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   1  If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
   2  see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
   3  specifically designed to be readable as is.
   4  
   5  =head1 NAME
   6  
   7  perlce - Perl for WinCE
   8  
   9  =head1 Building Perl for WinCE
  10  
  11  =head2 DESCRIPTION
  12  
  13  This file gives the instructions for building Perl5.8 and above for
  14  WinCE.  Please read and understand the terms under which this
  15  software is distributed.
  16  
  17  =head2 General explanations on cross-compiling WinCE
  18  
  19  =over
  20  
  21  =item *
  22  
  23  C<miniperl> is built. This is a single executable (without DLL), intended
  24  to run on Win32, and it will facilitate remaining build process; all binaries
  25  built after it are foreign and should not run locally.
  26  
  27  C<miniperl> is built using C<./win32/Makefile>; this is part of normal
  28  build process invoked as dependency from wince/Makefile.ce
  29  
  30  =item *
  31  
  32  After C<miniperl> is built, C<configpm> is invoked to create right C<Config.pm>
  33  in right place and its corresponding Cross.pm.
  34  
  35  Unlike Win32 build, miniperl will not have C<Config.pm> of host within reach;
  36  it rather will use C<Config.pm> from within cross-compilation directories.
  37  
  38  File C<Cross.pm> is dead simple: for given cross-architecture places in @INC
  39  a path where perl modules are, and right C<Config.pm> in that place.
  40  
  41  That said, C<miniperl -Ilib -MConfig -we 1> should report an error, because
  42  it can not find C<Config.pm>. If it does not give an error -- wrong C<Config.pm>
  43  is substituted, and resulting binaries will be a mess.
  44  
  45  C<miniperl -MCross -MConfig -we 1> should run okay, and it will provide right
  46  C<Config.pm> for further compilations.
  47  
  48  =item *
  49  
  50  During extensions build phase, a script C<./win32/buldext.pl> is invoked,
  51  which in turn steps in C<./ext> subdirectories and performs a build of
  52  each extension in turn.
  53  
  54  All invokes of C<Makefile.PL> are provided with C<-MCross> so to enable cross-
  55  compile.
  56  
  57  =back
  58  
  59  =head2 BUILD
  60  
  61  This section describes the steps to be performed to build PerlCE.
  62  You may find additional information about building perl for WinCE
  63  at L<http://perlce.sourceforge.net> and some pre-built binaries.
  64  
  65  =head3 Tools & SDK
  66  
  67  For compiling, you need following:
  68  
  69  =over 4
  70  
  71  =item * Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools
  72  
  73  =item * Microsoft Visual C++
  74  
  75  =item * Rainer Keuchel's celib-sources
  76  
  77  =item * Rainer Keuchel's console-sources
  78  
  79  =back
  80  
  81  Needed source files can be downloaded at
  82  L<http://www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/dirlist.html>
  83  
  84  =head3 Make
  85  
  86  Normally you only need to edit C<./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat>
  87  to reflect your system and run it.
  88  
  89  File C<./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat> is actually a wrapper to call
  90  C<nmake -f makefile.ce> with appropriate parameters and it accepts extra
  91  parameters and forwards them to C<nmake> command as additional
  92  arguments. You should pass target this way.
  93  
  94  To prepare distribution you need to do following:
  95  
  96  =over 4
  97  
  98  =item * go to C<./win32> subdirectory
  99  
 100  =item * edit file C<./win32/ce-helpers/compile.bat>
 101  
 102  =item * run 
 103    compile.bat
 104  
 105  =item * run 
 106    compile.bat dist
 107  
 108  =back
 109  
 110  C<Makefile.ce> has C<CROSS_NAME> macro, and it is used further to refer to
 111  your cross-compilation scheme. You could assign a name to it, but this
 112  is not necessary, because by default it is assigned after your machine
 113  configuration name, such as "wince-sh3-hpc-wce211", and this is enough
 114  to distinguish different builds at the same time. This option could be
 115  handy for several different builds on same platform to perform, say,
 116  threaded build. In a following example we assume that all required
 117  environment variables are set properly for C cross-compiler (a special
 118  *.bat file could fit perfectly to this purpose) and your C<compile.bat>
 119  has proper "MACHINE" parameter set, to, say, C<wince-mips-pocket-wce300>.
