perlce

PERLCE(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLCE(1)

NAME
perlce - Perl for WinCE

Building Perl for WinCE
WARNING
Much of this document has become very out of date and needs updating,
rewriting or deleting. The build process was overhauled during the 5.19
development track and the current instructions as of that time are
given in "CURRENT BUILD INSTRUCTIONS"; the previous build instructions,
which are largely superseded but may still contain some useful
information, are left in "OLD BUILD INSTRUCTIONS" but really need
removing after anything of use has been extracted from them.

DESCRIPTION
This file gives the instructions for building Perl5.8 and above for
WinCE. Please read and understand the terms under which this software
is distributed.

General explanations on cross-compiling WinCE
o miniperl is built. This is a single executable (without DLL),
intended to run on Win32, and it will facilitate remaining build
process; all binaries built after it are foreign and should not run
locally.

miniperl is built using ./win32/Makefile; this is part of normal
build process invoked as dependency from wince/Makefile.ce

o After miniperl is built, configpm is invoked to create right
Config.pm in right place and its corresponding Cross.pm.

Unlike Win32 build, miniperl will not have Config.pm of host within
reach; it rather will use Config.pm from within cross-compilation
directories.

File Cross.pm is dead simple: for given cross-architecture places
in @INC a path where perl modules are, and right Config.pm in that
place.

That said, "miniperl -Ilib -MConfig -we 1" should report an error,
because it can not find Config.pm. If it does not give an error --
wrong Config.pm is substituted, and resulting binaries will be a
mess.

"miniperl -MCross -MConfig -we 1" should run okay, and it will
provide right Config.pm for further compilations.

o During extensions build phase, a script ./win32/buildext.pl is
invoked, which in turn steps in ./ext subdirectories and performs a
build of each extension in turn.

All invokes of Makefile.PL are provided with "-MCross" so to enable
cross- compile.

CURRENT BUILD INSTRUCTIONS
(These instructions assume the host is 32-bit Windows. If you're on
64-bit Windows then change "C:\Program Files" to "C:\Program Files
(x86)" throughout.)

1. Install EVC4 from

http://download.microsoft.com/download/c/3/f/c3f8b58b-9753-4c2e-8b96-2dfe3476a2f7/eVC4.exe

Use the key mentioned at

http://download.cnet.com/Microsoft-eMbedded-Visual-C/3000-2212_4-10108490.html?tag=bc

The installer is ancient and has a few bugs on the paths it uses. You
will have to fix them later. Basically, some things go into "C:/Program
Files/Windows CE Tools", others go into "C:/Windows CE Tools"
regardless of the path you gave to the installer (the default will be
"C:/Windows CE Tools"). Reboots will be required for the installer to
proceed. Also .c and .h associations with Visual Studio might get
overridden when installing EVC4. You have been warned.

2. Download celib from GitHub (using "Download ZIP") at

https://github.com/bulk88/celib

Extract it to a spaceless path but not into the perl build source. I
call this directory "celib-palm-3.0" but in the GitHub snapshot it will
be called "celib-master". Make a copy of the
"wince-arm-pocket-wce300-release" folder and rename the copy to
"wince-arm-pocket-wce400". This is a hack so we can build a CE 4.0
binary by linking in CE 3.0 ARM asm; the linker doesn't care. Windows
Mobile/WinCE are backwards compatible with machine code like Desktop
Windows.

3. Download console-1.3-src.tar.gz from

http://sourceforge.net/projects/perlce/files/PerlCE%20support%20files/console/

Extract it to a spaceless path but not into the perl build source.
Don't extract it into the same directory as celib. Make a copy of the
"wince-arm-pocket-wce300" folder and rename the copy to
"wince-arm-pocket-wce400". This is a hack so we can build a CE 4.0
binary by linking in CE 3.0 ARM asm; the linker doesn't care. Windows
Mobile/WinCE are backwards compatible with machine code like Desktop
Windows.

4. Open a command prompt, run your regular batch file to set the
environment for desktop Visual C building, goto the perl source
directory, cd into win32/, fill out Makefile, and do a "nmake all" to
build a Desktop Perl.

