README.cygwin - Perl for Cygwin
This document will help you configure, make, test and install Perl on Cygwin. This document also describes features of Cygwin that will affect how Perl behaves at runtime.
NOTE: There are pre-built Perl packages available for Cygwin and a version of Perl is provided on the Cygwin CD. If you have no need to customize the configuration, consider using one of these packages:
http://cygutils.netpedia.net/The Cygwin tools are ports of the popular GNU development tools for Win32 platforms. They run thanks to the Cygwin library which provides the UNIX system calls and environment these programs expect. More information about this project can be found at:
http://sourceware.cygnus.com/cygwin/A recent net or commercial release of Cygwin is required.
At the time this document was written, the port required recent development snapshots that were expected to stabilize early in 2000 and be released to the net as B21 and commercially as v1.1.
NOTE: At this point, minimal effort has been made to provide compatibility with old (beta) Cygwin releases. The focus has been to provide a high quality release and not worry about working around old Cygwin bugs. If you wish to use Perl with Cygwin B20.1 or earlier, consider using either perl5.005_03 or perl5.005_62, which are available in source and binary form at http://cygutils.netpedia.net/ or on the Cygwin CD. If there is significant demand, a patch kit can be developed to port back to earlier Cygwin versions.
A recent net or commercial release of gcc is required.
At the time this document was written, gcc-2.95.2 was current and could be downloaded from:
ftp://ftp.xraylith.wisc.edu/pub/khan/gnu-win32/cygwin/gcc-2.95.2/While building Perl some changes may be necessary to your Cygwin setup so that Perl builds cleanly. These changes are not required for normal Perl usage.
NOTE: The binaries that are built will run on all Win32 versions. They do not depend on your host system (Win9x, WinNT) or your Cygwin configuration (ntea, ntsec, binary/text mounts). The only dependencies come from hardcoded pathnames like /usr/local. However, your host system and Cygwin configuration will affect Perl's runtime behavior (see "TEST"). Some regression tests may fail in different ways depending on your setup. For now, the test suite does not skip tests that do not make sense given a particular setup. If a test can pass in some Cygwin setup, it is left in and explainable test failures are documented.
PATH
Set the PATH environment variable so that Configure finds the Cygwin versions of programs. Any Windows directories should be removed or moved to the end of your PATH.
/bin/cat.exe
There should be an instance of cat in /bin (or /usr/bin). Configure tests #!/bin/cat and if it is not found, you will see the error:
Configure: ./try: No such file or directory/usr/bin
If you do not have a /usr/bin directory, Configure will not prompt you to install perl into /usr/bin.
nroff
If you do not have nroff (which is part of the groff package), Configure will not prompt you to install man pages.
Permissions
On WinNT with either the ntea or ntsec CYGWIN settings, directory and file permissions may not be set correctly. Since the build process creates files and directories, to be safe you may want to run a `chmod -R +w *' on the entire Perl source tree.
Also, it is a well known WinNT "feature" that files created by a login that is a member of the Administrators group will be owned by the Administrators group. Depending on your umask, you may find that you can not write to files that you just created (because you are no longer the owner). When using the ntsec CYGWIN setting, this is not an issue because it "corrects" the ownership to what you would expect on a UNIX system.
The default options gathered by Configure with the assistance of hints/cygwin.sh will build a Perl that supports dynamic loading (which requires a shared libperl.dll).
This will run Configure and keep a record:
./Configure 2>&1 | tee log.configureIf you are willing to accept all the defaults add a -d option. However, several useful customizations are available.
It is possible to strip the EXEs and DLLs created by the build process. The resulting binaries will be significantly smaller. If you want the binaries to be stripped, you can either add a -s option when Configure prompts you,
Any additional ld flags (NOT including libraries)? [none] -s
Any special flags to pass to gcc to use dynamic linking? [none] -s
Any special flags to pass to ld2 to create a dynamically loaded library?
[none] -sor you can edit hints/cygwin.sh and uncomment the relevant variables near the end of the file.
Several Perl functions and modules depend on the existence of some optional libraries. Configure will find them if they are installed in one of the directories listed as being used for library searches. Pre-built packages for most of these are available at http://cygutils.netpedia.net/.
-lcrypt
The crypt libraries in GNU libc have been ported to Cygwin.
