Man1 - perldos.1perl
Table of Contents
NAME
perldos - Perl under DOS, W31, W95.
SYNOPSIS
These are instructions for building Perl under DOS (or w??), using DJGPP v2.03 or later. Under w95 long filenames are supported.
DESCRIPTION
Before you start, you should glance through the README file found in the top-level directory where the Perl distribution was extracted. Make sure you read and understand the terms under which this software is being distributed.
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.
Detailed instructions on how to build and install perl extension modules, including XS-type modules, is included. See ’BUILDING AND INSTALLING MODULES’.
Prerequisites for Compiling Perl on DOS
- DJGPP
- DJGPP is a port of GNU C/C++ compiler and development tools to 32-bit, protected-mode environment on Intel 32-bit CPUs running MS-DOS and compatible operating systems, by DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> and friends. For more details (FAQ), check out the home of DJGPP at: http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/ If you have questions about DJGPP, try posting to the DJGPP newsgroup: comp.os.msdos.djgpp, or use the email gateway djgpp@delorie.com. You can find the full DJGPP distribution on any of the mirrors listed here: http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/getting.html You need the following files to build perl (or add new modules): v2/djdev203.zip v2gnu/bnu2112b.zip v2gnu/gcc2953b.zip v2gnu/bsh204b.zip v2gnu/mak3791b.zip v2gnu/fil40b.zip v2gnu/sed3028b.zip v2gnu/txt20b.zip v2gnu/dif272b.zip v2gnu/grep24b.zip v2gnu/shl20jb.zip v2gnu/gwk306b.zip v2misc/csdpmi5b.zip or possibly any newer version.
- Pthreads
- Thread support is not tested in this version of the djgpp perl.
Shortcomings of Perl under DOS
Perl under DOS lacks some features of perl under UNIX because of deficiencies in the UNIX-emulation, most notably:
- fork() and pipe()
- some features of the UNIX filesystem regarding link count and file dates
- in-place operation is a little bit broken with short filenames
- sockets
Building Perl on DOS
- Unpack the source package perl5.8*.tar.gz with djtarx. If you want to use long file names under w95 and also to get Perl to pass all its tests, don’t forget to use set LFN=y set FNCASE=y before unpacking the archive.
- Create a symlink or copy your bash.exe to sh.exe in your
($DJDIR)/bin
directory. ln -s bash.exe sh.exe [If you have the recommended version of bash for DJGPP, this is already done for you.] And make theSHELL
environment variable point to this sh.exe: set SHELL=c:/djgpp/bin/sh.exe (use full path name!) You can do this in djgpp.env too. Add this line BEFORE any section definition: +SHELL=%DJDIR%/bin/sh.exe - If you have split.exe and gsplit.exe in your path, then rename split.exe to djsplit.exe, and gsplit.exe to split.exe. Copy or link gecho.exe to echo.exe if you don’t have echo.exe. Copy or link gawk.exe to awk.exe if you don’t have awk.exe. [If you have the recommended versions of djdev, shell utilities and gawk, all these are already done for you, and you will not need to do anything.]
- Chdir to the djgpp subdirectory of perl toplevel and type the
following commands: set FNCASE=y configure.bat This will do some
preprocessing then run the Configure script for you. The Configure
script is interactive, but in most cases you just need to press ENTER.
The set command ensures that DJGPP preserves the letter case of file
names when reading directories. If you already issued this set command
when unpacking the archive, and you are in the same DOS session as
when you unpacked the archive, you don’t have to issue the set command
again. This command is necessary before you start to (re)configure
or (re)build perl in order to ensure both that perl builds correctly
and that building XS-type modules can succeed. See the DJGPP info
entry for _preserve_fncase for more information: info libc
alphabetical _preserve_fncase If the script says that your package is
incomplete, and asks whether to continue, just answer with Y (this can
only happen if you don’t use long filenames or forget to issue set
FNCASE=y first). When Configure asks about the extensions, I suggest
IO and Fcntl, and if you want database handling then SDBM_File or
GDBM_File (you need to install gdbm for this one). If you want to use
the POSIX extension (this is the default), make sure that the stack
size of your cc1.exe is at least 512kbyte (you can check this with:
stubedit cc1.exe
). You can use the Configure script in non-interactive mode too. When I built my perl.exe, I used something like this: configure.bat -des You can find more info about Configure’s command line switches in the INSTALL file. When the script ends, and you want to change some values in the generated config.sh file, then run sh Configure -S after you made your modifications. IMPORTANT: if you use this-S
switch, be sure to delete the CONFIG environment variable before running the script: set CONFIG= - Now you can compile Perl. Type: make
Testing Perl on DOS
Type:
make test
If you’re lucky you should see All tests successful. But there can be a few failed subtests (less than 5 hopefully) depending on some external conditions (e.g. some subtests fail under linux/dosemu or plain dos with short filenames only).
