1PERLVMESA(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLVMESA(1)
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6 README.vmesa - building and installing Perl for VM/ESA.
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9 This document will help you Configure, build, test and install Perl on
10 VM/ESA.
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13 This is a fully ported perl for VM/ESA 2.3.0. It may work on other
14 versions, but that's the one we've tested it on.
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16 If you've downloaded the binary distribution, it needs to be installed
17 below /usr/local. Source code distributions have an automated "make
18 install" step that means you do not need to extract the source code
19 below /usr/local (though that is where it will be installed by
20 default). You may need to worry about the networking configuration
21 files discussed in the last bullet below.
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23 Unpacking Perl Distribution on VM/ESA
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25 To extract an ASCII tar archive on VM/ESA, try this:
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27 pax -o to=IBM-1047,from=ISO8859-1 -r < latest.tar
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29 Setup Perl and utilities on VM/ESA
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31 GNU make for VM/ESA, which may be required for the build of perl, is
32 available from:
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34 http://vm.marist.edu/~neale/vmoe.html
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36 Configure Perl on VM/ESA
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38 Once you've unpacked the distribution, run Configure (see INSTALL for
39 full discussion of the Configure options), and then run make, then
40 "make test" then "make install" (this last step may require UID=0 priv‐
41 ileges).
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43 There is a "hints" file for vmesa that specifies the correct values for
44 most things. Some things to watch out for are:
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46 · this port does support dynamic loading but it's not had much test‐
47 ing
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49 · Don't turn on the compiler optimization flag "-O". There's a bug
50 in the compiler (APAR PQ18812) that generates some bad code the
51 optimizer is on.
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53 · As VM/ESA doesn't fully support the fork() API programs relying on
54 this call will not work. I've replaced fork()/exec() with spawn()
55 and the standalone exec() with spawn(). This has a side effect when
56 opening unnamed pipes in a shell script: there is no child process
57 generated under.
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59 · At the moment the hints file for VM/ESA basically bypasses all of
60 the automatic configuration process. This is because Configure
61 relies on: 1. The header files living in the Byte File System (you
62 could put the there if you want); 2. The C preprocessor including
63 the #include statements in the preprocessor output (.i) file.
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65 Testing Anomalies of Perl on VM/ESA
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67 The "make test" step runs a Perl Verification Procedure, usually before
68 installation. As the 5.6.1 kit was being assembled the following
69 "failures" were known to appear on some machines during "make test"
70 (mostly due to ASCII vs. EBCDIC conflicts), your results may differ:
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72 [the list of failures being compiled]
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74 Usage Hints for Perl on VM/ESA
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76 When using perl on VM/ESA please keep in mind that the EBCDIC and ASCII
77 character sets are different. Perl builtin functions that may behave
78 differently under EBCDIC are mentioned in the perlport.pod document.
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80 OpenEdition (UNIX System Services) does not (yet) support the #! means
81 of script invocation. See:
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83 head `whence perldoc`
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85 for an example of how to use the "eval exec" trick to ask the shell to
86 have perl run your scripts for you.
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89 Neale Ferguson.
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92 INSTALL, perlport, perlebcdic.
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94 Mailing list for Perl on VM/ESA
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96 If you are interested in the VM/ESA, z/OS (formerly known as OS/390)
97 and POSIX-BC (BS2000) ports of Perl then see the perl-mvs mailing list.
98 To subscribe, send an empty message to perl-mvs-subscribe@perl.org.
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100 See also:
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102 http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=perl-mvs
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104 There are web archives of the mailing list at:
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106 http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl-mvs/
107 http://archive.develooper.com/perl-mvs@perl.org/
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111perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLVMESA(1)