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PERLVOS(1)                            Perl Programmers Reference Guide                            PERLVOS(1)



NAME
       README.vos - Perl for Stratus VOS

SYNOPSIS
       This file contains notes for building perl on the Stratus VOS operating system.  Perl is a scripting
       or macro language that is popular on many systems.  See perlbook for a number of good books on Perl.

       These are instructions for building Perl from source.  Most people can simply download a pre-compiled
       distribution from the VOS anonymous FTP site.  This version of Perl is not supported on VOS Release
       14.2.0 or earlier releases.  If you are running VOS Release 14.3.0 or later, download Perl from
       ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/ga.html.  Instructions for unbundling the Perl distribution
       file are at ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/utility/utility.html.

       If you are running VOS Release 14.4.1 or later, you can obtain a pre-compiled, supported copy of perl
       by purchasing Release 2.0.1 (or later) of the VOS GNU C++ and GNU Tools product from Stratus
       Technologies.

BUILDING PERL FOR VOS
       To build perl from its source code, you must have a Continuum platform running VOS Release 14.5.0 or
       later, the STCP product, and the GNU C++ and GNU Tools, Release 2.0.1 or later.

       To build full perl using the supplied Configure script and makefiles, change to the "vos"
       subdirectory and type the command "compile_full_perl" or "start_process compile_full_perl".  This
       will configure, build, and test perl.

INSTALLING PERL IN VOS
       1.  If you have built perl using the Configure script, ensure that you have modify permission to
           ">system>ported" and type

                gmake install

       2.  While there are currently no architecture-specific extensions or modules distributed with perl,
           the following directories can be used to hold such files:

                >system>ported>lib>perl5>5.9.0>7100
                >system>ported>lib>perl5>5.9.0>8000

       3.  Site-specific perl extensions and modules can be installed in one of two places.  Put
           architecture-independent files into:

                >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0

           Put site-specific architecture-dependent files into one of the following directories:

                >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0>7100
                >system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>5.9.0>8000

       4.  You can examine the @INC variable from within a perl program to see the order in which Perl
           searches these directories.

USING PERL IN VOS
       Restrictions of Perl on VOS

       This port of Perl version 5 to VOS prefers Unix-style, slash-separated pathnames over VOS-style
       greater-than-separated pathnames.  VOS-style pathnames should work in most contexts, but if you have
       trouble, replace all greater-than characters by slash characters.  Because the slash character is
       used as a pathname delimiter, Perl cannot process VOS pathnames containing a slash character in a
       directory or file name; these must be renamed.

       This port of Perl also uses Unix-epoch date values internally.  As long as you are dealing with ASCII
       character string representations of dates, this should not be an issue.  The supported epoch is
       January 1, 1980 to January 17, 2038.

       See the file pod/perlport.pod for more information about the VOS port of Perl.

       Handling of underflow and overflow

       Prior to VOS Release 14.7.0, VOS does not support automatically mapping overflowed floating-point
       values to +infinity, nor automatically mapping underflowed floating-point values to zero, unlike many
       other platforms.  The Perl pack function has been modified to perform such mapping in software on
       VOS.  Performing other floating-point computations that underflow or overflow will probably result in
       SIGFPE.  Don't push your luck.

       As of VOS Release 14.7.0, the VOS POSIX runtime sets up the PA-RISC hardware floating-point status
       register so that the overflow and underflow exceptions do not trap, but instead automatically convert
       the result to infinity or zero, as appropriate.  As of this writing, there are still floating-point
       operations that can trap, for example, subtracting two infinite values.  This is recorded as
       suggestion posix-1022, which is not yet fixed.

TEST STATUS
       When Perl 5.9.0 is built using the native build process on VOS Release 14.7.0 and GNU C++/GNU Tools
       2.0.2a, all but nine attempted tests either pass or result in TODO (ignored) failures.  The tests
       that fail are:

       t/io/dup, test 2 t/io/tell, test 28 t/op/pack, test 0 ext/B/t/bytecode, test 1 ext/Devel/Peek/t/Peek,
       test 1 ext/Encode/t/enc_module, test 1 ext/IO/t/io_dup, test 2 lib/ExtUtils/t/MM_Unix, test 94
       lib/Net/ing/t/450_service, test 8

SUPPORT STATUS
       I'm offering this port "as is".  You can ask me questions, but I can't guarantee I'll be able to
       answer them.  There are some excellent books available on the Perl language; consult a book seller.

       If you want a supported version of perl for VOS, purchase the VOS GNU C++ and GNU Tools Release 2.0.1
       (or later) product from Stratus Technologies, along with a support contract (or from anyone else who
       will sell you support).

AUTHOR
       Paul Green (Paul.Green@stratus.com)

LAST UPDATE
       January 15, 2004



perl v5.10.0                                     2007-12-18                                       PERLVOS(1)