PERLWIN32(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLWIN32(1)NAMEperlwin32 - Perl under Win32
SYNOPSIS
These are instructions for building Perl under Windows
(9x, NT and 2000).
DESCRIPTION
Before you start, you should glance through the README
file found in the top-level directory to which the Perl
distribution was extracted. Make sure you read and under
stand the terms under which this software is being dis
tributed.
Also make sure you read the BUGS AND CAVEATS entry else
where in this document below for the known limitations of
this port.
The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much informa
tion that is only relevant to people building Perl on
Unix-like systems. In particular, you can safely ignore
any information that talks about "Configure".
You may also want to look at two other options for build
ing a perl that will work on Windows NT: the README.cyg
win and README.os2 files, each of which give a different
set of rules to build a Perl that will work on Win32 plat
forms. Those two methods will probably enable you to
build a more Unix-compatible perl, but you will also need
to download and use various other build-time and run-time
support software described in those files.
This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called
"native" port of Perl to Win32 platforms. The resulting
Perl requires no additional software to run (other than
what came with your operating system). Currently, this
port is capable of using one of the following compilers:
Borland C++ version 5.02 or later
Microsoft Visual C++ version 4.2 or later
Mingw32 with GCC version 2.95.2 or better
The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler.
Support for it is still experimental. (Older versions of
GCC are known not to work.)
This port currently supports MakeMaker (the set of modules
that is used to build extensions to perl). Therefore, you
should be able to build and install most extensions found
in the CPAN sites. See the Usage Hints entry elsewhere in
this document below for general hints about this.
Setting Up
Make
You need a "make" program to build the sources. If
you are using Visual C++ under Windows NT or 2000,
nmake will work. All other builds need dmake.
dmake is a freely available make that has very nice
macro features and parallelability.
A port of dmake for Windows is available from:
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/dmake-4.1pl1-win32.zip
(This is a fixed version of the original dmake sources
obtained from http://www.wticorp.com/dmake/. As of
version 4.1PL1, the original sources did not build as
shipped and had various other problems. A patch is
included in the above fixed version.)
Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path (follow
the instructions in the README.NOW file).
There exists a minor coexistence problem with dmake
and Borland C++ compilers. Namely, if a distribution
has C files named with mixed case letters, they will
be compiled into appropriate .obj-files named with all
lowercase letters, and every time dmake is invoked to
bring files up to date, it will try to recompile such
files again. For example, Tk distribution has a lot
of such files, resulting in needless recompiles every
time dmake is invoked. To avoid this, you may use the
script "sncfnmcs.pl" after a successful build. It is
available in the win32 subdirectory of the Perl source
distribution.
Command Shell
Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with NT. Some
versions of the popular 4DOS/NT shell have incompati
bilities that may cause you trouble. If the build
fails under that shell, try building again with the
cmd shell.
The nmake Makefile also has known incompatibilities
with the "command.com" shell that comes with Windows
9x. You will need to use dmake and makefile.mk to
build under Windows 9x.
The surest way to build it is on Windows NT, using the
cmd shell.
Make sure the path to the build directory does not
contain spaces. The build usually works in this cir
cumstance, but some tests will fail.
Borland C++
If you are using the Borland compiler, you will need
dmake. (The make that Borland supplies is seriously
crippled and will not work for MakeMaker builds.)
See the Make entry elsewhere in this document above.
Microsoft Visual C++
The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for
building. You will need to run the VCVARS32.BAT file,
usually found somewhere like C:\MSDEV4.2\BIN. This
will set your build environment.
You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; pro
vided, however, you set OSRELEASE to "microsft" (or
whatever the directory name under which the Visual C
dmake configuration lives) in your environment and
edit win32/config.vc to change "make=nmake" into
"make=dmake". The latter step is only essential if
you want to use dmake as your default make for
building extensions using MakeMaker.
Mingw32 with GCC
GCC-2.95.2 binaries can be downloaded from:
ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/mingw32/
You also need dmake. See the Make entry elsewhere in
this document above on how to get it.
The GCC-2.95.2 bundle comes with Mingw32 libraries and
headers.
Make sure you install the binaries that work with
MSVCRT.DLL as indicated in the README for the GCC bun
dle. You may need to set up a few environment vari
ables (usually ran from a batch file).
There are a couple of problems with the version of
gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.exe released 7 November 1999:
It left out a fix for certain command line quotes.
