remove deprecated PERL_OBJECT cruft, it has long since stopped

working in 5.7.x

p4raw-id: //depot/perl@11803

1 files changed, 722 insertions, 722 deletions

diff --git a/README.win32 b/README.win32
index fb0715cd9b..84fdb188fb 100644
--- a/README.win32
+++ b/README.win32
@@ -1,722 +1,722 @@
-If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you

-see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is

-specially designed to be readable as is.

-

-=head1 NAME

-

-perlwin32 - Perl under Win32

-

-=head1 SYNOPSIS

-

-These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and

-2000).

-

-=head1 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 L<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 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.  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 L<Usage Hints for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this.

-

-=head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32

-

-=over 4

-

-=item 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 everytime 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.

-

-=item 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

-"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 circumstance, but some tests will fail.

-

-=item 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 L</"Make"> above.

-

-=item 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++; provided, 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.

-

-=item 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 L</"Make"> 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 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:

-

-=over

-

-=item *

-

-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.

-

-=item *

-

-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.

-

-=back

-

-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

-

-=back

-

-=head2 Building

-

-=over 4

-

-=item *

-

-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++, 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 compiler.

-

-=item *

-

-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 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.

-

-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, usually along with SSLeay (for example, 

-"ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/").  Set CRYPT_SRC to the

-name of the file that implements des_fcrypt().  Alternatively, if

-you have built a library that contains 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 versions 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.

-

-An easier alternative may be to get the pre-patched and ready-to-use

-fcrypt.c that can be found here:

-

-    http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c

-    ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c

-

-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.

-

-=item *

-

-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.

-

-=back

-

-=head2 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 4.0 or

-Windows 2000.  Many tests I<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 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 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 L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.

-

-=head2 Installation of Perl on Win32

-

-Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install").  This will put the newly

-built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the

-Makefile.  It will also install the pod documentation under

-C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under

-C<$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,

-C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$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%

-

-=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32

-

-=over 4

-

-=item 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 L<perlrun>.

-

-You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and

-backtick commands via PERL5SHELL.  See L<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

-C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<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 C<$]> in the above is not literal.  Substitute whatever version

-of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>.  Paths must be

-separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.

-

-=item 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 L<File::DosGlob> for

-details.

-

-=item 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 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 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 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 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.

-

-=item 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 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:

-

-    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 L</"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.

-

-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.

-

-=item 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.

-

-=item 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 Perl's 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 contains

-all of the ActiveState extensions 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.

-

-=item 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:

-

-=over 8

-

-=item 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 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? :).

-

-=item 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.

-

-=item 3

-

-Using "pl2bat" has a few problems:  the file name gets changed,

-so scripts that rely on C<$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 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

-

-=back

-

-=item 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.

-

-C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained

-in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager

-like C<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 C<perlbug> to create a

-bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot

-find a mailer on your system).

-

-=back

-

-=head1 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.

-

-Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in

-L<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 L<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 L</"Building Extensions">.

-

-Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not

-behave as on Unix platforms.  See L<perlport> for the full list.

-

-Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it

-doesn't exactly "behave", either :).  For instance, calling C<die()>

-or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most

-implementations of C<signal()> 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

-currently be considered unsupported.

-

-Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that 

-you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced

-by C<perl -V>.

-

-=head1 AUTHORS

-

-=over 4

-

-=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>

-

-=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>

-

-=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>

-

-=back

-

-This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.

