This is a description of the Perl 5.8.5 package for Cygwin.

--------------------

NEWS:

- Fixed a bug in the buildscript (Compress::Zlib extension was not 
  included due to this bug).
- Moved distributed addon extensions from site_perl under vendor_perl
  path.
- The CPAN repository and build directory *must* reside in a path 
  mounted in binmode:

    mount -s -b -f c:/cygwin/home/username/.cpan /home/username/.cpan
    mount -u -b -f c:/cygwin/home/username/.cpan /home/username/.cpan

  where username is your home path and cygwin / windows username.
  After mounting like this it should work with only few warnings or 
  completely without problems, depending on your environment settings 
  for the CYGWIN variable.

OLDS:

http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2004/perl-5.8.5.html
5.8.5 is a maintenance release for perl 5.8, incorporating various
minor bugfixes and optimisations. Please see the perldelta
http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.5/pod/perl585delta.pod for
the full details. Please report bugs using the perlbug utility. If the
build or regression tests fail, make nok. If the build fails to early
to run this, please mail perlbug at perl.org directly.

http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2004/perl-5.8.4.html
5.8.4 is a maintenance release for perl 5.8, incorporating various
minor bugfixes and optimisations. This release updates Perl to the
Unicode Character Database, Version 4.0.1, and fixes some minor errors
in Perl's UTF8 handling. It provides optimisations for Unicode case
conversion functions, map and sort, and on most platforms now provides
protection against memory wrapping attacks. Please see the perldelta
http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.4/pod/perl584delta.pod for
the full details.

http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2004/perl-5.8.3.html
5.8.3 is a maintenance release for perl 5.8, incorporating various
minor bugfixes, including eliminating a couple of errors in Perl's UTF8
handling. Please see the perldelta for the full details:
http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.3/pod/perl583delta.pod

http://dev.perl.org/perl5/news/2003/perl-5.8.2.html
5.8.2 is being released to fix minor binary incompatibilities
discovered between 5.8.1 and 5.8.0. 5.8.2 is fully binary compatible
with 5.8.0, and wherever possible also binary compatible with 5.8.1.
The release also provides other minor bugfixes, including several for
ithreads. Please see the perldelta for the full details:
http://search.cpan.org/~nwclark/perl-5.8.2/pod/perldelta.pod


--------------------

GENERAL:

This package is configured to support dynamic loading.  Binaries are
stripped.  Run `perl -V' to see a summary of the configuration.  Some 
of the Perl features that require optional libraries are enabled 
(crypt, GDBM_File).  SysV IPC is not configured because currently all
the tests are failing, *helpers/bugfixes* wanted!

--------------------

PERLIO:

PerlIO thinks now it lives on a unix system, therefore perl generated 
output contains no longer CRLF's, instead it is like on unix, just LF's
at the lineending in the textfiles (every file is a binary).  You can 
override this by setting PERLIO=crlf in your environment, please read 
the PERLIO docu for details how to use the layers in your scripts for
the runtime.

E.g. add this to your ~/.bashrc file if you want Perl to do conversion 
from LF to CRLF automatically all the time (not recommended): 

    export PERLIO=crlf

--------------------

The CPAN module is included in the standard Perl source package now
so that you can easily access the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network
(CPAN).  See `perldoc CPAN' or just run the `cpan' script.

CPAN will configure itself the first time it runs. 

See news above for prerequisites.

--------------------

64 bit integers support:

This version of perl is configured with -Duse64bitint which leads to 
this statement during the 'make' step:

        Making Storable (dynamic)
Checking if your kit is complete...
Looks good
Writing Makefile for Storable

You appear to have a perl configured to use 64 bit integers in its scalar
variables.  If you have existing data written with an earlier version of
Storable which this version of Storable refuses to load with a

   Byte order is not compatible

error, then please read the section "64 bit data in perl 5.6.0 and 5.6.1"
in the Storable documentation for instructions on how to read your data.

(You can find the documentation at the end of Storable.pm in POD format)

--------------------

To access the local Perl "pod" documentation, use `perldoc':

  perldoc perl.pod (perldoc perl without the suffix .pod is broken)

  perldoc perlfaq (other perldoc calls are working without the suffix)

  perldoc File::Temp

***NOTE: you may want to set LESS=-R for less output in your global 
         Cygwin environment because the escape characters are not 
         expanded without this setting.
  

