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PERLWIN32(1)	       Perl Programmers Reference Guide 	  PERLWIN32(1)



NAME
       perlwin32 - Perl under Windows

SYNOPSIS
       These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP on
       the Intel x86 and Itanium architectures.

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 understand the terms under which this software
       is being distributed.

       Also make sure you read "BUGS AND CAVEATS" below for the known limita
       tions of this port.

       The INSTALL file in the perl top-level has much information that is
       only relevant to people building Perl on Unix-like systems.  In partic
       ular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about "Config
       ure".

       You may also want to look at two other options for building a perl that
       will work on Windows NT:  the README.cygwin and README.os2 files, each
       of which give a different set of rules to build a Perl that will work
       on Win32 platforms.  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.  This includes both 32-bit and 64-bit Win
       dows operating systems.	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
       on the Intel x86 architecture:

	     Borland C++	   version 5.02 or later
	     Microsoft Visual C++  version 2.0 or later
	     MinGW with gcc	   gcc version 2.95.2 or later

       The last of these is a high quality freeware compiler.  Use version
       3.2.x or later for the best results with this compiler.

       The Borland C++ and Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being
       given away free.  The Borland compiler is available as "Borland C++
       Compiler Free Command Line Tools" and is the same compiler that ships
       with the full "Borland C++ Builder" product.  The Microsoft compiler is
       available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003", and also as part of the ".NET
       Framework SDK", and is the same compiler that ships with "Visual Studio
       .NET 2003 Professional".

       This port can also be built on the Intel IA64 using:

	     Microsoft Platform SDK    Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)

       The MS Platform SDK can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/.

       This port fully 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 "Usage Hints for
       Perl on Win32" below for general hints about this.

       Setting Up Perl on Win32


       Make
	   You need a "make" program to build the sources.  If you are using
	   Visual C++ or the Platform SDK tools under Windows NT/2000/XP,
	   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://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/

	   Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.

	   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 "sync_ext.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 incompatibilities 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 "com
	   mand.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/2000/XP, using the cmd
	   shell.

	   Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.
	   The build usually works in this circumstance, 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 "Make" 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 or C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Stu
	   dio\VC98\Bin.  This will set your build environment.

	   You can also use dmake to build using Visual C++; provided, how
	   ever, 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.

       Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
	   This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship
	   with Visual Studio .NET 2003 Professional, but doesnt contain
	   everything necessary to build Perl.

	   You will also need to download the "Platform SDK" (the "Core SDK"
	   and "MDAC SDK" components are required) for header files, libraries
	   and rc.exe, and ".NET Framework SDK" for more libraries and
	   nmake.exe.  Note that the latter (which also includes the free com
	   piler and linker) requires the ".NET Framework Redistributable" to
	   be installed first.	This can be downloaded and installed sepa
	   rately, but is included in the "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" anyway.

	   These packages can all be downloaded by searching in the Download
	   Center at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?display
	   lang=en.  (Providing exact links to these packages has proven a
	   pointless task because the links keep on changing so often.)

	   Try to obtain the latest version of the Platform SDK.  Sometimes
	   these packages contain a particular Windows OS version in their
	   name, but actually work on other OS versions too.  For example, the
	   "Windows Server 2003 SP1 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
	   and Windows 2000.

	   According to the download pages the Toolkit and the .NET Framework
	   SDK are only supported on Windows 2000/XP/2003, so trying to use
	   these tools on Windows 95/98/ME and even Windows NT probably wont
	   work.

	   Install the Toolkit first, then the Platform SDK, then the .NET
	   Framework SDK.  Setup your environment as follows (assuming default
	   installation locations were chosen):

		   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
		   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
		   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

	   Several required files will still be missing:

	   *   cvtres.exe is required by link.exe when using a .res file.  It
	       is actually installed by the .NET Framework SDK, but into a
	       location such as the following:

		       C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v1.1.4322

	       Copy it from there to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\Bin

	   *   lib.exe is normally used to build libraries, but link.exe with
	       the /lib option also works, so change win32/config.vc to use it
	       instead:

	       Change the line reading:

		       ar=lib

	       to:

		       ar=link /lib

	       It may also be useful to create a batch file called lib.bat in
	       C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\bin contain
	       ing:

		       @echo off
		       link /lib %*

	       for the benefit of any naughty C extension modules that you
	       might want to build later which explicitly reference "lib"
	       rather than taking their value from $Config{ar}.