-

-=head1 SEE ALSO

-

-L<perl>

-

-=head1 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

-

-=cut

+If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
+see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
+specially designed to be readable as is.
+
+=head1 NAME
+
+perlwin32 - Perl under Win32
+
+=head1 SYNOPSIS
+
+These are instructions for building Perl under Windows (9x, NT and
+2000).
+
+=head1 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 L<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 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.  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 L<Usage Hints for Perl on Win32> below for general hints about this.
+
+=head2 Setting Up Perl on Win32
+
+=over 4
+
+=item 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 everytime 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.
+
+=item 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
+"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 circumstance, but some tests will fail.
+
+=item 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 L</"Make"> above.
+
+=item 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++; provided, 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.
+
+=item 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 L</"Make"> 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 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:
+
+=over
+
+=item *
+
+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.
+
+=item *
+
+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.
+
+=back
+
+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
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Building
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+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++, 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 compiler.
+
+=item *
+
+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 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.
+
+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, usually along with SSLeay (for example, 
+"ftp://ftp.funet.fi/pub/crypt/mirrors/dsi/libdes/").  Set CRYPT_SRC to the
+name of the file that implements des_fcrypt().  Alternatively, if
+you have built a library that contains 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 versions 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.
+
+An easier alternative may be to get the pre-patched and ready-to-use
+fcrypt.c that can be found here:
+
+    http://downloads.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
+    ftp://ftp.ActiveState.com/pub/staff/gsar/fcrypt.c
+
+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.
+
+=item *
+
+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.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 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 4.0 or
+Windows 2000.  Many tests I<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 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 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 L<BUGS AND CAVEATS>.
+
+=head2 Installation of Perl on Win32
+
+Type "dmake install" (or "nmake install").  This will put the newly
+built perl and the libraries under whatever C<INST_TOP> points to in the
+Makefile.  It will also install the pod documentation under
+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\lib\pod> and HTML versions of the same under
+C<$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,
+C<$INST_TOP\$VERSION\bin> and C<$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%
+
+=head2 Usage Hints for Perl on Win32
+
+=over 4
+
+=item 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 L<perlrun>.
+
+You can also control the shell that perl uses to run system() and
+backtick commands via PERL5SHELL.  See L<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
+C<HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Perl> and C<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-$]	version-specific vendor library path to add to @INC
+    vendorlib		vendor library path to add to @INC
+    PERL*		fallback for all %ENV lookups that begin with "PERL"
+
+Note the C<$]> in the above is not literal.  Substitute whatever version
+of perl you want to honor that entry, e.g. C<5.6.0>.  Paths must be
+separated with semicolons, as usual on win32.
+
+=item 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 L<File::DosGlob> for
+details.
+
+=item 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 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 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 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 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.
+
+=item 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 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:
+
+    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 L</"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.
+
+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.
+
+=item 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.
+
+=item 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 Perl's 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 contains
+all of the ActiveState extensions 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.
+
+=item 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:
+
+=over 8
+
+=item 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 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? :).
+
+=item 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.
+
+=item 3
+
+Using "pl2bat" has a few problems:  the file name gets changed,
+so scripts that rely on C<$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 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
+
+=back
+
+=item 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.
+
+C<perldoc> is also a useful tool for browsing information contained
+in the documentation, especially in conjunction with a pager
+like C<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 C<perlbug> to create a
+bug report (you may have to send it manually if C<perlbug> cannot
+find a mailer on your system).
+
+=back
+
+=head1 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.
+
+Some of the built-in functions do not act exactly as documented in
+L<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 L<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 L</"Building Extensions">.
+
+Most C<socket()> related calls are supported, but they may not
+behave as on Unix platforms.  See L<perlport> for the full list.
+
+Signal handling may not behave as on Unix platforms (where it
+doesn't exactly "behave", either :).  For instance, calling C<die()>
+or C<exit()> from signal handlers will cause an exception, since most
+implementations of C<signal()> 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
+currently be considered unsupported.
+
+Please send detailed descriptions of any problems and solutions that 
+you may find to <F<perlbug@perl.com>>, along with the output produced
+by C<perl -V>.
+
+=head1 AUTHORS
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Gary Ng E<lt>71564.1743@CompuServe.COME<gt>
+
+=item Gurusamy Sarathy E<lt>gsar@activestate.comE<gt>
+
+=item Nick Ing-Simmons E<lt>nick@ing-simmons.netE<gt>
+
+=back
+
+This document is maintained by Gurusamy Sarathy.
+
+=head1 SEE ALSO
+
+L<perl>
+
+=head1 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
+
+=cut