If you prefer HTML, comprehensive documentation can be found at:

  http://www.perldoc.com/

Also, ActiveState has a nicely formatted version:

  http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Perl/Products/ASPNTOC-ACTIVEPERL


Perl manpages are also provided, they are in a separate package.


--------------------

Notes:

Multiple versions of Perl can be installed at the same time, although
there can only be one "/usr/bin/perl".  If a specific version is
required, refer to the versioned executable, e.g. "perl5.8.2".  See
`perldoc perlrun' for more details.  In particular, it explains the
"#!/usr/bin/env perl" trick as well as other tips on what you should
use as the first line of your program.  Currently you cannot use 
Setup to install more than one Perl, so you need to grab the tarball
and extract it manually from the Cygwin root.  Note that this will 
overwrite an existing installation and needs to be repeated when you
use Setup to uninstall a version which was installed by Setup. The
last package installed / extracted this way will be the one which 
will be used when calling "/usr/bin/perl" now.

If you have general Perl questions there are many places to look for
answers: web pages, mailing lists, books, magazines, news groups,
archives, etc.  Good places to start are `perldoc perlfaq',
http://www.perl.org/ or http://www.perl.com/ .  Vanilla Perl
questions do not belong in the Cygwin mailing lists, hint:
http://lists.perl.org/ .

If you have questions about Perl for Cygwin, many details can be
found in `perldoc perlcygwin'.  Also, the Cygwin mailing lists and
archives are invaluable:

  http://www.cygwin.com/lists.html

------------------

Requirements

  Dynamic/Runtime/Compile Dependencies:
    - cygwin1.dll, cygwin-1.5.10-3 or later.
    - cygcrypt-0.dll, crypt-1.1-1 or later.
    - cyggdbm-4.dll && cyggdbm_compat-4.dll, libgdbm4-1.8.3-7 or later.
      Used by the GDBM_File, NDBM_File and ODBM_File modules.
      (Note: NDBM_File & ODBM_File do not work when installed
             on FAT drives).
    - cygdb-4.2.dll, libdb4.2-4.2.52-1 or later.
      Used by the DB_File module.
    - cygz.dll, zlib-1.2.1-1 or later.
      Used by the Compress::Zlib module.

  CPAN Dependencies:
    When building modules you will need Cygwin packages like make,
    gcc, binutils, ..., (and additional libraries, depending on the
    modules you want to install).

  Static/Compile Dependencies:
    Running Configure and building Perl use many of the Cygwin
    packages. It is difficult to know the full scope of package
    dependencies; however, it has been possible to build Perl in its
    current form since B20 despite all the moving targets.

------------------

Build Instructions

  The primary document for the Cygwin Perl port is the README.cygwin
  file in the Perl source (aka `perldoc perlcygwin').

  In particular, to recreate the runtime and source tarballs:

    # unpack canonical Perl tarball
    tar jxf perl-X.Y.Z-src.tar.bz2

  In the source tarball there is this README, a Policy.sh file and a
  build.sh script:

    cd perl-X.Y.Z
    ./build.sh
    # this runs for a long time

  See the makepkg.sh script in the source package directory for the
  gory details.  The logs captured while building Perl are also
  saved and included in the source tarball.

--------------------

PORT NOTES:

Perl version 5.8.5-1:
  Built on Windows XP SP1a.
  Cygwin 1.5.10(0.116/4/2) 2004-05-25 22:07
  Passes all tests when using CYGWIN=ntsec and PERLIO=perlio running 
  on NTFS, besides one dubious DB_File failure.

  Perl
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/src/perl-5.8.5.tar.bz2
  Modules already included in this distribution
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/Archive/Archive-Tar-1.10.tgz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/Compress/Compress-Zlib-1.32.tar.gz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/MD5/GAAS/MD5-2.03.tar.gz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/IO/IO-Zlib-1.01.tar.gz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/Net/Net-Telnet-3.03.tar.gz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/Term/Term-ReadLine-Perl-1.0203.tar.gz
    <your_CPAN_mirror_here>/CPAN/modules/by-module/Term/TermReadKey-2.21.tar.gz

------------------

Gerrit P. Haase, <gp@familiehaase.de>

Last Updated: 2004-08-19