The DES based Ultra Fast Crypt port was done by Alexey Truhan:
http://dome.weeg.uiowa.edu/pub/domestic/sos/cw32crypt-dist-0.tgzNOTE: There are various export restrictions on DES implementations, see the glibc README for more details.
The MD5 port was done by Andy Piper:
http://dome.weeg.uiowa.edu/pub/domestic/sos/libcrypt.tgzMore information can also be found at:
http://miracle.geol.msu.ru/sos/-lgdbm (use GDBM_File)
GDBM is available for Cygwin. GDBM's ndbm/dbm compatibility feature also makes NDBM_File and ODBM_File possible (although they add little extra value).
-ldb (use DB_File)
BerkeleyDB is available for Cygwin. Some details can be found in ext/DB_File/DB_File.pm.
-lcygipc (use IPC::SysV)
A port of SysV IPC is available for Cygwin.
NOTE: This has not been extensively tested. In particular, d_semctl_semun is undefined because it fails a configure test and on Win9x the shm*() functions seem to hang.
The INSTALL document describes several Configure-time options. Some of these will work with Cygwin, others are not yet possible. Also, some of these are experimental. You can either select an option when Configure prompts you or you can define (undefine) symbols on the command line.
-Uusedl
Undefining this symbol forces Perl to be compiled statically.
-Uusemymalloc
By default Perl uses the malloc() included with the Perl source. If you want to force Perl to build with the system malloc() undefine this symbol.
-Dusemultiplicity
Multiplicity is required when embedding Perl in a C program and using more than one interpreter instance. This works with the Cygwin port.
-Duseperlio
The PerlIO abstraction works with the Cygwin port.
-Duse64bitint
gcc supports 64-bit integers. However, several additional long long functions are necessary to use them within Perl ({strtol,strtoul}l). These are not yet available with Cygwin.
-Duselongdouble
gcc supports long doubles (12 bytes). However, several additional long double math functions are necessary to use them within Perl ({atan2,cos,exp,floor,fmod,frexp,log,modf,pow,sin,sqrt}l,strtold). These are not yet available with Cygwin.
-Dusethreads
POSIX threads are not yet implemented in Cygwin.
-Duselargefiles
Although Win32 supports large files, Cygwin currently uses 32-bit integers for internal size and position calculations.
You may see some messages during Configure that seem suspicious.
Whoa There
Cygwin does not yet implement chroot(), setegid() or seteuid() functionality, but has stub functions that return ENOSYS. You will see a message when Configure detects that its guess conflicts with the hint file.
*** WHOA THERE!!! ***
The recommended value for $d_chroot on this machine was "undef"!
Keep the recommended value? [y]You should keep the recommended value.
dlsym
ld2 is needed to build dynamic libraries, but it does not exist when dlsym() checking occurs (it is not created until `make' runs). You will see the following message:
Checking whether your dlsym() needs a leading underscore ...
I can't compile and run the test program.
I'm guessing that dlsym doesn't need a leading underscore.Since the guess is correct, this is not a problem.
Win9x and d_eofnblk
Win9x does not correctly report EOF with a non-blocking read on a closed pipe. You will see the following messages:
But it also returns -1 to signal EOF, so be careful!
WARNING: you can't distinguish between EOF and no data!
*** WHOA THERE!!! ***
The recommended value for $d_eofnblk on this machine was "define"!
Keep the recommended value? [y]At least for consistency with WinNT, you should keep the recommended value.
Checking how std your stdio is...
Configure reports:
Your stdio doesn't appear very std.This is correct.
Compiler/Preprocessor defines
The following error occurs because of the Cygwin #define of _LONG_DOUBLE:
Guessing which symbols your C compiler and preprocessor define...
try.c:3847: parse errorThis failure does not seem to cause any problems.
Simply run make and wait:
make 2>&1 | tee log.makeWarnings like these are normal:
warning: overriding commands for target <file>
warning: ignoring old commands for target <file>
Warning: no export definition file provided
dllwrap will create one, but may not be what you wantDuring `make', ld2 will be created and installed in your $installbin directory (where you said to put public executables). It does not wait until the `make install' process to install the ld2 script, this is because the remainder of the `make' refers to ld2 without fully specifying its path and does this from multiple subdirectories. The assumption is that $installbin is in your current PATH. If this is not the case or if you do not have an install program, `make' will fail at some point. If this happens, just manually copy ld2 from the source directory to someplace in your PATH.
