Provided by: perl-doc_5.18.2-2ubuntu1.7_all 
NAME
perlce - Perl for WinCE
Building Perl for WinCE
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
• 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
• 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.
• During extensions build phase, a script ./win32/buldext.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.
BUILD
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:
• Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools
• Microsoft Visual C++
• Rainer Keuchel's celib-sources
• 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:
• go to ./win32 subdirectory
• edit file ./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat
• run
compile.bat
• 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.
perl v5.18.2 2014-01-06 PERLCE(1)