perlwin32(1)


NAME

   perlwin32 - Perl under Windows

SYNOPSIS

   These are instructions for building Perl under Windows 2000 and later.

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
   limitations 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
   particular, you can safely ignore any information that talks about
   "Configure".

   You may also want to look at one other option for building a perl that
   will work on Windows: the README.cygwin file, which give a different
   set of rules to build a perl for Windows.  This method 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 that file.

   This set of instructions is meant to describe a so-called "native" port
   of Perl to the Windows platform.  This includes both 32-bit and 64-bit
   Windows 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:

         Microsoft Visual C++    version 6.0 or later
         Intel C++ Compiler      (experimental)
         Gcc by mingw.org        gcc version 3.4.5 or later
         Gcc by mingw-w64.org    gcc version 4.4.3 or later

   Note that the last two of these are actually competing projects both
   delivering complete gcc toolchain for MS Windows:

   <http://mingw.org>
       Delivers gcc toolchain targeting 32-bit Windows platform.

   <http://mingw-w64.org>
       Delivers gcc toolchain targeting both 64-bit Windows and 32-bit
       Windows platforms (despite the project name "mingw-w64" they are
       not only 64-bit oriented). They deliver the native gcc compilers
       and cross-compilers that are also supported by perl's makefile.

   The Microsoft Visual C++ compilers are also now being given away free.
   They are available as "Visual C++ Toolkit 2003" or "Visual C++
   2005-2013 Express Edition" (and also as part of the ".NET Framework
   SDK") and are the same compilers that ship with "Visual C++ .NET 2003
   Professional" or "Visual C++ 2005-2013 Professional" respectively.

   This port can also be built on IA64/AMD64 using:

         Microsoft Platform SDK    Nov 2001 (64-bit compiler and tools)
         MinGW64 compiler (gcc version 4.4.3 or later)

   The Windows SDK can be downloaded from <http://www.microsoft.com/>.
   The MinGW64 compiler is available at <http://mingw-w64.org>.  The
   latter is actually a cross-compiler targeting Win64. There's also a
   trimmed down compiler (no java, or gfortran) suitable for building perl
   available at: <http://strawberryperl.com/package/kmx/64_gcctoolchain/>

   NOTE: If you're using a 32-bit compiler to build perl on a 64-bit
   Windows operating system, then you should set the WIN64 environment
   variable to "undef".  Also, the trimmed down compiler only passes tests
   when USE_ITHREADS *= define (as opposed to undef) and when the CFG *=
   Debug line is commented out.

   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 Windows" below for general hints about this.

   Setting Up Perl on Windows
   Make
       You need a "make" program to build the sources.  If you are using
       Visual C++ or the Windows SDK tools, you can use nmake supplied
       with Visual C++ or Windows SDK. You may also use, for Visual C++ or
       Windows SDK, dmake or gmake instead of nmake.  dmake is open source
       software, but is not included with Visual C++ or Windows SDK.
       Builds using gcc need dmake or gmake.  nmake is not supported for
       gcc builds.  Parallel building is only supported with dmake and
       gmake, not nmake.  When using dmake it is recommended to use dmake
       4.13 or newer for parallel building.  Older dmakes, in parallel
       mode, have very high CPU usage and pound the disk/filing system
       with duplicate I/O calls in an aggressive polling loop.

       A port of dmake for Windows is available from:

       <http://search.cpan.org/dist/dmake/>

       Fetch and install dmake somewhere on your path.

   Command Shell
       Use the default "cmd" shell that comes with Windows.  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.

       Make sure the path to the build directory does not contain spaces.
       The build usually works in this circumstance, but some tests will
       fail.

   Microsoft Visual C++
       The nmake that comes with Visual C++ will suffice for building.
       Visual C requires that certain things be set up in the console
       before Visual C will sucessfully run. To make a console box be able
       to run the C compiler, you will need to beforehand, run the
       "vcvars32.bat" file to compile for x86-32 and for x86-64
       "vcvarsall.bat x64" or "vcvarsamd64.bat". On a typical install of a
       Microsoft C compiler product, these batch files will already be in
       your "PATH" environment variable so you may just type them without
       an absolute path into your console. If you need to find the
       absolute path to the batch file, it is usually found somewhere like
       C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VC98\Bin.  With some newer
       Micrsoft C products (released after ~2004), the installer will put
       a shortcut in the start menu to launch a new console window with
       the console already set up for your target architecture (x86-32 or
       x86-64 or IA64).  With the newer compilers, you may also use the
       older batch files if you choose so.

   Microsoft Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express Edition
       These free versions of Visual C++ 2008-2013 Professional contain
       the same compilers and linkers that ship with the full versions,
       and also contain everything necessary to build Perl, rather than
       requiring a separate download of the Windows SDK like previous
       versions did.

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

       Install Visual C++ 2008-2013 Express, then setup your environment
       using, e.g.

