1PERLWIN32(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLWIN32(1)
2
6 perlwin32 - Perl under Windows
7
9 These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP on
10 the Intel x86 and Itanium architectures.
11
13 Before you start, you should glance through the README file found in
14 the top-level directory to which the Perl distribution was extracted.
15 Make sure you read and understand the terms under which this software
16 is being distributed.
17 Also make sure you read "BUGS AND CAVEATS" below for the known limita‐
19 tions of this port.
20 The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
22 only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems. In partic‐
23 ular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about "Config‐
24 ure".
25 You may also want to look at two other options for building a perl that
27 will work on Windows NT: the README.cygwin and README.os2 files, each
28 of which give a different set of rules to build a Perl that will work
29 on Win32 platforms. Those two methods will probably enable you to
30 build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you will also need to download
31 and use various other build-time and run-time support software
32 described in those files.
33 This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" port
35 of Perl to Win32 platforms. This includes both 32-bit and 64-bit Win‐
36 dows operating systems. The resulting Perl requires no additional
37 software to run (other than what came with your operating system).
38 Currently, this port is capable of using one of the following compilers
39 on the Intel x86 architecture:
40 Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
42 Microsoft Visual C++ version 2.0 or later
43 MinGW with gcc gcc version 2.95.2 or later
44 The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler. Use version
46 3.2.x or later for the best results with this compiler.
47 The Borland C++ and Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being
49 given away free. The Borland compiler is available as "Borland C++
50 Compiler Free Command Line Tools" and is the same compiler that ships
51 with the full "Borland C++ Builder" product. The Microsoft compiler is
52 available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003", and also as part of the ".NET
53 Framework SDK", and is the same compiler that ships with "Visual Studio
54 .NET 2003 Professional".
55 This port can also be built on the Intel IA64 using:
57 Microsoft Platform SDK Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
59 The MS Platform SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/.
61 This port fully supports MakeMaker (the set of modules that is used to
63 build extensions to perl). Therefore, you should be able to build and
64 install most extensions found in the CPAN sites. See "Usage Hints for
65 Perl on Win32" below for general hints about this.
66 Setting Up Perl on Win32
68 Make
70 You need a "make" program to build the sources. If you are using
71 Visual C++ or the Platform SDK tools under Windows NT/2000/XP,
72 nmake will work. All other builds need dmake.
73 dmake is a freely available make that has very nice macro features
75 and parallelability.
76 A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
78 http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/
80 Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.
82 There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake and Borland C++
84 compilers. Namely, if a distribution has C files named with mixed
85 case letters, they will be compiled into appropriate .obj-files
86 named with all lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked
87 to bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such files
88 again. For example, Tk distribution has a lot of such files,
89 resulting in needless recompiles every time dmake is invoked. To
90 avoid this, you may use the script "sync_ext.pl" after a successful
91 build. It is available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl
92 source distribution.
93 Command Shell
95 Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some versions of
96 the popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompatibilities that may cause you
97 trouble. If the build fails under that shell, try building again
98 with the cmd shell.
99 The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities with the "com‐
101 mand.com" shell that comes with Windows 9x. You will need to use
102 dmake and makefile.mk to build under Windows 9x.
103 The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP, using the cmd
105 shell.
106 Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.
108 The build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will
109 fail.
110 Borland C++
112 If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need dmake. (The
113 make that Borland supplies is seriously crippled and will not work
114 for MakeMaker builds.)
115 See "Make" above.
117 Microsoft Visual C++
119 The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
120 You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file, usually found somewhere
121 like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Stu‐
122 dio\VC98\Bin. This will set your build environment.
123 You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, how‐
125 ever, you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or whatever the directory
126 name under which the Visual C dmake configuration lives) in your
127 environment and edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into
128 "make=dmake". The latter step is only essential if you want to use
129 dmake as your default make for building extensions using MakeMaker.
130 Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
132 This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship
133 with Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't contain
134 everything necessary to build Perl.