Installation of Perl on DOS
Type:
make install
This will copy the newly compiled perl and libraries into your DJGPP
directory structure. Perl.exe and the utilities go into ($DJDIR)/bin
,
and the library goes under ($DJDIR)/lib/perl5
. The pod documentation
goes under ($DJDIR)/lib/perl5/pod
.
BUILDING AND INSTALLING MODULES ON DOS
Building Prerequisites for Perl on DOS
For building and installing non-XS modules, all you need is a working perl under DJGPP. Non-XS modules do not require re-linking the perl binary, and so are simpler to build and install.
XS-type modules do require re-linking the perl binary, because part of an XS module is written in C, and has to be linked together with the perl binary to be executed. This is required because perl under DJGPP is built with the static link option, due to the lack of dynamic linking in the DJGPP environment.
Because XS modules require re-linking of the perl binary, you need both the perl binary distribution and the perl source distribution to build an XS extension module. In addition, you will have to have built your perl binary from the source distribution so that all of the components of the perl binary are available for the required link step.
Unpacking CPAN Modules on DOS
First, download the module package from CPAN (e.g., the Comma Separated
Value text package, Text-CSV-0.01.tar.gz). Then expand the contents of
the package into some location on your disk. Most CPAN modules are built
with an internal directory structure, so it is usually safe to expand it
in the root of your DJGPP installation. Some people prefer to locate
source trees under /usr/src (i.e., ($DJDIR)/usr/src
), but you may put
it wherever seems most logical to you, EXCEPT under the same directory
as your perl source code. There are special rules that apply to modules
which live in the perl source tree that do not apply to most of the
modules in CPAN.
Unlike other DJGPP packages, which are normal zip files, most CPAN module packages are gzipped tarballs. Recent versions of WinZip will safely unpack and expand them, UNLESS they have zero-length files. It is a known WinZip bug (as of v7.0) that it will not extract zero-length files.
From the command line, you can use the djtar utility provided with DJGPP to unpack and expand these files. For example:
C:\djgpp>djtarx -v Text-CSV-0.01.tar.gz
This will create the new directory ($DJDIR)/Text-CSV-0.01
, filling it
with the source for this module.
Building Non-XS Modules on DOS
To build a non-XS module, you can use the standard module-building instructions distributed with perl modules.
perl Makefile.PL make make test make install
This is sufficient because non-XS modules install only .pm files and (sometimes) pod and/or man documentation. No re-linking of the perl binary is needed to build, install or use non-XS modules.
Building XS Modules on DOS
To build an XS module, you must use the standard module-building instructions distributed with perl modules PLUS three extra instructions specific to the DJGPP static link build environment.
set FNCASE=y perl Makefile.PL make make perl make test make -f Makefile.aperl inst_perl MAP_TARGET=perl.exe make install
The first extra instruction sets DJGPP’s FNCASE environment variable so
that the new perl binary which you must build for an XS-type module will
build correctly. The second extra instruction re-builds the perl binary
in your module directory before you run make test, so that you are
testing with the new module code you built with make. The third extra
instruction installs the perl binary from your module directory into the
standard DJGPP binary directory, ($DJDIR)/bin
, replacing your previous
perl binary.
Note that the MAP_TARGET value must have the .exe extension or you
will not create a perl.exe to replace the one in ($DJDIR)/bin
.
When you are done, the XS-module install process will have added information to your perllocal information telling that the perl binary has been replaced, and what module was installed. You can view this information at any time by using the command:
perl -S perldoc perllocal
AUTHOR
Laszlo Molnar, laszlo.molnar@eth.ericsson.se [Installing/building perl]
Peter J. Farley III pjfarley@banet.net [Building/installing modules]
SEE ALSO
perl (1).