Last revised: 09-Oct-1994 by Charles Bailey bailey@genetics.upenn.edu The VMS port of perl5 is still under development. At this time, the perl binaries built under VMS handle internal operations properly, for the most part, as well as most of the system calls which have close equivalents under VMS. There are still some incompatibilities in process handling (e.g the fork/exec model for creating subprocesses doesn't do what you might expect under Unix), and there remain some file handling differences from Unix. There is a VMS implementation of the DynaLoader, but it hasn't been tested much, so it may still have some bugs in it. Over the longer term, we'll try to get many of the useful VMS system services integrated as well, depending on time and people available. Of course, if you'd like to add something yourself, or join the porting team, we'd love to have you! The current sources and build procedures have been tested on a VAX using VAXC and on an AXP using DECC. IF you run into problems with other compilers, please let us know. * Other software required At the moment, in addition to basic VMS, you'll need two things: - a C compiler: VAXC, DECC, or gcc for the VAX; DECC for the AXP - a make tool: DEC's MMS or the free analog MMK (available from ftp.spc.edu) or a standard make utility (e.g. GNU make, also available from ftp.spc.edu). In addition, you may include socket support if you have a IP stack running on your system. See the topic "Socket support" for more information. * Socket support Perl5 includes a number of IP socket routines among its builtin functions, which are available if you choose to compile perl with socket support. Since IP networking is an optional addition to VMS, there are several different IP stacks available, it's difficult to automate the process of building perl5 with socket support in a way which will work on all systems. By default, perl5 is built without IP socket support. If you define the macro SOCKET when invoking MMS, however, socket support will be included. As distributed, perl5 for VMS includes support for the SOCKETSHR socket library, which is layered on MadGoat software's vendor-independent NETLIB interface. This provides support for all socket calls used by perl5 except the [g|s]et*ent() routines, which are replaced for the moment by stubs which generate a fatal error if a perl script attempts to call one of these routines. If you'd like to link perl directly to your IP stack to take advantage of these routines or to eliminate the intermediate NETLIB, then make the following changes: - In Descrip.MMS, locate the section beginning with .ifdef SOCKET, and change the SOCKLIB macro so that it translates to the filespec of your IP stack's socket library. This will be added to the RTL options file. - Edit the file SockAdapt.H in the [.VMS] subdirectory so that it includes the In.H, NetDb.H, and, if necessary, Errno.H header files for your IP stack, or so that it declares the standard TCP/IP data structures appropriately (see the distributed copy of SockAdapt.H for a collection of the structures needed by perl.) You should also define any logical names necessary to find these files before invoking MMS to build perl. - Edit the file SockAdapt.C in the [.VMS] subdirectory so that it contains routines which substitute for any IP library routines required by perl which your IP stack does not provide. This may require a little trial and error; we'll try to compile a complete list soon of socket routines required by perl5. * Building perl under VMS Since you're reading this, presumable you've unpacked the perl distribution into its directory tree, in which you will find a [.vms] subdirectory below the directory in which this file is found. If this isn't the case, then you'll need to unpack the distribution properly, or manually edit Descrip.MMS or the VMS Makefile. to alter directory paths as necessary. (I'd advise using the `normal' directory tree, at least for the first time through.) This subdirectory contains several files, among which are the following: Config.VMS - A template C header file set up for VMS. Descrip.MMS - The MMS/MMK dependency file for building perl GenConfig.Pl - A perl script to generate Config.SH retrospectively from Config.VMS, since the Configure shell script which normally generates Config.SH doesn't run under VMS. GenOpt.Com - A little DCL procedure used to write some linker options files, since not all make utilities can do this easily. Gen_ShrFls.Pl - A perl script which generates linker options files and MACRO declarations for PerlShr.Exe. Makefile. - The make dependency file for building perl MMS2Make.Pl - A perl script used to generate Makefile. from Descrip.MMS VMSish.H - C header file containing VMS-specific definitions VMS.C - C source code for VMS-specific routines WriteMain.Pl - A perl script used to generate perlmain.c during the build. There may also be other files pertaining to features under development; for the most part, you can ignore them. Config.VMS and Decrip.MMS/Makefile. are set up to build a version of perl which includes all features known to work when this release was assembled. If you have code at your site which would support additional features (e.g. emulation of Unix system calls), feel free to make the appropriate changes to these files. (Note: Do not use or edit config.h in the main perl source directory; it is superseded by the current Config.VMS during the build.) You may also wish to make site-specific changes to Descrip.MMS or Makefile. to reflect local conventions for naming of files, etc. At the moment, system-specific information which becomes part of the perl5 Config extension is hard-coded into the file genconfig.pl in the vms subdirectory. Before you build perl, you should make any changes to the list at the end of this file necessary to reflect your system (e.g your hostname and VMS version). Examine the information at the beginning of Descrip.MMS for information about specifying alternate C compilers or building a version of perl with debugging support. For instance, if you want to use