135 You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK"
137 and "MDAC SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries
138 and rc.exe, and ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and
139 nmake.exe. Note that the latter (which also includes the free com‐
140 piler and linker) requires the ".NET Framework Redistributable" to
141 be installed first. This can be downloaded and installed sepa‐
142 rately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway.
143 These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download
145 Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?display‐
146 lang=en. (Providing exact links to these packages has proven a
147 pointless task because the links keep on changing so often.)
148 Try to obtain the latest version of the Platform SDK. Sometimes
150 these packages contain a particular Windows OS version in their
151 name, but actually work on other OS versions too. For example, the
152 "Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
153 and Windows 2000.
154 According to the download pages the Toolkit and the .NET Framework
156 SDK are only supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003, so trying to use
157 these tools on Windows 95/98/ME and even Windows NT probably won't
158 work.
159 Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET
161 Framework SDK. Setup your environment as follows (assuming default
162 installation locations were chosen):
163 SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin
165 SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include
166 SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib
167 Several required files will still be missing:
169 * cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file. It
171 is actually installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a
172 location such as the following:
173 C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322
175 Copy it from there to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin
177 * lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with
179 the /lib option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it
180 instead:
181 Change the line reading:
183 ar='lib'
185 to:
187 ar='link /lib'
189 It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
191 C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin contain‐
192 ing:
193 @echo off
195 link /lib %*
196 for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you
198 might want to build later which explicitly reference "lib"
199 rather than taking their value from $Config{ar}.
200 * setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if
202 the USE_SETARGV option is enabled). The Platform SDK supplies
203 this object file in source form in C:\Program Files\Microsoft
204 SDK\src\crt. Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and internal.h from
205 there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using
206 cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c
208 Then copy setargv.obj to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\lib
210 Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to
212 enable the USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove
213 all mention of $(GLOBEXE) from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj
214 won't be required anyway.
215 Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile. You will need to
217 edit that file to set
218 CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE
220 and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment
222 setup above.
223 Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
225 The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for build‐
226 ing Perl. Make sure you are building within one of the "Build
227 Environment" shells available after you install the Platform SDK
228 from the Start Menu.
229 MinGW release 3 with gcc
231 The latest release of MinGW at the time of writing is 3.1.0, which
232 contains gcc-3.2.3. It can be downloaded here:
233 http://www.mingw.org/
235 Perl also compiles with earlier releases of gcc (2.95.2 and up).
237 See below for notes about using earlier versions of MinGW/gcc.
238 You also need dmake. See "Make" above on how to get it.
240 MinGW release 1 with gcc
242 The MinGW-1.1 bundle contains gcc-2.95.3.
243 Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as
245 indicated in the README for the GCC bundle. You may need to set up
246 a few environment variables (usually ran from a batch file).
247 There are a couple of problems with the version of
249 gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999:
250 * It left out a fix for certain command line quotes. To fix
252 this, be sure to download and install the file
253 fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above ftp location.
254 * The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may be wrong. If
256 your stdio.h has this problem, you will see an exception when
257 running the test t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the type‐
258 def for fpos_t from "long" to "long long" in the file
259 i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h, and rebuild.
260 A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-to-be-outdated)
262 bundle of the above package with the mentioned fixes already
263 applied is available here:
264 http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
266 ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
267 Building
269 · Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under the perl
271 toplevel. This directory contains a "Makefile" that will work with
272 versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Platform SDK,
273 and a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compil‐
274 ers. The defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using
275 MinGW/gcc.
276 · Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using nmake) and
278 change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP. You can also enable
279 various build flags. These are explained in the makefiles.
280 Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
282 with INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a
283 previous build. In particular, this may cause problems with the
284 lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program
285 and may end up building against the installed perl's lib/CORE
286 directory rather than the one being tested.
287 You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly and that
289 CCHOME points to wherever you installed your compiler.
290 The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for Visual C++ may
292 not be correct for some versions. Make sure the default exists and
293 is valid.