        C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 12.0\Common7\Tools\vsvars32.bat

       (assuming the default installation location was chosen).

       Perl should now build using the win32/Makefile.  You will need to
       edit that file to set CCTYPE to one of MSVC90FREE-MSVC120FREE
       first.

   Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
       This free version of Visual C++ 2005 Professional contains the same
       compiler and linker that ship with the full version, but doesn't
       contain everything necessary to build Perl.

       You will also need to download the "Windows SDK" (the "Core SDK"
       and "MDAC SDK" components are required) for more header files and
       libraries.

       These packages can both be downloaded by searching in the Download
       Center at
       <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/search.aspx?displaylang=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 Windows 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 R2 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
       and Windows 2000.

       Install Visual C++ 2005 first, then the Platform SDK.  Setup your
       environment as follows (assuming default installation locations
       were chosen):

        SET PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK

        SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\IDE;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\BIN;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\Common7\Tools;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0	in;C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\VCPackages;%PlatformSDKDir%\Bin

        SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\INCLUDE;%PlatformSDKDir%\include

        SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\LIB;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\SDK\v2.0\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib

        SET LIBPATH=C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v2.0.50727

       (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on
       which version you are using. Earlier versions installed into
       "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", while the latest versions install
       into version-specific locations such as "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
       Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)

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

        CCTYPE = MSVC80FREE

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

   Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
       This free toolkit contains the same compiler and linker that ship
       with Visual C++ .NET 2003 Professional, but doesn't 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
       compiler and linker) requires the ".NET Framework Redistributable"
       to be installed first.  This can be downloaded and installed
       separately, 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?displaylang=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 Windows 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 R2 Platform SDK" also runs on Windows XP SP2
       and Windows 2000.

       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 PlatformSDKDir=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Platform SDK

        SET PATH=%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003	in;%PlatformSDKDir%\Bin;C:\Program Files\Microsoft.NET\SDK\v1.1\Bin

        SET INCLUDE=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\include;%PlatformSDKDir%\include;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\include

        SET LIB=C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003\lib;%PlatformSDKDir%\lib;C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003\Vc7\lib

       (The PlatformSDKDir might need to be set differently depending on
       which version you are using. Earlier versions installed into
       "C:\Program Files\Microsoft SDK", while the latest versions install
       into version-specific locations such as "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
       Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2".)

       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 %PlatformSDKDir%\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	in
           containing:

                   @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 %PlatformSDKDir%\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 %PlatformSDKDir%\lib

           Alternatively, if you don't need perlglob.exe and don't need to
           enable the USE_SETARGV option then you can safely just remove
           all mention of $(GLOBEXE) from win32/Makefile and setargv.obj
           won't 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
       building 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
       Perl can be compiled with gcc from MinGW release 3 and later (using
       gcc 3.4.5 and later).  It can be downloaded here:

       <http://www.mingw.org/>

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

   Intel C++ Compiler
       Experimental support for using Intel C++ Compiler has been added.
       Edit win32/Makefile and pick the correct CCTYPE for the Visual C
       that Intel C was installed into. Also uncomment __ICC to enable
       Intel C on Visual C support.  To set up the build enviroment, from
       the Start Menu run IA-32 Visual Studio 20__ mode or Intel 64 Visual
       Studio 20__ mode as appropriate. Then run nmake as usually in that
       prompt box.

       Only Intel C++ Compiler v12.1 has been tested. Other versions
       probably will work. Using Intel C++ Compiler instead of Visual C
       has the benefit of C99 compatibility which is needed by some CPAN
       XS modules, while maintaining compatibility with Visual C object
       code and Visual C debugging infrastructure unlike GCC.

   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 Windows SDK, and
       a dmake "makefile.mk" that will work for all supported compilers.
       The defaults in the dmake makefile are setup to build using
       MinGW/gcc.

   *   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.

       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 perl's 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.

       If building with the cross-compiler provided by mingw-w64.org
       you'll need to uncomment the line that sets GCCCROSS in the
       makefile.mk. Do this only if it's the cross-compiler - ie only if
       the bin folder doesn't contain a gcc.exe. (The cross-compiler does
       not provide a gcc.exe, g++.exe, ar.exe, etc. Instead, all of these
       executables are prefixed with 'x86_64-w64-mingw32-'.)

       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 you're using VC++ 6.0 without the latest service pack
       and the linker reports an internal error.

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

       NOTE: The USE_64_BIT_INT build option is not supported with the
       32-bit Visual C++ 6.0 compiler.

       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, perl524.dll at the perl toplevel, and various other
       extension dll's under the lib
uto directory.  If the build fails
       for any reason, make sure you have done the previous steps
       correctly.

       To try dmake's parallel mode, type "dmake -P2", where 2, is the
       maximum number of parallel jobs you want to run. A number of things
       in the build process will run in parallel, but there are
       serialization points where you will see just 1 CPU maxed out. This
       is normal.