To fix this, be sure to download and install the
file fixes/quote-fix-msvcrt.exe from the above ftp
location.
The definition of the fpos_t type in stdio.h may
be wrong. If your stdio.h has this problem, you
will see an exception when running the test
t/lib/io_xs.t. To fix this, change the typedef
for fpos_t from "long" to "long long" in the file
i386-mingw32msvc/include/stdio.h, and rebuild.
A potentially simpler to install (but probably soon-
to-be-outdated) bundle of the above package with the
mentioned fixes already applied is available here:
http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/gcc-2.95.2-msvcrt.zip
Building
Make sure you are in the "win32" subdirectory under
the perl toplevel. This directory contains a "Make
file" that will work with versions of nmake that come
with Visual C++, and a dmake "makefile.mk" that will
work for all supported compilers. The defaults in the
dmake makefile are setup to build using the GCC com
piler.
Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if you're using
nmake) and change the values of INST_DRV and INST_TOP.
You can also enable various build flags. These are
explained in the makefiles.
You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set cor
rectly and that CCHOME points to wherever you
installed your compiler.
The default value for CCHOME in the makefiles for
Visual C++ may not be correct for some versions. Make
sure the default exists and is valid.
If you have either the source or a library that
contains des_fcrypt(), enable the appropriate option
in the makefile. des_fcrypt() is not bundled with the
distribution due to US Government restrictions on the
export of cryptographic software. Nevertheless, this
routine is part of the "libdes" library (written by
Eric Young) which is widely available worldwide, usu
ally along with SSLeay (for example, "ftp://frac
tal.mta.ca/pub/crypto/SSLeay/DES/"). Set CRYPT_SRC to
the name of the file that implements des_fcrypt().
Alternatively, if you have built a library that con
tains des_fcrypt(), you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to
the library name. The location above contains many
versions of the "libdes" library, all with slightly
different implementations of des_fcrypt(). Older ver
sions have a single, self-contained file (fcrypt.c)
that implements crypt(), so they may be easier to use.
A patch against the fcrypt.c found in libdes-3.06 is
in des_fcrypt.patch.
Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the
crypt() builtin will fail at run time.
Be sure to read the instructions near the top of the
makefiles carefully.
Type "dmake" (or "nmake" if you are using that make).
This should build everything. Specifically, it will
create perl.exe, perl56.dll at the perl toplevel, and
various other extension dll's under the lib\auto
directory. If the build fails for any reason, make
sure you have done the previous steps correctly.
Testing
Type "dmake test" (or "nmake test"). This will run most
of the tests from the testsuite (many tests will be
skipped).
There should be no test failures when running under Win
dows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000. Many tests will fail under
Windows 9x due to the inferior command shell.
Some test failures may occur if you use a command shell
other than the native "cmd.exe", or if you are building
from a path that contains spaces. So don't do that.
If you are running the tests from a emacs shell window,
you may see failures in op/stat.t. Run "dmake test-notty"
in that case.
If you're using the Borland compiler, you may see a fail
ure in op/taint.t arising from the inability to find the
Borland Runtime DLLs on the system default path. You will
need to copy the DLLs reported by the messages from where
Borland chose to install it, into the Windows system
directory (usually somewhere like C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32) and
rerun the test.
If you're using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below,
you may run into problems finding the correct header files
when building extensions. For example, building the "Tk"
extension may fail because both perl and Tk contain a
header file called "patchlevel.h". The latest Borland
compiler (v5.5) is free of this misbehaviour, and it even
supports an option -VI- for backward (bugward)
compatibility for using the old Borland search algorithm
to locate header files.
Please report any other failures as described under the
BUGS AND CAVEATS entry elsewhere in this document.
Installation
Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install"). This will put
the newly built perl and the libraries under whatever
"INST_TOP" points to in the Makefile. It will also
install the pod documentation under "$INST_TOP\$VER
SION\lib\pod" and HTML versions of the same under
"$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod\html". To use the Perl you
just installed, you will need to add two components to
your PATH environment variable, "$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin"
and "$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin\$ARCHNAME". For example:
set PATH c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%
If you opt to comment out INST_VER and INST_ARCH in the
makefiles, the installation structure is much simpler. In
that case, it will be sufficient to add a single entry to
the path, for instance:
set PATH c:\perl\bin;%PATH%
Usage Hints
Environment Variables
The installation paths that you set during the build
get compiled into perl, so you don't have to do any
thing additional to start using that perl (except add
its location to your PATH variable).