294 You may also need to comment out the "DELAYLOAD = ..." line in the
296 Makefile if you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack
297 and the linker reports an internal error.
298 If you have either the source or a library that contains
300 des_fcrypt(), enable the appropriate option in the makefile. A
301 ready-to-use version of fcrypt.c, based on the version originally
302 written by Eric Young at ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mir‐
303 rors/dsi/libdes/, is bundled with the distribution and CRYPT_SRC is
304 set to use it. Alternatively, if you have built a library that
305 contains des_fcrypt(), you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to the
306 library name. Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the
307 crypt() builtin will fail at run time.
308 If you want build some core extensions statically into perl's dll,
310 specify them in the STATIC_EXT macro.
311 Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the makefiles
313 carefully.
314 · Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
316 This should build everything. Specifically, it will create
318 perl.exe, perl58.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other exten‐
319 sion dll's under the lib\auto directory. If the build fails for
320 any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
321 Testing Perl on Win32
323 Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most of the tests
325 from the testsuite (many tests will be skipped).
326 There should be no test failures when running under Windows NT/2000/XP.
328 Many tests will fail under Windows 9x due to the inferior command
329 shell.
330 Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell other than the
332 native "cmd.exe", or if you are building from a path that contains spa‐
333 ces. So don't do that.
334 If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window, you may see
336 failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty" in that case.
337 If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure in
339 op/taint.t arising from the inability to find the Borland Runtime DLLs
340 on the system default path. You will need to copy the DLLs reported by
341 the messages from where Borland chose to install it, into the Windows
342 system directory (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and rerun
343 the test.
344 If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run
346 into problems finding the correct header files when building exten‐
347 sions. For example, building the "Tk" extension may fail because both
348 perl and Tk contain a header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest
349 Borland compiler (v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even sup‐
350 ports an option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the
351 old Borland search algorithm to locate header files.
352 If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for
354 "link()" related tests:
355 Failed Test Stat Wstat Total Fail Failed List
357 ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_dup.t 6 4 66.67% 2-5
359 ../lib/File/Temp/t/mktemp.t 9 1 11.11% 2
360 ../lib/File/Temp/t/posix.t 7 1 14.29% 3
361 ../lib/File/Temp/t/security.t 13 1 7.69% 2
362 ../lib/File/Temp/t/tempfile.t 20 2 10.00% 2 4
363 comp/multiline.t 6 2 33.33% 5-6
364 io/dup.t 8 6 75.00% 2-7
365 op/write.t 47 7 14.89% 1-3 6 9-11
366 Testing on NTFS avoids these errors.
368 Furthermore, you should make sure that during "make test" you do not
370 have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
371 include some tools ("type" for instance) which override the Windows
372 ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
373 avoid these errors.
374 Please report any other failures as described under "BUGS AND CAVEATS".
376 Installation of Perl on Win32
378 Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put the newly
380 built perl and the libraries under whatever "INST_TOP" points to in the
381 Makefile. It will also install the pod documentation under
382 "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod" and HTML versions of the same under
383 "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html".
384 To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
386 your PATH environment variable: "$INST_TOP\bin", e.g.
387 set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
389 If you opted to uncomment "INST_VER" and "INST_ARCH" in the makefile
391 then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you
392 will need to add two new PATH components instead:
393 "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin" and "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME", e.g.
394 set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
396 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
398 Environment Variables
400 The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
401 into perl, so you don't have to do anything additional to start
402 using that perl (except add its location to your PATH variable).
403 If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set PERL5LIB to a
405 list of paths separated by semicolons where you want perl to look
406 for libraries. Look for descriptions of other environment vari‐
407 ables you can set in perlrun.
408 You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
410 backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See perlrun.
411 Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look up certain
413 default values if you choose to put them there. Perl attempts to
414 read entries from "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl" and
415 "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl". Entries in the former override
416 entries in the latter. One or more of the following entries (of
417 type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
418 lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
420 lib standard library path to add to @INC
421 sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
422 sitelib site library path to add to @INC
423 vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
424 vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
425 PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
426 Note the $] in the above is not literal. Substitute whatever ver‐
428 sion of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. 5.6.0. Paths must
429 be separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
430 File Globbing
432 By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob exten‐
433 sion, which provides portable globbing.
