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. This version of Perl is
not supported on VOS Release 14.2 or earlier releases. If you have a Continuum
platform running VOS Release 14.3 through 14.7, download Perl from the Stratus
Anonymous FTP site at
ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/continuum/continuum.html. If you have a
V Series platform running VOS Release 15.0 or later, or if you have a V Series
platform running OpenVOS Release 17.0 or later, download Perl from
ftp://ftp.stratus.com/pub/vos/posix/ga/v-series/v-series.html. The perl
distribution files on the Stratus anonymous FTP site are stored in a format
called a "bundled file". 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/C++ and GNU Tools product from Stratus Technologies.
BUILDING PERL FOR VOS¶
To build perl from its source code on the Stratus Continuum platform, you must
be have VOS Release 14.5.0 or later, the STCP product, and the GNU C/C++ and
GNU Tools, Release 2.0.1 or later. On the V Series platform you must have VOS
Release 15.0.0 or later, and any version of the GNU C/C++ and GNU Tools
product.
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 and default write permission to
">system>ported" and all subdirectories. Then 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 (replace the string VERSION by the appropriate
version number):
>system>ported>lib>perl5>VERSION>7100
>system>ported>lib>perl5>VERSION>8000
>system>ported>lib>perl5>VERSION>i786
- 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>VERSION
Put site-specific architecture-dependent files into one of the following
directories:
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION>7100
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION>8000
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION>i786
- 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 or later, the VOS POSIX runtime sets up the PA-RISC and
IA-32 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 has been fixed in VOS
Release 15.2 and higher.
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/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¶
October 6, 2010