you may also use the
132 older batch files if you choose so.
133 Microsoft Visual C++ 2008-2019 Express/Community Edition
135 These free versions of Visual C++ 2008-2019 Professional contain
136 the same compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions,
137 and also contain everything necessary to build Perl, rather than
138 requiring a separate download of the Windows SDK like previous
139 versions did.
140 These packages can be downloaded by searching in the Download
142 Center at
143 <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>.
144 (Providing exact links to these packages has proven a pointless
145 task because the links keep on changing so often.)
146 Install Visual C++ 2008-2019 Express/Community, then setup your
148 environment using, e.g.
149 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat
151 (assuming the default installation location was chosen).
153 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to
155 edit that file to set CCTYPE to one of MSVC90-MSVC142 first.
156 Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
158 This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same
159 compiler and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't
160 contain everything necessary to build Perl.
161 You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK"
163 and "MDAC SDK" components are required) for more header files and
164 libraries.
165 These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download
167 Center at
168 <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>.
169 (Providing exact links to these packages has proven a pointless
170 task because the links keep on changing so often.)
171 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes
173 these packages contain a particular Windows OS version in their
174 name, but actually work on other OS versions too. For example, the
175 "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
176 and Windows 2000.
177 Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK. Setup your
179 environment as follows (assuming default installation locations
180 were chosen):
181 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
183 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
185 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include
187 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib
189 SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727
191 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on
193 which version you are using. Earlier versions installed into
194 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", while the latest versions install
195 into version-specific locations such as "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
196 Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
197 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to
199 edit that file to set
200 CCTYPE = MSVC80
202 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment
204 setup above.
205 Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
207 This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship
208 with Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain
209 everything necessary to build Perl.
210 You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK"
212 and "MDAC SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries
213 and rc.exe, and ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and
214 nmake.exe. Note that the latter (which also includes the free
215 compiler and linker) requires the ".NET Framework Redistributable"
216 to be installed first. This can be downloaded and installed
217 separately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003"
218 anyway.
219 These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download
221 Center at
222 <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=en>.
223 (Providing exact links to these packages has proven a pointless
224 task because the links keep on changing so often.)
225 Try to obtain the latest version of the Windows SDK. Sometimes
227 these packages contain a particular Windows OS version in their
228 name, but actually work on other OS versions too. For example, the
229 "Windows Server 2003 R2 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
230 and Windows 2000.
231 Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET
233 Framework SDK. Setup your environment as follows (assuming default
234 installation locations were chosen):
235 SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK
237 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
239 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include
241 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib
243 (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on
245 which version you are using. Earlier versions installed into
246 "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", while the latest versions install
247 into version-specific locations such as "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
248 Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)
249 Several required files will still be missing:
251 · cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It
253 is actually installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a
254 location such as the following:
255 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
257 Copy it from there to %PlatformSDKDir%\Bin
259 · lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with
261 the /lib option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it
262 instead:
263 Change the line reading:
265 ar='lib'
267 to:
269 ar='link /lib'
271 It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
273 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin
274 containing:
275 @echo off
277 link /lib %*
278 for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you
280 might want to build later which explicitly reference "lib"
281 rather than taking their value from $Config{ar}.
282 · setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if
284 the USE_SETARGV option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies
285 this object file in source form in %PlatformSDKDir%\src\crt.
286 Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and internal.h from there to some
287 temporary location and build setargv.obj using
288 cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c
290 Then copy setargv.obj to %PlatformSDKDir%\lib
292 Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to
294 enable the USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove
295 all mention of $(GLOBEXE) from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj
296 won't be required anyway.
297 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to
299 edit that file to set
300 CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE
302 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment
304 setup above.
305 Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
307 The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for
308 building Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build
309 Environment" shells available after you install the Platform SDK
310 from the Start Menu.