	   *   setargv.obj is required to build perlglob.exe (and perl.exe if
	       the USE_SETARGV option is enabled).  The Platform SDK supplies
	       this object file in source form in C:\Program Files\Microsoft
	       SDK\src\crt.  Copy setargv.c, cruntime.h and internal.h from
	       there to some temporary location and build setargv.obj using

		       cl.exe /c /I. /D_CRTBLD setargv.c

	       Then copy setargv.obj to C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK\lib

	       Alternatively, if you dont need perlglob.exe and dont need to
	       enable the USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove
	       all mention of $(GLOBEXE) from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj
	       wont be required anyway.

	   Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile.  You will need to
	   edit that file to set

		   CCTYPE = MSVC70FREE

	   and to set CCHOME, CCINCDIR and CCLIBDIR as per the environment
	   setup above.

       Microsoft Platform SDK 64-bit Compiler
	   The nmake that comes with the Platform SDK will suffice for build
	   ing Perl.  Make sure you are building within one of the "Build
	   Environment" shells available after you install the Platform SDK
	   from the Start Menu.

       MinGW release 3 with gcc
	   The latest release of MinGW at the time of writing is 3.1.0, which
	   contains gcc-3.2.3.	It can be downloaded here:

	       http://www.mingw.org/

	   Perl also compiles with earlier releases of gcc (2.95.2 and up).
	   See below for notes about using earlier versions of MinGW/gcc.

	   You also need dmake.  See "Make" above on how to get it.

       MinGW release 1 with gcc
	   The MinGW-1.1 bundle contains gcc-2.95.3.

	   Make sure you install the binaries that work with MSVCRT.DLL as
	   indicated in the README for the GCC bundle.	You may need to set up
	   a few environment variables (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 type
	       def 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 "Makefile" that will work with
	   versions of nmake that come with Visual C++ or the Platform SDK,
	   and a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compil
	   ers.  The defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using
	   MinGW/gcc.

	  Edit the makefile.mk (or Makefile, if youre 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.

	   Note that it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
	   with INST_DRV and INST_TOP set to a path that already exists from a
	   previous build.  In particular, this may cause problems with the
	   lib/ExtUtils/t/Embed.t test, which attempts to build a test program
	   and may end up building against the installed perls lib/CORE
	   directory rather than the one being tested.

	   You will have to make sure that CCTYPE is set correctly 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.

	   You may also need to comment out the "DELAYLOAD = ..." line in the
	   Makefile if youre using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack
	   and the linker reports an internal error.

	   If you have either the source or a library that contains
	   des_fcrypt(), enable the appropriate option in the makefile.  A
	   ready-to-use version of fcrypt.c, based on the version originally
	   written by Eric Young at ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mir
	   rors/dsi/libdes/, is bundled with the distribution and CRYPT_SRC is
	   set to use it.  Alternatively, if you have built a library that
	   contains des_fcrypt(), you can set CRYPT_LIB to point to the
	   library name.  Perl will also build without des_fcrypt(), but the
	   crypt() builtin will fail at run time.

	   If you want build some core extensions statically into perls dll,
	   specify them in the STATIC_EXT macro.

	   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, perl58.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other exten
	   sion dlls under the lib\auto directory.  If the build fails for
	   any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps correctly.

       Testing Perl on Win32

       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 Windows NT/2000/XP.
       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 dont 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 youre using the Borland compiler, you may see a failure 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 youre using Borland compiler versions 5.2 and below, you may run
       into problems finding the correct header files when building exten
       sions.  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 sup
       ports an option -VI- for backward (bugward) compatibility for using the
       old Borland search algorithm  to locate header files.

       If you run the tests on a FAT partition, you may see some failures for
       "link()" related tests:

	   Failed Test			   Stat Wstat Total Fail  Failed  List

	   ../ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_dup.t			  6    4  66.67%  2-5
	   ../lib/File/Temp/t/mktemp.t			  9    1  11.11%  2
	   ../lib/File/Temp/t/posix.t			  7    1  14.29%  3
	   ../lib/File/Temp/t/security.t		 13    1   7.69%  2
	   ../lib/File/Temp/t/tempfile.t		 20    2  10.00%  2 4
	   comp/multiline.t				  6    2  33.33%  5-6
	   io/dup.t					  8    6  75.00%  2-7
	   op/write.t					 47    7  14.89%  1-3 6 9-11

       Testing on NTFS avoids these errors.

       Furthermore, you should make sure that during "make test" you do not
       have any GNU tool packages in your path: some toolkits like Unixutils
       include some tools ("type" for instance) which override the Windows
       ones and makes tests fail. Remove them from your path while testing to
       avoid these errors.

       Please report any other failures as described under "BUGS AND CAVEATS".

       Installation of Perl on Win32

       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
       "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod" and HTML versions of the same under
       "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\lib\pod\html".