434 If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
436 filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::Dos‐
437 Glob to override the internal glob() implementation. See
438 File::DosGlob for details.
439 Using perl from the command line
441 If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-line
442 shells found in UNIX environments, you will be less than pleased
443 with what Windows offers by way of a command shell.
444 The crucial thing to understand about the Windows environment is
446 that the command line you type in is processed twice before Perl
447 sees it. First, your command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT,
448 and COMMAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line, to
449 handle redirection, environment variable expansion, and location of
450 the executable to run. Then, the perl executable splits the remain‐
451 ing command line into individual arguments, using the C runtime
452 library upon which Perl was built.
453 It is particularly important to note that neither the shell nor the
455 C runtime do any wildcard expansions of command-line arguments (so
456 wildcards need not be quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the
457 shell and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if you
458 are using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent). The only (use‐
459 ful) quote character is the double quote ("). It can be used to
460 protect spaces and other special characters in arguments.
461 The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
463 quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observa‐
464 tions based on experiments: The C runtime breaks arguments at spa‐
465 ces and passes them to programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be
466 used to prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split up.
467 You can put a double quote in an argument by escaping it with a
468 backslash and enclosing the whole argument within double quotes.
469 The backslash and the pair of double quotes surrounding the argu‐
470 ment will be stripped by the C runtime.
471 The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "⎪" can be quoted by
473 double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not
474 always be true). Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the
475 shell or the C runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just
476 to make this type of quoting completely useless). The caret "^"
477 has also been observed to behave as a quoting character, but this
478 appears to be a shell feature, and the caret is not stripped from
479 the command line, so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase
480 does not treat the caret as a quote character).
481 Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
483 This prints two doublequotes:
485 perl -e "print '\"\"' "
487 This does the same:
489 perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
491 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file "blurch":
493 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
495 This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
497 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
499 This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file "blurch":
501 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
503 This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar" on the con‐
505 sole:
506 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" ⎪ less
508 This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
510 perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 ⎪ less
512 This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the file
514 "blurch":
515 perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch ⎪ less
517 Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell on Windows 9x
519 is left as an exercise to the reader :)
520 One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT command shell for
522 Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indi‐
523 cating that environment variable expansion is needed. Under this
524 shell, it is therefore important to always double any % characters
525 which you want Perl to see (for example, for hash variables), even
526 when they are quoted.
527 Building Extensions
529 The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a wealth of
530 extensions, some of which require a C compiler to build. Look in
531 http://www.cpan.org/ for more information on CPAN.
532 Note that not all of the extensions available from CPAN may work in
534 the Win32 environment; you should check the information at
535 http://testers.cpan.org/ before investing too much effort into
536 porting modules that don't readily build.
537 Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can be
539 built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:
540 perl Makefile.PL
542 $MAKE
543 $MAKE test
544 $MAKE install
545 where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have configured perl to
547 use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is. Some extensions
548 may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
549 fail), but most serious ones do.
550 It is important that you use a supported 'make' program, and ensure
552 Config.pm knows about it. If you don't have nmake, you can either
553 get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an old version
554 of nmake reportedly available from:
555 http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe
557 Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
559 CPAN.
560 http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/
562 You may also use dmake. See "Make" above on how to get it.
564 Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different syntax
566 depending on what 'make' it thinks you are using. Therefore, it is
567 important that one of the following values appears in Config.pm:
568 make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
570 make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
571 any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
572 (e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
573 If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want to use, edit
575 Config.pm to fix it.
576 If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the supported C
578 compilers. You must make sure you have set up the environment for
579 the compiler for command-line compilation.
580 If a module does not build for some reason, look carefully for why
582 it failed, and report problems to the module author. If it looks
583 like the extension building support is at fault, report that with
584 full details of how the build failed using the perlbug utility.