There are two steps to running the test suite:
make test 2>&1 | tee log.make-test
cd t;./perl harness 2>&1 | tee ../log.harnessThe same tests are run both times, but more information is provided when running as `./perl harness'.
Test results vary depending on your host system and your Cygwin configuration. It is possible that Cygwin will pass all the tests, but it is more likely that some tests will fail for one of these reasons.
UNIX file permissions are based on sets of mode bits for {read,write,execute} for each {user,group,other}. By default Cygwin only tracks the Win32 readonly attribute represented as the UNIX file user write bit (files are always readable, files are executable if they have a .{com,bat,exe} extension or begin with #!, directories are always readable and executable). On WinNT with the ntea CYGWIN setting, the remaining mode bits are stored as extended attributes. On WinNT with the ntsec CYGWIN setting, permissions use the standard WinNT security descriptors and access control lists. Without one of these options, these tests will fail:
Failed Test List of failed
------------------------------------
io/fs.t 5, 7, 9-10
lib/anydbm.t 2
lib/db-btree.t 20
lib/db-hash.t 16
lib/db-recno.t 18
lib/gdbm.t 2
lib/ndbm.t 2
lib/odbm.t 2
lib/sdbm.t 2
op/stat.t 9, 20 (.tmp not an executable extension)FAT partitions do not support hard links (whereas NTFS does), in which case Cygwin implements link() by copying the file. These tests will fail:
Failed Test List of failed
------------------------------------
io/fs.t 4
op/stat.t 3On FAT partitions the filetime granularity is 2 seconds. The following test will fail:
Failed Test List of failed
------------------------------------
io/fs.t 18When Perl is running in taint mode, $ENV{PATH} is considered tainted and not used, so DLLs not in the default system directories will not be found. While the tests are running you will see warnings popup from the system with messages like:
Win9x
Error Starting Program
A required .DLL file, CYGWIN1.DLL, was not found
WinNT
perl.exe or sh.exe - Unable to Locate DLL
The dynamic link library cygwin1.dll could not be found in the
specified path ...Just click OK and ignore them. When running `make test', 2 popups occur. During `./perl harness', 4 popups occur. Also, these tests will fail:
Failed Test List of failed
------------------------------------
op/taint.t 1, 3, 31, 37Alternatively, you can copy cygwin1.dll into one of the Windows system directories (although, this is not recommended).
Cygwin does not require /etc/group, in which case the op/grent.t test will be skipped. The check performed by op/grent.t expects to see entries that use the members field, otherwise this test will fail:
Failed Test List of failed
------------------------------------
op/grent.t 1Any additional tests that fail are likely due to bugs in Cygwin or the optional libraries. It is expected that by the time of the next net release most of these will be solved so they are not described here.
Cygwin does an outstanding job of providing UNIX-like semantics on top of Win32 systems. However, in addition to the items noted above, there are some differences that you should know about. This is only a very brief guide to portability, more information can be found in the Cygwin documentation.
Pathnames
Cygwin pathnames can be separated by forward (/) or backward (\) slashes. They may also begin with drive letters (C:) or Universal Naming Codes (//UNC). DOS device names (aux, con, prn, com*, lpt?) are invalid as base filenames. However, they can be used in extensions (e.g., hello.aux). Names may not contain these characters:
: * ? " < > |File names are case insensitive, but case preserving. With the mixed CYGWIN setting, file names are mixed-case (although, directory names remain case insensitive).
The mixed setting is only available with the "coolview" version of cygwin1.dll provided by Sergey Okhapkin at:
ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Okhapkin_Sergey/Text/Binary
When a file is opened it is in either text or binary mode. In text mode a file is subject to CR/LF/Ctrl-Z translations. With Cygwin, the default mode for an open() is determined by the mode of the mount that underlies the file. Perl provides a binmode() function to set binary mode on files that otherwise would be treated as text. sysopen() with the O_TEXT flag sets text mode on files that otherwise would be treated as binary:
sysopen(FOO, "bar", O_WRONLY|O_CREAT|O_TEXT)lseek(), tell() and sysseek() only work with files opened in binary mode.