       If you are advanced enough with building C code, here is a
       suggestion to speed up building perl, and the later "make test".
       Try to keep your PATH enviromental variable with the least number
       of folders possible (remember to keep your C compiler's folders
       there). "C:\WINDOWS\system32" or "C:\WINNT\system32" depending on
       your OS version should be first folder in PATH, since "cmd.exe" is
       the most commonly launched program during the build and later
       testing.

   Testing Perl on Windows
   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.

   If you build with Visual C++ 2013 then three tests currently may fail
   with Daylight Saving Time related problems: t/io/fs.t,
   cpan/HTTP-Tiny/t/110_mirror.t and lib/File/Copy.t. The failures are
   caused by bugs in the CRT in VC++ 2013 which will be fixed in future
   releases of VC++, as explained by Microsoft here:
   <https://connect.microsoft.com/VisualStudio/feedback/details/811534/utime-sometimes-fails-to-set-the-correct-file-times-in-visual-c-2013>.
   In the meantime, if you need fixed "stat" and "utime" functions then
   have a look at the CPAN distribution Win32::UTCFileTime.

   If you build with certain versions (e.g. 4.8.1) of gcc from
   www.mingw.org then ext/POSIX/t/time.t may fail test 17 due to a known
   bug in those gcc builds: see
   <http://sourceforge.net/p/mingw/bugs/2152/>.

   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.

   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 Windows
   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	in", e.g.

       set PATH=c:\perl	in;%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:
   "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER	in" and "$INST_TOP\$INST_VER	in\$ARCHNAME", e.g.

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

   Usage Hints for Perl on Windows
   Environment Variables
       The installation paths that you set during the build get compiled
       into perl, so you don't 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
       variables 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 unless disabled at
       build time with USE_NO_REGISTRY.  On Perl process start Perl checks
       if "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl" and
       "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl" exist.  If the keys exists, they
       will be checked for remainder of the Perl process's run life for
       certain entries.  Entries in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl"
       override entries in "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Perl".  One or
       more of the following entries (of type REG_SZ or REG_EXPAND_SZ) may
       be set in the keys:

        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 Windows.

   File Globbing
       By default, perl handles file globbing using the File::Glob
       extension, 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::DosGlob 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) 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 special characters in arguments.

       The Windows documentation describes the shell parsing rules here:
       <http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/cmd.mspx?mfr=true>
       and the C runtime parsing rules here:
       <http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/17w5ykft%28v=VS.100%29.aspx>.

       Here are some further 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 suggestions 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 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
       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 command shell for
       Windows 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 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 Windows environment; you should check the information at
       <http://www.cpantesters.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 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 don't 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 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 before running "perl
       Makefile.PL" or any invocation of make.

       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
       supplied to programs.  They consider it the application's job to
       handle that.  This is commonly 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 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/don't 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 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 environment 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.

   Notes on 64-bit Windows
       Windows .NET Server supports the LLP64 data model on the Intel
       Itanium 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
       platforms provides "int" as the 32-bit type, while both the "long"
       type and pointers are of 64-bit precision.  Note that both models
       provide 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.  Windows has no
   comparable means to indicate arbitrary files are executables.

   Instead, all available methods to execute plain text files on Windows
   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".  This
           can be manipulated via the two commands "assoc" and "ftype"
           that come standard with Windows.  Type "ftype /?" for a
           complete example of how to set this up for perl scripts (Say
           what?  You thought Windows wasn't perl-ready? :).

   2.      Since file associations don't 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 = *"
           statement 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
           intensive 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 Windows 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 information contained in
   the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager like "less"
   (recent versions of which have Windows 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 Perl's normal behavior of opening a command-line window
   will go away.  This isn't the case.  If you want to start a copy of
   "perl" without opening a command-line window, use the "wperl"
   executable built during the installation process.  Usage is exactly the
   same as normal "perl" on Windows, except that options like "-h" don't
   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
   significantly.  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.

   A git GUI shell extension for Windows such as TortoiseGit will cause
   the build and later "make test" to run much slower since every file is
   checked for its git status as soon as it is created and/or modified.
   TortoiseGit doesn't cause any test failures or build problems unlike
   the antivirus software described above, but it does cause similar
   slowness. It is suggested to use Task Manager to look for background
   processes which use high CPU amounts during the building process.

   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 Windows 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.

   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 "signal()" on Windows 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 currently be
   considered unsupported.

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

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

   The use of a camel with the topic of Perl is a trademark of O'Reilly
   and Associates, Inc. Used with permission.

AUTHORS

   Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>
   Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@activestate.com>
   Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ing-simmons.net>
   Jan Dubois <jand@activestate.com>
   Steve Hay <steve.m.hay@googlemail.com>

   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.

   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: 07 October 2014





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