585 Command-line Wildcard Expansion
587 The default command shells on DOS descendant operating systems
588 (such as they are) usually do not expand wildcard arguments sup‐
589 plied to programs. They consider it the application's job to han‐
590 dle that. This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in
591 our case, perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usu‐
592 ally provide. However, doing that results in incompatible perl
593 versions (since the behavior of the argv expansion code differs
594 depending on the compiler, and it is even buggy on some compilers).
595 Besides, it may be a source of frustration if you use such a perl
596 binary with an alternate shell that *does* expand wildcards.
597 Instead, the following solution works rather well. The nice things
599 about it are 1) you can start using it right away; 2) it is more
600 powerful, because it will do the right thing with a pattern like
601 */*/*.c; 3) you can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and
602 4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
603 entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).
604 C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
606 # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
607 use File::DosGlob;
608 @ARGV = map {
609 my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
610 @g ? @g : $_;
611 } @ARGV;
612 1;
613 ^Z
614 C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
615 C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
616 p4view/perl/perl.c
617 p4view/perl/perlio.c
618 p4view/perl/perly.c
619 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
620 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
621 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
622 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
623 perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
624 perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
625 Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll have to create
627 Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) You'll need to
628 set the PERL5OPT environment variable. If you want argv expansion
629 to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup envi‐
630 ronment.
631 If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtime's
633 command line wildcard expansion built into perl binary. The
634 resulting binary will always expand unquoted command lines, which
635 may not be what you want if you use a shell that does that for you.
636 The expansion done is also somewhat less powerful than the approach
637 suggested above.
638 Win32 Specific Extensions
640 A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform are available
641 from CPAN. You may find that many of these extensions are meant to
642 be used under the Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the
643 only native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Activeware port
644 does not have adequate support for Perl's extension building tools,
645 these extensions typically do not support those tools either and,
646 therefore, cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the
647 previous section.
648 To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
650 ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that con‐
651 tains all of the ActiveState extensions and several other Win32
652 extensions from CPAN in source form, along with many added bug‐
653 fixes, and with MakeMaker support. The latest version of this bun‐
654 dle is available at:
655 http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwin32/
657 See the README in that distribution for building and installation
659 instructions.
660 Notes on 64-bit Windows
662 Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Ita‐
663 nium architecture.
664 The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is
666 the norm on 64-bit Unix platforms. In the former, "int" and "long"
667 are both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide. In
668 addition, there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, "__int64".
669 In contrast, the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix plat‐
670 forms provides "int" as the 32-bit type, while both the "long" type
671 and pointers are of 64-bit precision. Note that both models pro‐
672 vide for 64-bits of addressability.
673 64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
675 binaries transparently. This means that you could use a 32-bit
676 build of Perl on a 64-bit system. Given this, why would one want
677 to build a 64-bit build of Perl? Here are some reasons why you
678 would bother:
679 * A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
681 Itanium hardware.
682 * There is no 2GB limit on process size.
684 * Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
686 64-bit Windows.
687 * Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.
689 Running Perl Scripts
691 Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang") line to indicate to
693 the OS that it should execute the file using perl. Win32 has no compa‐
694 rable means to indicate arbitrary files are executables.
695 Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on Win32
697 rely on the file "extension". There are three methods to use this to
698 execute perl scripts:
699 1 There is a facility called "file extension associations" that
701 will work in Windows NT 4.0. This can be manipulated via the
702 two commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Win‐
703 dows NT 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to
704 set this up for perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows NT
705 wasn't perl-ready? :).
706 2 Since file associations don't work everywhere, and there are
708 reportedly bugs with file associations where it does work, the
709 old method of wrapping the perl script to make it look like a
710 regular batch file to the OS, may be used. The install process
711 makes available the "pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to
712 wrap perl scripts into batch files. For example:
713 pl2bat foo.pl
715 will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat" strips any .pl
717 suffix and adds a .bat suffix to the generated file.