311 GCC Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW (version 3.4.5 or later)
313 or from MinGW64 (version 4.4.3 or later). It can be downloaded
314 here:
315 <http://www.mingw.org/> <http://www.mingw-w64.org/>
317 You also need dmake or gmake. See "Make" above on how to get it.
319 Note that the MinGW build currently requires a MinGW runtime
321 version earlier than 3.21 (check __MINGW32_MAJOR_VERSION and
322 __MINGW32_MINOR_VERSION).
323 Note also that the C++ mode build currently fails with MinGW 3.4.5
325 and 4.7.2 or later, and with MinGW64 64-bit 6.3.0 or later.
326 Intel C++ Compiler
328 Experimental support for using Intel C++ Compiler has been added.
329 Edit win32/Makefile and pick the correct CCTYPE for the Visual C
330 that Intel C was installed into. Also uncomment __ICC to enable
331 Intel C on Visual C support. To set up the build environment, from
332 the Start Menu run IA-32 Visual Studio 20__ mode or Intel 64 Visual
333 Studio 20__ mode as appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that
334 prompt box.
335 Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions
337 probably will work. Using Intel C++ Compiler instead of Visual C
338 has the benefit of C99 compatibility which is needed by some CPAN
339 XS modules, while maintaining compatibility with Visual C object
340 code and Visual C debugging infrastructure unlike GCC.
341 Building
343 · Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl
344 toplevel. This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
345 versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Windows SDK, and
346 a GNU make "GNUmakefile" or dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for
347 all supported compilers. The defaults in the gmake and dmake
348 makefile are setup to build using MinGW/gcc.
349 · Edit the GNUmakefile, makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using
351 nmake) and change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can
352 also enable various build flags. These are explained in the
353 makefiles.
354 Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
356 with INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a
357 previous build. In particular, this may cause problems with the
358 lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program
359 and may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE
360 directory rather than the one being tested.
361 You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
363 CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler. For GCC
364 this should be the directory that contains the bin, include and lib
365 directories.
366 If building with the cross-compiler provided by mingw-w64.org
368 you'll need to uncomment the line that sets GCCCROSS in the
369 makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie only if
370 the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler does
371 not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these
372 executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.)
373 The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ may
375 not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists and
376 is valid.
377 You may also need to comment out the "DELAYLOAD = ..." line in the
379 Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack
380 and the linker reports an internal error.
381 If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll,
383 specify them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
384 NOTE: The USE_64_BIT_INT build option is not supported with the
386 32-bit Visual C++ 6.0 compiler.
387 Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles
389 carefully.
390 · Type "dmake" ("gmake" for GNU make, or "nmake" if you are using
392 that make).
393 This should build everything. Specifically, it will create
395 perl.exe, perl530.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other
396 extension dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails
397 for any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps
398 correctly.
399 To try dmake's parallel mode, type "dmake -P2", where 2, is the
401 maximum number of parallel jobs you want to run. A number of things
402 in the build process will run in parallel, but there are
403 serialization points where you will see just 1 CPU maxed out. This
404 is normal.
405 Similarly you can build in parallel with GNU make, type "gmake -j2"
407 to build with two parallel jobs, or higher for more.
408 If you are advanced enough with building C code, here is a
410 suggestion to speed up building perl, and the later "make test".
411 Try to keep your PATH environmental variable with the least number
412 of folders possible (remember to keep your C compiler's folders
413 there). "C:\WINDOWS\system32" or "C:\WINNT\system32" depending on
414 your OS version should be first folder in PATH, since "cmd.exe" is
415 the most commonly launched program during the build and later
416 testing.
417 Testing Perl on Windows
419 Type "dmake test" (or "gmake test", "nmake test"). This will run most
420 of the tests from the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
421 There should be no test failures.
423 If you build with Visual C++ 2013 then three tests currently may fail
425 with Daylight Saving Time related problems: t/io/fs.t,
426 cpan/HTTP-Tiny/t/110_mirror.t and lib/File/Copy.t. The failures are
427 caused by bugs in the CRT in VC++ 2013 which are fixed in VC++2015 and
428 later, as explained by Microsoft here:
429 <https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/811534/utime-sometimes-fails-to-set-the-correct-file-times-in-visual-c-2013>.
