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The 640 MEG Shareware Studio 2
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The 640 Meg Shareware Studio CD-ROM Volume II (Data Express)(1993).ISO
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pl4019ax.zip
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README.DOS
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1992-01-26
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Notes on BC++ (VROOM) port of Perl 4.019
----------------------------------------
Perl Library:
Copy all the .pl files to "c:/usr/local/lib/perl"; this is the
directory plumbed into @INC where Perl will look for packages
and/or the debugger.
Globbing:
Globbing is performed by perlglob.exe; both it and perl.exe
should be copied to a directory somewhere in your DOS PATH.
perlglob.exe will be found whenever it is needed - just make
sure its in your PATH.
By default globbing is done in lower case; if you prefer upper
case or want the option to switch between them use the PERLGLOB
environment variable. It works as follows:
set PERLGLOB=U
set PERLGLOB=u - Glob in Upper case
set PERLGLOB=<anything else you like>
or
no environment variable called PERLGLOB - Glob in lower case
Temporary files:
Placement of temporary files is controlled through the TMP
environment variable. Files will be placed in the current
directory if there's no such variable in the environment.
Temporary files are deleted after use.
Additional Perl subroutines:
Two DOS specific user subroutines have been added via the
usersub.c hook.
&stkfree() - Returns the size of unused stack space.
&heapfree() - Returns the size of free space in the far heap.
Swapping:
When you invoke other programs from Perl (via system() or similar)
this version of Perl will attempt to swap itself out of memory
either to extended memory or disk (in that order). Swap files
are created in the current working directory and are NOT
influenced by the setting of the TMP environment variable.
There is a restriction of the type of program that you can run from
Perl with this implementation. Any program that leaves part of
itself resident before returning to DOS (such as print.com or
some shells) will cause Perl to fail with an error message of
"XSPAWN error". xspawn() is the routine used to run programs
from Perl; it requires that all memory used by the program run
is freed before return to DOS (and hence to xspawn).
This is the price for getting 605K in which to run programs
from Perl rather than about 200K if this method wasnt used.
Bugs:
This version of Perl has passed all the test scripts except those
that depend on UNIX or that re-invoke Perl from within the
script (not enough memory !).
If you find something that works on a UNIX version of Perl 4.019
and *doesn't* work on this version then I'd really like to hear
about it (complete with the script that caused the problem so
I can troubleshoot the bug). If the problem can be reproduced
on the UNIX version then post a note to comp.lang.perl or
send a note to Larry (lwall@netlabs.com). If you mail Larry
remember that he probably gets more mail than you could imagine
in your wildest nightmares..... so try to make *very* sure that
you have a real bug. DOS specific problems on this port should
be mailed to me (stu@tandem.com).