       To use the Perl you just installed you will need to add a new entry to
       your PATH environment variable: "$INST_TOP\bin", e.g.

	   set PATH=c:\perl\bin;%PATH%

       If you opted to uncomment "INST_VER" and "INST_ARCH" in the makefile
       then the installation structure is a little more complicated and you
       will need to add two new PATH components instead:
       "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin" and "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER\bin\$ARCHNAME", e.g.

	   set PATH=c:\perl\5.6.0\bin;c:\perl\5.6.0\bin\MSWin32-x86;%PATH%

       Usage Hints for Perl on Win32


       Environment Variables
	   The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
	   into perl, so you dont have to do anything 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 vari
	   ables you can set in perlrun.

	   You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
	   backtick commands via PERL5SHELL.  See perlrun.

	   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_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl" and
	   "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\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 ver
	   sion 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 exten
	   sion, which provides portable globbing.

	   If you want perl to use globbing that emulates the quirks of DOS
	   filename conventions, you might want to consider using File::Dos
	   Glob to override the internal glob() implementation.  See
	   File::DosGlob for details.

       Using perl from the command line
	   If you are accustomed to using perl from various command-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 command shell (usually CMD.EXE on Windows NT,
	   and COMMAND.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 remain
	   ing 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 (use
	   ful) quote character is the double quote (").  It can be used to
	   protect spaces and other special characters in arguments.

	   The Windows NT documentation has almost no description of how the
	   quoting rules are implemented, but here are some general observa
	   tions 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 argu
	   ment will be stripped by the C runtime.

	   The file redirection characters "<", ">", and "|" can be quoted by
	   double quotes (although there are suggestions that this may not
	   always be true).  Single quotes are not treated as quotes by the
	   shell or the C runtime, they dont get stripped by the shell (just
	   to make this type of quoting completely useless).  The caret "^"
	   has also been observed to behave as a quoting 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 con
	   sole:

	       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 command shell for
	   Windows NT is that it (nearly) always treats a % character as indi
	   cating 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 compiler 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 dont readily build.

	   Most extensions (whether they require a C compiler or not) can be
	   built, tested and installed with the standard mantra:

	       perl Makefile.PL
	       $MAKE
	       $MAKE test
	       $MAKE install

	   where $MAKE is whatever make program you have configured perl to
	   use.  Use "perl -V:make" to find out what this is.  Some extensions
	   may not provide a testsuite (so "$MAKE test" may not do anything or
	   fail), but most serious ones do.

	   It is important that you use a supported make program, and ensure
	   Config.pm knows about it.  If you dont have nmake, you can either
	   get dmake from the location mentioned earlier or get an old version
	   of nmake reportedly available from:

	    http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/nmake15.exe

	   Another option is to use the make written in Perl, available from
	   CPAN.

	       http://www.cpan.org/modules/by-module/Make/

	   You may also use dmake.  See "Make" above on how to get it.

	   Note that MakeMaker actually emits makefiles with different 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 doesnt 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 carefully for why
	   it failed, and report problems to the module author.  If it looks
	   like the extension building 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 wildcard arguments sup
	   plied to programs.  They consider it the applications job to han
	   dle that.  This is commonly achieved by linking the application (in
	   our case, perl) with startup code that the C runtime libraries usu
	   ally 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 compilers).
	   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/dont want to use it; and
	   4) you can extend the method to add any customizations (or even
	   entirely different kinds of wildcard expansion).

		   C:\> copy con c:\perl\lib\Wild.pm
		   # Wild.pm - emulate shell @ARGV expansion on shells that dont
		   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) Youll have to create
	   Wild.pm and put it in your perl lib directory. 2) Youll need to
	   set the PERL5OPT environment variable.  If you want argv expansion
	   to be the default, just set PERL5OPT in your default startup envi
	   ronment.

	   If you are using the Visual C compiler, you can get the C runtimes
	   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 Activeware port
	   does not have adequate support for Perls extension building tools,
	   these extensions typically do not support those tools either and,
	   therefore, cannot be built using the generic steps shown in the
	   previous section.

	   To ensure smooth transitioning of existing code that uses the
	   ActiveState port, there is a bundle of Win32 extensions that con
	   tains all of the ActiveState extensions and several other Win32
	   extensions from CPAN in source form, along with many added bug
	   fixes, and with MakeMaker support.  The latest version of this bun
	   dle is available at:

	       http://search.cpan.org/dist/libwin32/

	   See the README in that distribution for building and installation
	   instructions.

       Notes on 64-bit Windows
	   Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel Ita
	   nium architecture.