718 If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command shell, note that
720 "pl2bat" uses the "%*" variable in the generated batch file to
721 refer to all the command line arguments, so you may need to
722 make sure that construct works in batch files. As of this
723 writing, 4DOS/NT users will need a "ParameterChar = *" state‐
724 ment in their 4NT.INI file or will need to execute "setdos /p*"
725 in the 4DOS/NT startup file to enable this to work.
726 3 Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file name gets changed,
728 so scripts that rely on $0 to find what they must do may not
729 run properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the contents of the
730 original script, and so this process can be maintenance inten‐
731 sive if the originals get updated often. A different approach
732 that avoids both problems is possible.
733 A script called "runperl.bat" is available that can be copied
735 to any filename (along with the .bat suffix). For example, if
736 you call it "foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it is
737 executed. Since you can run batch files on Win32 platforms
738 simply by typing the name (without the extension), this effec‐
739 tively runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or
740 "foo.bat". With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a dif‐
741 ferent location than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is avail‐
742 able somewhere on the PATH. If your scripts are on a filesys‐
743 tem that allows symbolic links, you can even avoid copying
744 "runperl.bat".
745 Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
747 "runperl". Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
748 Hint: .gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled :tniH
749 Miscellaneous Things
751 A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you should be able to
753 use it if you have a web browser installed on your system.
754 "perldoc" is also a useful tool for browsing information contained in
756 the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager like "less"
757 (recent versions of which have Win32 support). You may have to set the
758 PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager. "perldoc -f foo"
759 will print information about the perl operator "foo".
760 One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like "Tk" is
762 assuming that Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line window
763 will go away. This isn't the case. If you want to start a copy of
764 "perl" without opening a command-line window, use the "wperl" exe‐
765 cutable built during the installation process. Usage is exactly the
766 same as normal "perl" on Win32, except that options like "-h" don't
767 work (since they need a command-line window to print to).
768 If you find bugs in perl, you can run "perlbug" to create a bug report
770 (you may have to send it manually if "perlbug" cannot find a mailer on
771 your system).
772
774 Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if set
775 to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications the
776 perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the the
777 AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process signifi‐
778 cantly. Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar
779 messages as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing
780 configure files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat
781 it as suspicious, or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which
782 inhibits miniperl updating it). The build does complete with
783 set PERLIO=perlio
785 but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar
787 issues.
788 Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
790 perlfunc, and a few are not implemented at all. To avoid surprises,
791 particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl in other operating
792 environments or if you intend to write code that will be portable to
793 other environments, see perlport for a reasonably definitive list of
794 these differences.
795 Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly in
797 the Win32 environment. See "Building Extensions".
798 Most "socket()" related calls are supported, but they may not behave as
800 on Unix platforms. See perlport for the full list. Perl requires
801 Winsock2 to be installed on the system. If you're running Win95, you
802 can download Winsock upgrade from here:
803 http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WUAd‐
805 minTools/S_WUNetworkingTools/W95Sockets2/Default.asp
806 Later OS versions already include Winsock2 support.
808 Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it doesn't
810 exactly "behave", either :). For instance, calling "die()" or "exit()"
811 from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most implementa‐
812 tions of "signal()" on Win32 are severely crippled. Thus, signals may
813 work only for simple things like setting a flag variable in the han‐
814 dler. Using signals under this port should currently be considered
815 unsupported.
816 Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
818 you may find to <perlbug@perl.org>, along with the output produced by
819 "perl -V".
820
822 The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly
823 and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.
824
826 Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
827 Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
828 Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ing-simmons.net>
829 Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
830 Steve Hay <steve.hay@uk.radan.com>
831 This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.
833
835 perl
836
838 This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around 5.003_24, and
839 borrowed from the Hip Communications port that was available at the
840 time. Various people have made numerous and sundry hacks since then.
841 Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
843 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
845 Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
847 Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState Tool Corp).
849 Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
851 Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).
853 Last updated: 30 September 2005
855perl v5.8.8 2006-01-07 PERLWIN32(1)