5. Open win32/Makefile.ce in a text editor and do something similar to
the following patch.

-CELIBDLLDIR = h:\src\wince\celib-palm-3.0
-CECONSOLEDIR = h:\src\wince\w32console
+CELIBDLLDIR = C:\sources\celib-palm-3.0
+CECONSOLEDIR = C:\sources\w32console

Also change

!if "$(MACHINE)" == ""
MACHINE=wince-arm-hpc-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-arm-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-mips-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-hpc-wce200
#MACHINE=wince-mips-hpc-wce200
#MACHINE=wince-arm-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-mips-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-x86em-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-mips-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-x86em-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-x86-hpc-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-arm-pocket-wce400
!endif

!if "$(MACHINE)" == ""
#MACHINE=wince-arm-hpc-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-arm-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-mips-hpc-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-hpc-wce200
#MACHINE=wince-mips-hpc-wce200
#MACHINE=wince-arm-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-mips-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-x86em-pocket-wce300
#MACHINE=wince-mips-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-sh3-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-x86em-palm-wce211
#MACHINE=wince-x86-hpc-wce300
MACHINE=wince-arm-pocket-wce400
!endif

so wince-arm-pocket-wce400 is the MACHINE type.

6. Use a text editor to open "C:\Program Files\Microsoft eMbedded C++
4.0\EVC\WCE400\BIN\WCEARMV4.BAT". Look for

if "%SDKROOT%"=="" set SDKROOT=...

On a new install it is "C:\Windows CE Tools". Goto "C:\Windows CE
Tools" in a file manager and see if "C:\Windows CE
Tools\wce400\STANDARDSDK\Include\Armv4" exists on your disk. If not the
SDKROOT need to be changed to "C:\Program Files\Windows CE Tools".

Goto celib-palm-3.0\inc\cewin32.h, search for

typedef struct _ABC {

and uncomment the struct.

7. Open another command prompt, ensure PLATFORM is not set to anything
already unless you know what you're doing (so that the correct default
value is set by the next command), and run "C:\Program Files\Microsoft
eMbedded C++ 4.0\EVC\WCE400\BIN\WCEARMV4.BAT"

8. In the WinCE command prompt you made with WCEARMV4.BAT, goto the
perl source directory, cd into win32/ and run "nmake -f Makefile.ce".

9. The ARM perl interpreter (perl519.dll and perl.exe) will be in
something like "C:\perl519\src\win32\wince-arm-pocket-wce400", with the
XS DLLs in "C:\perl519\src\xlib\wince-arm-hpc-wce400\auto".

To prove success on the host machine, run "dumpbin /headers
wince-arm-pocket-wce400\perl.exe" from the win32/ folder and look for
"machine (ARM)" in the FILE HEADER VALUES and "subsystem (Windows CE
GUI)" in the OPTIONAL HEADER VALUES.

OLD BUILD INSTRUCTIONS
This section describes the steps to be performed to build PerlCE. You
may find additional information about building perl for WinCE at
<http://perlce.sourceforge.net> and some pre-built binaries.

Tools & SDK

For compiling, you need following:

o Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools

o Microsoft Visual C++

o Rainer Keuchel's celib-sources

o Rainer Keuchel's console-sources

Needed source files can be downloaded at
<http://perlce.sourceforge.net>

Make

Normally you only need to edit ./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat to
reflect your system and run it.

File ./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat is actually a wrapper to call
"nmake -f makefile.ce" with appropriate parameters and it accepts extra
parameters and forwards them to "nmake" command as additional
arguments. You should pass target this way.

To prepare distribution you need to do following:

o go to ./win32 subdirectory

o edit file ./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat

o run
compile.bat

o run
compile.bat dist

Makefile.ce has "CROSS_NAME" macro, and it is used further to refer to
your cross-compilation scheme. You could assign a name to it, but this
is not necessary, because by default it is assigned after your machine
configuration name, such as "wince-sh3-hpc-wce211", and this is enough
to distinguish different builds at the same time. This option could be
handy for several different builds on same platform to perform, say,
threaded build. In a following example we assume that all required
environment variables are set properly for C cross-compiler (a special
*.bat file could fit perfectly to this purpose) and your compile.bat
has proper "MACHINE" parameter set, to, say,
"wince-mips-pocket-wce300".

compile.bat
compile.bat dist
compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" ^
"USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define"
compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" ^
"USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define" dist

If all goes okay and no errors during a build, you'll get two
independent distributions: "wince-mips-pocket-wce300" and
"mips-wce300-thr".

Target "dist" prepares distribution file set. Target "zipdist" performs
same as "dist" but additionally compresses distribution files into zip
archive.