430 In the meantime, if you need fixed "stat" and "utime" functions then
431 have a look at the CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime.
432 If you build with Visual C++ 2015 or later then
434 ext/XS-APItest/t/locale.t may crash (after all its tests have passed).
435 This is due to a regression in the Universal CRT introduced in the
436 Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and will be fixed in the May 2019 Update,
437 as explained here:
438 <https://developercommunity.visualstudio.com/content/problem/519486/setlocalelc-numeric-iso-latin-16-fails-then-succee.html>.
439 If you build with certain versions (e.g. 4.8.1) of gcc from
441 www.mingw.org then ext/POSIX/t/time.t may fail test 17 due to a known
442 bug in those gcc builds: see
443 <http://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2152/>.
444 Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
446 native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains
447 spaces. So don't do that.
448 If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
450 failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
451 Furthermore, you should make sure that during "make test" you do not
453 have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
454 include some tools ("type" for instance) which override the Windows
455 ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
456 avoid these errors.
457 To see the output of specific failing tests run the harness from the t
459 directory:
460 # assuming you're starting from the win32 directory
462 cd ..\win32
463 .\perl harness <list of tests>
464 Please report any other failures as described under "BUGS AND CAVEATS".
466 Installation of Perl on Windows
468 Type "dmake install" (or "gmake install", "nmake install"). This will
469 put the newly built perl and the libraries under whatever "INST_TOP"
470 points to in the Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation
471 under "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod" and HTML versions of the same under
472 "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html".
473 To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
475 your PATH environment variable: "$INST_TOP\bin", e.g.
476 set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
478 If you opted to uncomment "INST_VER" and "INST_ARCH" in the makefile
480 then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you
481 will need to add two new PATH components instead:
482 "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin" and "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME", e.g.
483 set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
485 Usage Hints for Perl on Windows
487 Environment Variables
488 The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
489 into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
490 using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
491 If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB to a
493 list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl to look
494 for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment
495 variables you can set in perlrun.
496 You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
498 backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See perlrun.
499 Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain
501 default values if you choose to put them there unless disabled at
502 build time with USE_NO_REGISTRY. On Perl process start Perl checks
503 if "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl" and
504 "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl" exist. If the keys exists, they
505 will be checked for remainder of the Perl process's run life for
506 certain entries. Entries in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl"
507 override entries in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl". One or
508 more of the following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may
509 be set in the keys:
510 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
512 lib standard library path to add to @INC
513 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
514 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
515 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
516 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
517 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
518 Note the $] in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever
520 version of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. 5.6.0. Paths
521 must be separated with semicolons, as usual on Windows.
522 File Globbing
524 By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob
525 extension, which provides portable globbing.
526 If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
528 filename conventions, you might want to consider using
529 File::DosGlob to override the internal glob() implementation. See
530 File::DosGlob for details.
531 Using perl from the command line
533 If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
534 shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
535 with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
536 The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is
538 that the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl
539 sees it. First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE) preprocesses
540 the command line, to handle redirection, environment variable
541 expansion, and location of the executable to run. Then, the perl
542 executable splits the remaining command line into individual
543 arguments, using the C runtime library upon which Perl was built.
544 It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the
546 C runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
547 wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
548 shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you
549 are using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only
550 (useful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used
551 to protect spaces and other special characters in arguments.
552 The Windows documentation describes the shell parsing rules here:
554 <http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/cmd.mspx?mfr=true>
555 and the C runtime parsing rules here:
556 <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/17w5ykft%28v=VS.100%29.aspx>.