If you put extensions in unusual places, you can set
PERL5LIB to a list of paths separated by semicolons
where you want perl to look for libraries. Look for
descriptions of other environment variables you can
set in the perlrun manpage.
You can also control the shell that perl uses to run
system() and backtick commands via PERL5SHELL. See
the perlrun manpage.
Perl does not depend on the registry, but it can look
up certain default values if you choose to put them
there. Perl attempts to read entries from "HKEY_CUR
RENT_USER\Software\Perl" and "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Soft
ware\Perl". Entries in the former override entries in
the latter. One or more of the following entries (of
type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may be set:
lib-$] version-specific standard library path to add to @INC
lib standard library path to add to @INC
sitelib-$] version-specific site library path to add to @INC
sitelib site library path to add to @INC
vendorlib-$] version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
vendorlib vendor library path to add to @INC
PERL* fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
Note the "$]" in the above is not literal. Substitute
whatever version of perl you want to honor that entry,
e.g. "5.6.0". Paths must be separated with
semicolons, as usual on win32.
File Globbing
By default, perl handles file globbing using the
File::Glob extension, which provides portable glob
bing.
If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the
quirks of DOS filename conventions, you might want to
consider using File::DosGlob to override the internal
glob() implementation. See the File::DosGlob manpage
for details.
Using perl from the command line
If you are accustomed to using perl from various com
mand-line shells found in UNIX environments, you will
be less than pleased with what Windows offers by way
of a command shell.
The crucial thing to understand about the Windows
environment is that the command line you type in is
processed twice before Perl sees it. First, your com
mand shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT, and COM
MAND.COM on Windows 9x) preprocesses the command line,
to handle redirection, environment variable expansion,
and location of the executable to run. Then, the perl
executable splits the remaining command line into
individual arguments, using the C runtime library upon
which Perl was built.
It is particularly important to note that neither the
shell nor the C runtime do any wildcard expansions of
command-line arguments (so wildcards need not be
quoted). Also, the quoting behaviours of the shell
and the C runtime are rudimentary at best (and may, if
you are using a non-standard shell, be inconsistent).
The only (useful) quote character is the double quote
("). It can be used to protect spaces and other spe
cial characters in arguments.
The Windows NT documentation has almost no description
of how the quoting rules are implemented, but here are
some general observations based on experiments: The C
runtime breaks arguments at spaces and passes them to
programs in argc/argv. Double quotes can be used to
prevent arguments with spaces in them from being split
up. You can put a double quote in an argument by
escaping it with a backslash and enclosing the whole
argument within double quotes. The backslash and the
pair of double quotes surrounding the argument will be
stripped by the C runtime.
The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can
be quoted by double quotes (although there are sugges
tions that this may not always be true). Single
quotes are not treated as quotes by the shell or the C
runtime, they don't get stripped by the shell (just to
make this type of quoting completely useless). The
caret "^" has also been observed to behave as a quot
ing character, but this appears to be a shell feature,
and the caret is not stripped from the command line,
so Perl still sees it (and the C runtime phase does
not treat the caret as a quote character).
Here are some examples of usage of the "cmd" shell:
This prints two doublequotes:
perl -e "print '\"\"' "
This does the same:
perl -e "print \"\\\"\\\"\" "
This prints "bar" and writes "foo" to the file
"blurch":
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" > blurch
This prints "foo" ("bar" disappears into nowhereland):
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> nul
This prints "bar" and writes "foo" into the file
"blurch":
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 1> blurch
This pipes "foo" to the "less" pager and prints "bar"
on the console:
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" | less
This pipes "foo\nbar\n" to the less pager:
perl -le "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2>&1 | less
This pipes "foo" to the pager and writes "bar" in the
file "blurch":
perl -e "print 'foo'; print STDERR 'bar'" 2> blurch | less
Discovering the usefulness of the "command.com" shell
on Windows 9x is left as an exercise to the reader :)
One particularly pernicious problem with the 4NT com
mand shell for Windows NT is that it (nearly) always
treats a % character as indicating that environment
variable expansion is needed. Under this shell, it is
therefore important to always double any % characters
which you want Perl to see (for example, for hash
variables), even when they are quoted.
Building Extensions
The Comprehensive Perl Archive Network (CPAN) offers a
wealth of extensions, some of which require a C com
piler to build. Look in http://www.cpan.org/ for more
information on CPAN.