	   The LLP64 data model is different from the LP64 data model that is
	   the norm on 64-bit Unix platforms.  In the former, "int" and "long"
	   are both 32-bit data types, while pointers are 64 bits wide.  In
	   addition, there is a separate 64-bit wide integral type, "__int64".
	   In contrast, the LP64 data model that is pervasive on Unix plat
	   forms provides "int" as the 32-bit type, while both the "long" type
	   and pointers are of 64-bit precision.  Note that both models pro
	   vide for 64-bits of addressability.

	   64-bit Windows running on Itanium is capable of running 32-bit x86
	   binaries transparently.  This means that you could use a 32-bit
	   build of Perl on a 64-bit system.  Given this, why would one want
	   to build a 64-bit build of Perl?  Here are some reasons why you
	   would bother:

	   *   A 64-bit native application will run much more efficiently on
	       Itanium hardware.

	   *   There is no 2GB limit on process size.

	   *   Perl automatically provides large file support when built under
	       64-bit Windows.

	   *   Embedding Perl inside a 64-bit application.

       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 compa
       rable 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 commands "assoc" and "ftype" that come standard with Win
	       dows NT 4.0.  Type "ftype /?" for a complete example of how to
	       set this up for perl scripts (Say what?	You thought Windows NT
	       wasnt perl-ready? :).

       2       Since file associations dont work everywhere, and there are
	       reportedly bugs with file associations 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 "%*" variable 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 contents of the
	       original script, and so this process can be maintenance inten
	       sive if the originals 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 effec
	       tively runs the file "foo", when you type either "foo" or
	       "foo.bat".  With this method, "foo.bat" can even be in a dif
	       ferent location than the file "foo", as long as "foo" is avail
	       able somewhere on the PATH.  If your scripts are on a filesys
	       tem that allows symbolic links, you can even avoid copying
	       "runperl.bat".

	       Heres a diversion:  copy "runperl.bat" to "runperl", and type
	       "runperl".  Explain the observed behavior, or lack thereof. :)
	       Hint: .gnidnats llits eruoy 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 information 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".

       One common mistake when using this port with a GUI library like "Tk" is
       assuming that Perls normal behavior of opening a command-line window
       will go away.  This isnt the case.  If you want to start a copy of
       "perl" without opening a command-line window, use the "wperl" exe
       cutable built during the installation process.  Usage is exactly the
       same as normal "perl" on Win32, except that options like "-h" dont
       work (since they need a command-line window to print to).

       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
       Norton AntiVirus interferes with the build process, particularly if set
       to "AutoProtect, All Files, when Opened". Unlike large applications the
       perl build process opens and modifies a lot of files. Having the the
       AntiVirus scan each and every one slows build the process signifi
       cantly.	Worse, with PERLIO=stdio the build process fails with peculiar
       messages as the virus checker interacts badly with miniperl.exe writing
       configure files (it seems to either catch file part written and treat
       it as suspicious, or virus checker may have it "locked" in a way which
       inhibits miniperl updating it). The build does complete with

	  set PERLIO=perlio

       but that may be just luck. Other AntiVirus software may have similar
       issues.

       Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
       perlfunc, and a few are not implemented at all.	To avoid surprises,
       particularly if you have had prior exposure to Perl in other operating
       environments or if you intend to write code that will be portable to
       other environments, see perlport for a reasonably definitive list of
       these differences.

       Not all extensions available from CPAN may build or work properly in
       the Win32 environment.  See "Building Extensions".

       Most "socket()" related calls are supported, but they may not behave as
       on Unix platforms.  See perlport for the full list.  Perl requires
       Winsock2 to be installed on the system. If youre running Win95, you
       can download Winsock upgrade from here:

       http://www.microsoft.com/windows95/downloads/contents/WUAd
       minTools/S_WUNetworkingTools/W95Sockets2/Default.asp

       Later OS versions already include Winsock2 support.

       Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it doesnt
       exactly "behave", either :).  For instance, calling "die()" or "exit()"
       from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most implementa
       tions of "signal()" on Win32 are severely crippled.  Thus, signals may
       work only for simple things like setting a flag variable in the han
       dler.  Using signals under this port should currently be considered
       unsupported.

       Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that
       you may find to , along with the output produced by
       "perl -V".

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
       The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark of OReilly
       and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.

AUTHORS
       Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
       Gurusamy Sarathy 
       Nick Ing-Simmons 
       Jan Dubois 
       Steve Hay 

       This document is maintained by Jan Dubois.

SEE ALSO
       perl

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).

       Support for 64-bit Windows added in 5.8 (ActiveState Corp).

       Last updated: 30 September 2005



perl v5.8.8			  2008-04-25			  PERLWIN32(1)




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