1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you 2see. It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is 3specially designed to be readable as is. 4 5=head1 NAME 6 7README.vos - Perl for Stratus VOS 8 9=head1 SYNOPSIS 10 11This file contains notes for building perl on the Stratus VOS 12operating system. Perl is a scripting or macro language that is 13popular on many systems. See L<perlbook> for a number of good 14books on Perl. 15 16These are instructions for building Perl from source. Most 17people can simply download a pre-compiled distribution from the 18VOS anonymous FTP site. This version of Perl is not supported 19on VOS Release 14.2.0 or earlier releases. If you are running 20VOS Release 14.3.0 or later, download Perl from 21ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/ga.html. Instructions 22for unbundling the Perl distribution file are at 23ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/utility/utility.html. 24 25If you are running VOS Release 14.4.1 or later, you can obtain a 26pre-compiled, supported copy of perl by purchasing Release 2.0.1 27(or later) of the VOS GNU C++ and GNU Tools product from Stratus 28Technologies. 29 30=head1 BUILDING PERL FOR VOS 31 32To build perl from its source code, you must have a Continuum 33platform running VOS Release 14.5.0 or later, the STCP product, 34and the GNU C++ and GNU Tools, Release 2.0.1 or later. 35 36To build full perl using the supplied Configure script and 37makefiles, change to the "vos" subdirectory and type the command 38"compile_full_perl" or "start_process compile_full_perl". This 39will configure, build, and test perl. 40 41=head1 INSTALLING PERL IN VOS 42 43=over 4 44 45=item 1 46 47If you have built perl using the Configure script, ensure that 48you have modify permission to C<< >system>ported >> and type 49 50 gmake install 51 52=item 2 53 54While there are currently no architecture-specific 55extensions or modules distributed with perl, the following 56directories can be used to hold such files: 57 58 >system>ported>lib>perl5>5.9.0>7100 59 >system>ported>lib>perl5>5.9.0>8000 60 61=item 3 62 63Site-specific perl extensions and modules can be installed in one of 64two places. Put architecture-independent files into: 65 66 >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0 67 68Put site-specific architecture-dependent files into one of the 69following directories: 70 71 >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0>7100 72 >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0>8000 73 74=item 4 75 76You can examine the @INC variable from within a perl program 77to see the order in which Perl searches these directories. 78 79=back 80 81=head1 USING PERL IN VOS 82 83=head2 Restrictions of Perl on VOS 84 85This port of Perl version 5 to VOS prefers Unix-style, 86slash-separated pathnames over VOS-style greater-than-separated 87pathnames. VOS-style pathnames should work in most contexts, but 88if you have trouble, replace all greater-than characters by slash 89characters. Because the slash character is used as a pathname 90delimiter, Perl cannot process VOS pathnames containing a slash 91character in a directory or file name; these must be renamed. 92 93This port of Perl also uses Unix-epoch date values internally. 94As long as you are dealing with ASCII character string 95representations of dates, this should not be an issue. The 96supported epoch is January 1, 1980 to January 17, 2038. 97 98See the file pod/perlport.pod for more information about the VOS 99port of Perl. 100 101=head2 Handling of underflow and overflow 102 103Prior to VOS Release 14.7.0, VOS does not support automatically 104mapping overflowed floating-point values to +infinity, nor 105automatically mapping underflowed floating-point values to zero, 106unlike many other platforms. The Perl pack function has been 107modified to perform such mapping in software on VOS. Performing 108other floating-point computations that underflow or overflow 109will probably result in SIGFPE. Don't push your luck. 110 111As of VOS Release 14.7.0, the VOS POSIX runtime sets up the 112PA-RISC hardware floating-point status register so that the 113overflow and underflow exceptions do not trap, but instead 114automatically convert the result to infinity or zero, as 115appropriate. As of this writing, there are still floating-point 116operations that can trap, for example, subtracting two infinite 117values. This is recorded as suggestion posix-1022, which is not 118yet fixed. 119 120=head1 TEST STATUS 121 122When Perl 5.9.0 is built using the native build process on VOS 123Release 14.7.0 and GNU C++/GNU Tools 2.0.2a, all but nine 124attempted tests either pass or result in TODO (ignored) 125failures. The tests that fail are: 126 127t/io/dup, test 2 128t/io/tell, test 28 129t/op/pack, test 0 130ext/B/t/bytecode, test 1 131ext/Devel/Peek/t/Peek, test 1 132ext/Encode/t/enc_module, test 1 133ext/IO/t/io_dup, test 2 134lib/ExtUtils/t/MM_Unix, test 94 135lib/Net/ing/t/450_service, test 8 136 137=head1 SUPPORT STATUS 138 139I'm offering this port "as is". You can ask me questions, but I 140can't guarantee I'll be able to answer them. There are some 141excellent books available on the Perl language; consult a book 142seller. 143 144If you want a supported version of perl for VOS, purchase the 145VOS GNU C++ and GNU Tools Release 2.0.1 (or later) product from 146Stratus Technologies, along with a support contract (or from 147anyone else who will sell you support). 148 149=head1 AUTHOR 150 151Paul Green (Paul.Green@stratus.com) 152 153=head1 LAST UPDATE 154 155January 15, 2004 156 157=cut 158