557 Here are some further observations based on experiments: The C
559 runtime breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to programs in
560 argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to prevent arguments with
561 spaces in them from being split up. You can put a double quote in
562 an argument by escaping it with a backslash and enclosing the whole
563 argument within double quotes. The backslash and the pair of
564 double quotes surrounding the argument will be stripped by the C
565 runtime.
566 The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
568 double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not
569 always be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the
570 shell or the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just
571 to make this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^"
572 has also been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this
573 appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from
574 the command line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase
575 does not treat the caret as a quote character).
576 Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
578 This prints two doublequotes:
580 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
582 This does the same:
584 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
586 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
588 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
590 This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
592 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
594 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
596 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
598 This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the
600 console:
601 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
603 This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
605 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
607 This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file
609 "blurch":
610 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
612 Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
614 is left as an exercise to the reader :)
615 One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
617 Windows is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as
618 indicating that environment variable expansion is needed. Under
619 this shell, it is therefore important to always double any %
620 characters which you want Perl to see (for example, for hash
621 variables), even when they are quoted.
622 Building Extensions
624 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth of
625 extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. Look in
626 <http://www.cpan.org/> for more information on CPAN.
627 Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work in
629 the Windows environment; you should check the information at
630 <http://www.cpantesters.org/> before investing too much effort into
631 porting modules that don't readily build.
632 Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can be
634 built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
635 perl Makefile.PL
637 $MAKE
638 $MAKE test
639 $MAKE install
640 where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
642 use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
643 may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
644 fail), but most serious ones do.
645 It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and ensure
647 Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can either
648 get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an old version
649 of nmake reportedly available from:
650 <http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe>
652 Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
654 CPAN.
655 <http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/>
657 You may also use dmake or gmake. See "Make" above on how to get
659 it.
660 Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
662 depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
663 important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
664 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
666 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
667 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
668 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
669 If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, edit
671 Config.pm to fix it.
672 If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported C
674 compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
675 the compiler for command-line compilation before running "perl
676 Makefile.PL" or any invocation of make.
677 If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for why
679 it failed, and report problems to the module author. If it looks
680 like the extension building support is at fault, report that with
681 full details of how the build failed using the perlbug utility.
682 Command-line Wildcard Expansion
684 The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems
685 (such as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments
686 supplied to programs. They consider it the application's job to
687 handle that. This is commonly achieved by linking the application
688 (in our case, perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries
689 usually provide. However, doing that results in incompatible perl
690 versions (since the behavior of the argv expansion code differs
691 depending on the compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers).
692 Besides, it may be a source of frustration if you use such a perl
693 binary with an alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
694 Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
696 about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
697 powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
698 */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
699 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
700 entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
701 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
703 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
704 use File::DosGlob;
705 @ARGV = map {
706 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
707 @g ? @g : $_;
708 } @ARGV;
709 1;
710 ^Z
711 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
712 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
713 p4view/perl/perl.c
714 p4view/perl/perlio.c
715 p4view/perl/perly.c
716 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
717 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
718 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
719 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
720 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
721 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
722 Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
724 Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
725 set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
726 to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
727 environment.
728 If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
730 command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The
731 resulting binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which
732 may not be what you want if you use a shell that does that for you.
733 The expansion done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach
734 suggested above.
735 Notes on 64-bit Windows
737 Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel
738 Itanium architecture.
739 The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is
741 the norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, "int" and "long"
742 are both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In
743 addition, there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, "__int64".
744 In contrast, the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix
745 platforms provides "int" as the 32-bit type, while both the "long"
746 type and pointers are of 64-bit precision. Note that both models
747 provide for 64-bits of addressability.
748 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
750 binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit
751 build of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want
752 to build a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you
753 would bother:
754 · A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
756 Itanium hardware.
757 · There is no 2GB limit on process size.
759 · Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
761 64-bit Windows.
762 · Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
764 Running Perl Scripts
766 Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to indicate to
767 the OS that it should execute the file using perl. Windows has no
768 comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are executables.