DECC, you'll need to include the /macro="decc=1" qualifier to MMS (If you're using make, these options are not supported.) If you're on an AXP system, define the macro __AXP__ (MMK does this for you), and DECC will automatically be selected. To start the build, set default to the main source directory. Then, if you are using MMS or MMK, issue the command $ MMS/Descrip=[.VMS] ! or MMK If you are using make, issue the command $ Make -f [.VMS]Makefile. Note that the Makefile. doesn't support conditional compilation, and is set up to use VAXC on a VAX, and does not include socket support. You can either edit the Makefile. by hand, using Descrip.MMS as a guide, or use the Makefile. to build Miniperl.Exe, and then run the Perl script MMS@Make.pl, found in the [.VMS] subdirectory, to generate a new Makefile with the options appropriate to your site. Note for sites using early versions of DECC: A bug in some versions of the DECC RTL causes newlines to be lost when writing to a pipe. This causes Gen_ShrFls.pl to fail, since it can't read the preprocessor output to identify global variables and routines. You can work around this problem by defining the macro DECC_PIPES_BROKEN when you invoke MMS or MMK. This will build the following files: Miniperl.Exe - a stand-alone version of without any extensions. Miniperl has all the intrinsic capabilities of perl, but cannot make use of the DynaLoader or any extensions which use XS code. PerlShr.Exe - a shareable image containing most of perl's internal routines and global variables. Perl.Exe is linked to this image, as are all dynamic extensions, so everyone's using the same set of global variables and routines. Perl.Exe - the main perl executable image. It's contains the main() routine, plus code for any statically linked extensions. PerlShr_Attr.Opt - A linker options file which specifies psect attributes matching those in PerlShr.Exe. It should be used when linking images against PerlShr.Exe [.Lib]Config.pm - the perl extension which saves configuration information about perl and your system. [.lib]DynaLoader.pm - The perl extension which performs dynamic linking of shareable images for extensions. There are, of course, a number of other files created for use during the build. Once you've got the binaries built, you may wish to `build' the `tidy' or `clean' targets to remove extra files. * Installing perl once it's built Once the build is complete, you'll need to do the following: - Put PerlShr.Exe in a common directory, and make it world-readable. If you place it in a location other than Sys$Share, you'll need to define the logical name PerlShr to point to the image. - Put Perl.Exe in a common directory, and make it world executable - Define a foreign command to invoke perl, using a statement like $ Perl == "$dev:[dir]Perl.Exe" - Create a world-readable directory tree for perl library modules, scripts, and what-have-you, and define PERL_ROOT as a rooted logical name pointing to the top of this tree (i.e. if your perl files were going to live in DKA1:[Perl5...], then you should $ Define/Translation=Concealed Perl_Root DKA1:[Perl5.] - Define the logical name PERLSHR as the full file specification of PERLSHR.EXE, so executable images linked to it can find it. Alternatively, you can justput PERLSHR.EXE int SYS$SHARE. - Place the files from the [.lib] subdirectory in the distribution package into a [.lib] subdirectory off the root directory described above. - Most of the perl5 documentation lives in the [.pod] subdirectory, and is written in a simple markup format which can be easily read. In this directory as well are pod2man and pod2html translators to reformat the docs for common display engines; a pod2hlp translator is under development. Information on perl5 can also be gleaned from the files in the [.doc] subdirectory (internals documents and summaries of changes), and from the test scripts in the [.t...] subdirectories. For now, that's it. * For more information If you're interested in more information on perl in general, consult the Usenet newsgroup comp.lang.perl. The FAQ for that group provides pointers to other online sources of information, as well as books describing perl in depth. If you're interested in up-to-date information on perl5 development and internals, you might want to subscribe to the perl5-porters mailing list. You can do this by sending a message to perl5-porters-request@isi.edu, containing the single line subscribe perl5-porters Your Name Here This is a moderately high-volume list at the moment (25-50 messages/day). Finally, if you're interested in ongoing information about the VMS port, you can subscribe to the VMSperl mailing list by sending a request to bailey@genetics.upenn.edu (it's to a human, not a list server - this is a small operation at the moment). And, as always, we welcome any help or code you'd like to offer - you can send mail to bailey@genetics.upenn.edu or directly to the VMSperl list at vmsperl@genetics.upenn.edu. Good luck using perl. Please let us know how it works for you - we can't guarantee that we'll be able to fix bugs quickly, but we'll try, and we'd certainly like to know they're out there. * Acknowledgements There are, of course, far too many people involved in the porting and testing of perl5 to mention everyone who deserves it, so please forgive us if we've missed someone. That said, special thanks are due to the following: David Denholm for extensive testing and provision of pipe and SocketShr code, Mark Pizzolato for the getredirection() code Rich Salz for readdir() and related routines Denis Haskin for work on a pod-to-hlp translator for the perl5 documentation Richard Dyson and Kent Covert for additional testing on the AXP. and to the entire VMSperl group for useful advice and suggestions. In addition the perl5-porters, especially Andy Dougherty and Tim Bunce , deserve credit for their creativity and willingness to work with the VMS newcomers. Finally, the greatest debt of gratitude is due to Larry Wall , for having the ideas which have made our sleepless nights possible. Thanks, The VMSperl group