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Stephen
03-26-1999, 12:28 AM
Calling all (any) experts on the compilation of Perl on a Win95 machine...

I have been trying to compile the source code directly and have run into difficulties. First off, I needed a c compiler. So I went to the Cygnus site and dowloaded the free Cygnus-Win32 suite which includes a gcc compiler. I set that up (at least, my "Hello, World" program compiled). Now I'm trying to compile the source for Perl5.005_02 by running the perl configuration script (by typing sh Configure in the perl root directory).

This relies on a perl configuration file config.sh which I replaced with the recommended cygwin32.sh file found in the /hints directory. After typing "sh Configure" at the command line you get an interactive session which mainly requires you to just hit the enter key repeatedly. About 2/3 of the way through it dies. The first suspicious ouput message is this (from early in the session):

No string header found - you'll surely have problems.

Even so, the Configure problem seems to ignore this warning and merrily goes on its way. The LAST thing it uttered before dying (while checking the properties of the gcc compiler) was this:

Your stat() doesn't know about block sizes

I don't know if this is fatal or not, but in the status line at the bottom of the window you can see it still checking files until it gets to grep and then... nothing. Dead.

Has anyone else imported the Cygnus-Win32 suite and managed to compile the perl source code this way? If so, I'd love to see the config.sh file you used.

Thanks.

[This message has been edited by Stephen (edited 03-26-99).]

Stephen
03-26-1999, 03:48 PM
Have any c programmers compiled the perl source code at all? If so, which compiler? I'd like to get the Cygwin32 gcc compiler (see above) to do the work (since it's free) but I'll certainly take suggestions.

Stephen
03-26-1999, 07:35 PM
OK, you can all stand down (like anyone paid attention to this thread!). I gave up on trying to compile the source code directly. I went back to the binary version for Win95 available from the mysql site. I think I got that going, and it has the DBD::Mysql database drivers in it, which is what I was really after. Haven't tested it yet, but I'm certainly happier than I was yesterday(!)

Terra
03-27-1999, 02:52 AM
I've never done it for Windows, but I can tell you this, Perl is very difficult to compile with a plethora of options... I always just used the binary version since my Symantic C compiler always hurled on it... It couldn't compile the parser/tokenizer files right...

I spent a good week fine tuning the new Linux Perl 5.005_02 on the SIX server... TAZ uses the stock 5.004_04 RedHat binaries, I wanted much more for the SIX server...

Perl is a beast to compile just right, but in the end I'm very happy with the final results I obtained with all the tinkering and fine-tuning...

--
Terra
--Cross-platform? sometimes!--
FutureQuest

[This message has been edited by ccTech (edited 03-27-99).]

Justin
03-27-1999, 03:55 AM
I use DJGPP, which is freeware:

http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/

I haven't compiled Perl though - I just used the binaries for that (and php / apache / mysql) - but I might give it a shot one of these days.

DJGPP handles C/C++ and is pretty powerful. I haven't used it much yet, as I'm still quite new with C, but so far it's good, and I've heard a lot about it before I downloaded it. It's not a Windows app - it's DOS command line (better that way, IMO).

Let me know how it works out - I want to compile Perl myself, as the binaries are always a few revisions behind on the Windows platform http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif


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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support