NOTE: during a build there could be created a number (or one) of
Config.pm for cross-compilation ("foreign" Config.pm) and those are
hidden inside ../xlib/$(CROSS_NAME) with other auxiliary files, but,
and this is important to note, there should be no Config.pm for host
miniperl. If you'll get an error that perl could not find Config.pm
somewhere in building process this means something went wrong. Most
probably you forgot to specify a cross-compilation when invoking
miniperl.exe to Makefile.PL When building an extension for cross-
compilation your command line should look like

..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross=mips-wce300-thr Makefile.PL

or just

..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross Makefile.PL

to refer a cross-compilation that was created last time.

All questions related to building for WinCE devices could be asked in
perlce-user@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list.

Using Perl on WinCE
DESCRIPTION
PerlCE is currently linked with a simple console window, so it also
works on non-hpc devices.

The simple stdio implementation creates the files stdin.txt, stdout.txt
and stderr.txt, so you might examine them if your console has only a
limited number of cols.

When exitcode is non-zero, a message box appears, otherwise the console
closes, so you might have to catch an exit with status 0 in your
program to see any output.

stdout/stderr now go into the files /perl-stdout.txt and
/perl-stderr.txt.

PerlIDE is handy to deal with perlce.

LIMITATIONS
No fork(), pipe(), popen() etc.

ENVIRONMENT
All environment vars must be stored in HKLM\Environment as strings.
They are read at process startup.

PERL5LIB
Usual perl lib path (semi-list).

PATH
Semi-list for executables.

TMP - Tempdir.

UNIXROOTPATH
- Root for accessing some special files, i.e. /dev/null,
/etc/services.

ROWS/COLS
- Rows/cols for console.

HOME
- Home directory.

CONSOLEFONTSIZE
- Size for console font.

You can set these with cereg.exe, a (remote) registry editor or via the
PerlIDE.

REGISTRY
To start perl by clicking on a perl source file, you have to make the
according entries in HKCR (see ce-helpers/wince-reg.bat). cereg.exe
(which must be executed on a desktop pc with ActiveSync) is reported
not to work on some devices. You have to create the registry entries
by hand using a registry editor.

XS
The following Win32-Methods are built-in:

newXS("Win32::GetCwd", w32_GetCwd, file);
newXS("Win32::SetCwd", w32_SetCwd, file);
newXS("Win32::GetTickCount", w32_GetTickCount, file);
newXS("Win32::GetOSVersion", w32_GetOSVersion, file);
newXS("Win32::IsWinNT", w32_IsWinNT, file);
newXS("Win32::IsWin95", w32_IsWin95, file);
newXS("Win32::IsWinCE", w32_IsWinCE, file);
newXS("Win32::CopyFile", w32_CopyFile, file);
newXS("Win32::Sleep", w32_Sleep, file);
newXS("Win32::MessageBox", w32_MessageBox, file);
newXS("Win32::GetPowerStatus", w32_GetPowerStatus, file);
newXS("Win32::GetOemInfo", w32_GetOemInfo, file);
newXS("Win32::ShellEx", w32_ShellEx, file);

BUGS
Opening files for read-write is currently not supported if they use
stdio (normal perl file handles).

If you find bugs or if it does not work at all on your device, send
mail to the address below. Please report the details of your device
(processor, ceversion, devicetype (hpc/palm/pocket)) and the date of
the downloaded files.

INSTALLATION
Currently installation instructions are at
<http://perlce.sourceforge.net/>.

After installation & testing processes will stabilize, information will
be more precise.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The port for Win32 was used as a reference.

History of WinCE port
5.6.0
Initial port of perl to WinCE. It was performed in separate
directory named wince. This port was based on contents of ./win32
directory. miniperl was not built, user must have HOST perl and
properly edit makefile.ce to reflect this.

5.8.0
wince port was kept in the same ./wince directory, and
wince/Makefile.ce was used to invoke native compiler to create HOST
miniperl, which then facilitates cross-compiling process.
Extension building support was added.

5.9.4
Two directories ./win32 and ./wince were merged, so perlce build
process comes in ./win32 directory.

AUTHORS
Rainer Keuchel <coyxc@rainer-keuchel.de>
provided initial port of Perl, which appears to be most essential
work, as it was a breakthrough on having Perl ported at all. Many
thanks and obligations to Rainer!

Vadim Konovalov
made further support of WinCE port.

Daniel Dragan
updated the build process during the 5.19 development track.

perl v5.30.0 2023-11-23 PERLCE(1)

perlce

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