769 Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on Windows
771 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods to use this to
772 execute perl scripts:
773 1. There is a facility called "file extension associations". This
775 can be manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype"
776 that come standard with Windows. Type "ftype /?" for a
777 complete example of how to set this up for perl scripts (Say
778 what? You thought Windows wasn't perl-ready? :).
779 2. Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
781 reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
782 old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
783 regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
784 makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to
785 wrap perl scripts into batch files. For example:
786 pl2bat foo.pl
788 will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any .pl
790 suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
791 If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
793 "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
794 refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to
795 make sure that construct works in batch files. As of this
796 writing, 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *"
797 statement in their 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos
798 /p*" in the 4DOS/NT startup file to enable this to work.
799 3. Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
801 so scripts that rely on $0 to find what they must do may not
802 run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
803 original script, and so this process can be maintenance
804 intensive if the originals get updated often. A different
805 approach that avoids both problems is possible.
806 A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
808 to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, if
809 you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
810 executed. Since you can run batch files on Windows platforms
811 simply by typing the name (without the extension), this
812 effectively runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or
813 "foo.bat". With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a
814 different location than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is
815 available somewhere on the PATH. If your scripts are on a
816 filesystem that allows symbolic links, you can even avoid
817 copying "runperl.bat".
818 Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
820 "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
821 Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
822 Miscellaneous Things
824 A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be able to
825 use it if you have a web browser installed on your system.
826 "perldoc" is also a useful tool for browsing information contained in
828 the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager like "less"
829 (recent versions of which have Windows support). You may have to set
830 the PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. "perldoc -f
831 foo" will print information about the perl operator "foo".
832 One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like "Tk" is
834 assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line window
835 will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy of
836 "perl" without opening a command-line window, use the "wperl"
837 executable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly the
838 same as normal "perl" on Windows, except that options like "-h" don't
839 work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
840 If you find bugs in perl, you can run "perlbug" to create a bug report
842 (you may have to send it manually if "perlbug" cannot find a mailer on
843 your system).
844
846 Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if set
847 to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications the
848 perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the the
849 AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process
850 significantly. Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with
851 peculiar messages as the virus checker interacts badly with
852 miniperl.exe writing configure files (it seems to either catch file
853 part written and treat it as suspicious, or virus checker may have it
854 "locked" in a way which inhibits miniperl updating it). The build does
855 complete with
856 set PERLIO=perlio
858 but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar
860 issues.
861 A git GUI shell extension for Windows such as TortoiseGit will cause
863 the build and later "make test" to run much slower since every file is
864 checked for its git status as soon as it is created and/or modified.
865 TortoiseGit doesn't cause any test failures or build problems unlike
866 the antivirus software described above, but it does cause similar
867 slowness. It is suggested to use Task Manager to look for background
868 processes which use high CPU amounts during the building process.
869 Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
871 perlfunc, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid surprises,
872 particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl in other operating
873 environments or if you intend to write code that will be portable to
874 other environments, see perlport for a reasonably definitive list of
875 these differences.
876 Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly in
878 the Windows environment. See "Building Extensions".
879 Most "socket()" related calls are supported, but they may not behave as
881 on Unix platforms. See perlport for the full list.
882 Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it doesn't
884 exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling "die()" or "exit()"
885 from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
886 implementations of "signal()" on Windows are severely crippled. Thus,
887 signals may work only for simple things like setting a flag variable in
888 the handler. Using signals under this port should currently be
889 considered unsupported.
890 Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
892 you may find to <perlbug@perl.org>, along with the output produced by
893 "perl -V".
894
896 The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly
897 and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
898
900 Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
901 Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
902 Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ing-simmons.net>
903 Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
904 Steve Hay <steve.m.hay@googlemail.com>
905 This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
907
909 perl
910
912 This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, and
913 borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available at the
914 time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks since then.
915 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
917 Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
919 Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
921 Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
923 Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
925 Last updated: 30 April 2019
927perl v5.30.1 2019-11-29 PERLWIN32(1)