The text/binary issue is covered at length in the Cygwin documentation.
.exe
The Cygwin stat() makes the .exe extension transparent by looking for a foo.exe when you ask for foo (unless a foo also exists). Cygwin does not require a .exe extension, but gcc adds it automatically when building a program. However, when accessing an executable as a normal file (e.g., install or cp in a makefile) the .exe is not transparent.
NOTE: There is a version of install that understands the .exe semantics, it can be found at:
ftp://ftp.franken.de/pub/win32/develop/gnuwin32/cygwin/porters/Humblet_Pierre_A/chown()
On WinNT with the ntsec CYGWIN setting, chown() can change a file's user and group IDs. In all other configurations chown() is a no-op, although this is appropriate on Win9x since there is no security model.
Miscellaneous
File locking using the F_GETLK command to fcntl() is a stub that returns ENOSYS.
Win9x can not rename() an open file (although WinNT can).
This will install Perl, including man pages.
make install | tee log.make-installNOTE: If STDERR is redirected `make install' will not prompt you to install perl into /usr/bin.
You may need to be Administrator to run `make install'. If you are not, you must have write access to the directories in question.
Information on installing the Perl documentation in HTML format can be found in the INSTALL document.
These are the files in the Perl release that contain references to Cygwin. These very brief notes attempt to explain the reason for all conditional code. Hopefully, keeping this up to date will allow the Cygwin port to be kept as clean as possible.
INSTALL README.cygwin
Changes Changes5.005 Changes5.004
AUTHORS MAINTAIN MANIFEST README.win32
pod/perl.pod pod/perlfaq3.pod pod/perlhist.pod pod/perlmodlib.pod
pod/perlport.pod pod/perltoc.pod pod/perl5004delta.podcygwin/Makefile.SHs
cygwin/ld2.in
cygwin/perlld.in
ext/IPC/SysV/hints/cygwin.pl
ext/NDBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
ext/ODBM_File/hints/cygwin.pl
hints/cygwin.sh
Configure - help finding hints from uname,
shared libperl required for dynamic loading
Makefile.SH - linklibperl
Porting/patchls - cygwin in port list
installman - man pages with :: translated to .
installperl - install dll/ld2/perlld, install to pods
makedepend.SH - uwinfixt/io/tell.t - binmode
t/lib/glob-basic.t - Win32 directory list access differs from read mode
t/op/magic.t - $^X/symlink WORKAROUND, s/.exe//
t/op/stat.t - no /dev, skip Win32 ftCreationTime quirk
(cache manager sometimes preserves ctime of file
previously created and deleted), no -u (setuid)EXTERN.h - __declspec(dllimport)
XSUB.h - __declspec(dllexport)
cygwin/cygwin.c - os_extras (getcwd)
perl.c - os_extras
perl.h - binmode
doio.c - win9x can not rename a file when it is open
pp_sys.c - do not define h_errno
mg.c - environ WORKAROUND
unixish.h - environ WORKAROUND
util.c - environ WORKAROUNDext/POSIX/POSIX.xs - tzname defined externally
ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/pair.c
- EXTCONST needs to be redefined from EXTERN.h
ext/SDBM_File/sdbm/sdbm.c
- binary openlib/Cwd.pm - hook to internal Cwd::cwd
lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm
- require MM_Cygwin.pm
lib/ExtUtils/MM_Cygwin.pm
- canonpath, cflags, manifypods, perl_archive
lib/File/Spec/Unix.pm - preserve //unc
lib/perl5db.pl - use stdin not /dev/tty
utils/perlcc.PL - DynaLoader.a in compile, -DUSEIMPORTLIB
utils/perldoc.PL - version commentUpon each start, make warns that a rule for perlmain.o is overridden (but there seems to be no better solution than adding an explicit define).
`make clean' does not remove library .def and .exe.stackdump files.
The ld2 script contains references to the source directory. You should change these to /usr/local/bin (or whatever) after install.
Charles Wilson <cwilson@ece.gatech.edu>, Eric Fifer <efifer@sanwaint.com>, alexander smishlajev <als@turnhere.com>, Steven Morlock <newspost@morlock.net>, Sebastien Barre <Sebastien.Barre@utc.fr>, Teun Burgers <burgers@ecn.nl>.
Last updated: 1 March 2000