Note that not all of the extensions available from
CPAN may work in the Win32 environment; you should
check the information at http://testers.cpan.org/
before investing too much effort into porting modules
that don't readily build.
Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or
not) can be built, tested and installed with the stan
dard mantra:
perl Makefile.PL
$MAKE
$MAKE test
$MAKE install
where $MAKE is whatever 'make' program you have con
figured perl to use. Use "perl -V:make" to find out
what this is. Some extensions may not provide a test
suite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or fail),
but most serious ones do.
It is important that you use a supported 'make' pro
gram, and ensure Config.pm knows about it. If you
don't have nmake, you can either get dmake from the
location mentioned earlier or get an old version of
nmake reportedly available from:
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe
Another option is to use the make written in Perl,
available from CPAN:
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/NI-S/Make-0.03.tar.gz
You may also use dmake. See the Make entry elsewhere
in this document above on how to get it.
Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with dif
ferent syntax depending on what 'make' it thinks you
are using. Therefore, it is important that one of the
following values appears in Config.pm:
make='nmake' # MakeMaker emits nmake syntax
make='dmake' # MakeMaker emits dmake syntax
any other value # MakeMaker emits generic make syntax
(e.g GNU make, or Perl make)
If the value doesn't match the 'make' program you want
to use, edit Config.pm to fix it.
If a module implements XSUBs, you will need one of the
supported C compilers. You must make sure you have
set up the environment for the compiler for command-
line compilation.
If a module does not build for some reason, look care
fully for why it failed, and report problems to the
module author. If it looks like the extension build
ing support is at fault, report that with full details
of how the build failed using the perlbug utility.
Command-line Wildcard Expansion
The default command shells on DOS descendant operating
systems (such as they are) usually do not expand wild
card arguments supplied to programs. They consider it
the application's job to handle that. This is com
monly achieved by linking the application (in our
case, perl) with startup code that the C runtime
libraries usually provide. However, doing that
results in incompatible perl versions (since the
behavior of the argv expansion code differs depending
on the compiler, and it is even buggy on some compil
ers). Besides, it may be a source of frustration if
you use such a perl binary with an alternate shell
that *does* expand wildcards.
Instead, the following solution works rather well. The
nice things about it are 1) you can start using it
right away; 2) it is more powerful, because it will do
the right thing with a pattern like */*/*.c; 3) you
can decide whether you do/don't want to use it; and 4)
you can extend the method to add any customizations
(or even entirely different kinds of wildcard expan
sion).
C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
# Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that don't
use File::DosGlob;
@ARGV = map {
my @g = File::DosGlob::glob($_) if /[*?]/;
@g ? @g : $_;
} @ARGV;
1;
^Z
C:\> set PERL5OPT=-MWild
C:\> perl -le "for (@ARGV) { print }" */*/perl*.c
p4view/perl/perl.c
p4view/perl/perlio.c
p4view/perl/perly.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
perl5.005/win32/perlglob.c
perl5.005/win32/perllib.c
Note there are two distinct steps there: 1) You'll
have to create Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib
directory. 2) You'll need to set the PERL5OPT environ
ment variable. If you want argv expansion to be the
default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup
environment.
If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get
the C runtime's command line wildcard expansion built
into perl binary. The resulting binary will always
expand unquoted command lines, which may not be what
you want if you use a shell that does that for you.
The expansion done is also somewhat less powerful than
the approach suggested above.
Win32 Specific Extensions
A number of extensions specific to the Win32 platform
are available from CPAN. You may find that many of
these extensions are meant to be used under the
Activeware port of Perl, which used to be the only
native port for the Win32 platform. Since the Active
ware port does not have adequate support for Perl's
extension building tools, these extensions typically
do not support those tools either and, therefore, can
not be built using the generic steps shown in the pre
vious section.
To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that
uses the ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32
extensions that contains all of the ActiveState exten
sions and most other Win32 extensions from CPAN in
source form, along with many added bugfixes, and with
MakeMaker support. This bundle is available at:
http://www.cpan.org/authors/id/GSAR/libwin32-0.151.zip
See the README in that distribution for building and
installation instructions. Look for later versions
that may be available at the same location.
Running Perl Scripts
Perl scripts on UNIX use the "#!" (a.k.a "shebang")
line to indicate to the OS that it should execute the
file using perl. Win32 has no comparable means to
indicate arbitrary files are executables.
Instead, all available methods to execute plain text
files on Win32 rely on the file "extension". There
are three methods to use this to execute perl scripts:
1 There is a facility called "file extension
associations" that will work in Windows NT
4.0. This can be manipulated via the two com
mands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard
with Windows NT 4.0. Type "ftype /?" for a
complete example of how to set this up for
perl scripts (Say what? You thought Windows
NT wasn't perl-ready? :).
2 Since file associations don't work everywhere,
and there are reportedly bugs with file asso
ciations where it does work, the old method of
wrapping the perl script to make it look like
a regular batch file to the OS, may be used.
The install process makes available the
"pl2bat.bat" script which can be used to wrap
perl scripts into batch files. For example:
pl2bat foo.pl
will create the file "FOO.BAT". Note "pl2bat"
strips any .pl suffix and adds a .bat suffix
to the generated file.
If you use the 4DOS/NT or similar command
shell, note that "pl2bat" uses the "%*" vari
able in the generated batch file to refer to
all the command line arguments, so you may
need to make sure that construct works in
batch files. As of this writing, 4DOS/NT
users will need a "ParameterChar = *" state
ment in their 4NT.INI file or will need to
execute "setdos /p*" in the 4DOS/NT startup
file to enable this to work.
3 Using "pl2bat" has a few problems: the file
name gets changed, so scripts that rely on
"$0" to find what they must do may not run
properly; running "pl2bat" replicates the con
tents of the original script, and so this pro
cess can be maintenance intensive if the orig
inals get updated often. A different approach
that avoids both problems is possible.
A script called "runperl.bat" is available
that can be copied to any filename (along with
the .bat suffix). For example, if you call it
"foo.bat", it will run the file "foo" when it
is executed. Since you can run batch files on
Win32 platforms simply by typing the name
(without the extension), this effectively runs
the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or
"foo.bat". With this method, "foo.bat" can
even be in a different location than the file
"foo", as long as "foo" is available somewhere
on the PATH. If your scripts are on a
filesystem that allows symbolic links, you can
even avoid copying "runperl.bat".
Here's a diversion: copy "runperl.bat" to
"runperl", and type "runperl". Explain the
observed behavior, or lack thereof. :) Hint:
.gnidnats llits er'uoy fi ,"lrepnur" eteled
:tniH
Miscellaneous Things
A full set of HTML documentation is installed, so you
should be able to use it if you have a web browser
installed on your system.
"perldoc" is also a useful tool for browsing informa
tion contained in the documentation, especially in
conjunction with a pager like "less" (recent versions
of which have Win32 support). You may have to set the
PAGER environment variable to use a specific pager.
"perldoc -f foo" will print information about the perl
operator "foo".
If you find bugs in perl, you can run "perlbug" to
create a bug report (you may have to send it manually
if "perlbug" cannot find a mailer on your system).
BUGS AND CAVEATS
Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as docu
mented in the perlfunc manpage, and a few are not imple
mented at all. To avoid surprises, particularly if you
have had prior exposure to Perl in other operating envi
ronments or if you intend to write code that will be
portable to other environments. See the perlport manpage
for a reasonably definitive list of these differences.
Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work
properly in the Win32 environment. See the Building
Extensions entry elsewhere in this document.
Most "socket()" related calls are supported, but they may
not behave as on Unix platforms. See the perlport manpage
for the full list.
Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where
it doesn't exactly "behave", either :). For instance,
calling "die()" or "exit()" from signal handlers will
cause an exception, since most implementations of "sig
nal()" on Win32 are severely crippled. Thus, signals may
work only for simple things like setting a flag variable
in the handler. Using signals under this port should cur
rently be considered unsupported.
Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and
solutions that you may find to <perlbug@perl.com>, along
with the output produced by "perl -V".
AUTHORS
Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ni-s.u-net.com>
This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
SEE ALSO
the perl manpage
HISTORY
This port was originally contributed by Gary Ng around
5.003_24, and borrowed from the Hip Communications port
that was available at the time. Various people have made
numerous and sundry hacks since then.
Borland support was added in 5.004_01 (Gurusamy Sarathy).
GCC/mingw32 support was added in 5.005 (Nick Ing-Simmons).
Support for PERL_OBJECT was added in 5.005 (ActiveState
Tool Corp).
Support for fork() emulation was added in 5.6 (ActiveState
Tool Corp).
Win9x support was added in 5.6 (Benjamin Stuhl).
Last updated: 1 April 2001
2001-03-03 perl v5.6.1 PERLWIN32(1)