 120  
 121    compile.bat
 122    compile.bat dist
 123    compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" "USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define"
 124    compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" "USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define" dist
 125  
 126  If all goes okay and no errors during a build, you'll get two independent
 127  distributions: C<wince-mips-pocket-wce300> and C<mips-wce300-thr>.
 128  
 129  Target C<dist> prepares distribution file set. Target C<zipdist> performs
 130  same as C<dist> but additionally compresses distribution files into zip
 131  archive.
 132  
 133  NOTE: during a build there could be created a number (or one) of C<Config.pm>
 134  for cross-compilation ("foreign" C<Config.pm>) and those are hidden inside
 135  C<../xlib/$(CROSS_NAME)> with other auxilary files, but, and this is important to
 136  note, there should be B<no> C<Config.pm> for host miniperl.
 137  If you'll get an error that perl could not find Config.pm somewhere in building
 138  process this means something went wrong. Most probably you forgot to
 139  specify a cross-compilation when invoking miniperl.exe to Makefile.PL
 140  When building an extension for cross-compilation your command line should
 141  look like
 142  
 143    ..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross=mips-wce300-thr Makefile.PL
 144  
 145  or just
 146  
 147    ..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross Makefile.PL
 148  
 149  to refer a cross-compilation that was created last time.
 150  
 151  All questions related to building for WinCE devices could be asked in
 152  F<perlce-user@lists.sourceforge.net> mailing list.
 153  
 154  =head1 Using Perl on WinCE
 155  
 156  =head2 DESCRIPTION
 157  
 158  PerlCE is currently linked with a simple console window, so it also
 159  works on non-hpc devices.
 160  
 161  The simple stdio implementation creates the files C<stdin.txt>,
 162  C<stdout.txt> and C<stderr.txt>, so you might examine them if your
 163  console has only a liminted number of cols.
 164  
 165  When exitcode is non-zero, a message box appears, otherwise the
 166  console closes, so you might have to catch an exit with
 167  status 0 in your program to see any output.
 168  
 169  stdout/stderr now go into the files C</perl-stdout.txt> and
 170  C</perl-stderr.txt.>
 171  
 172  PerlIDE is handy to deal with perlce.
 173  
 174  =head2 LIMITATIONS
 175  
 176  No fork(), pipe(), popen() etc.
 177  
 178  =head2 ENVIRONMENT
 179  
 180  All environment vars must be stored in HKLM\Environment as
 181  strings. They are read at process startup.
 182  
 183  =over
 184  
 185  =item PERL5LIB
 186  
 187  Usual perl lib path (semi-list).
 188  
 189  =item PATH
 190  
 191  Semi-list for executables.
 192  
 193  =item TMP
 194  
 195  - Tempdir.
 196  
 197  =item UNIXROOTPATH
 198  
 199  - Root for accessing some special files, i.e. C</dev/null>, C</etc/services>.
 200  
 201  =item ROWS/COLS
 202  
 203  - Rows/cols for console.
 204  
 205  =item HOME
 206  
 207  - Home directory.
 208  
 209  =item CONSOLEFONTSIZE
 210  
 211  - Size for console font.
 212  
 213  =back
 214  
 215  You can set these with cereg.exe, a (remote) registry editor
 216  or via the PerlIDE.
 217  
 218  =head2 REGISTRY
 219  
 220  To start perl by clicking on a perl source file, you have
 221  to make the according entries in HKCR (see C<ce-helpers/wince-reg.bat>).
 222  cereg.exe (which must be executed on a desktop pc with
 223  ActiveSync) is reported not to work on some devices.
 224  You have to create the registry entries by hand using a 
 225  registry editor.
 226  
 227  =head2 XS
 228  
 229  The following Win32-Methods are built-in:
 230  
 231      newXS("Win32::GetCwd", w32_GetCwd, file);
 232      newXS("Win32::SetCwd", w32_SetCwd, file);
 233      newXS("Win32::GetTickCount", w32_GetTickCount, file);
 234      newXS("Win32::GetOSVersion", w32_GetOSVersion, file);
 235      newXS("Win32::IsWinNT", w32_IsWinNT, file);
 236      newXS("Win32::IsWin95", w32_IsWin95, file);
 237      newXS("Win32::IsWinCE", w32_IsWinCE, file);
 238      newXS("Win32::CopyFile", w32_CopyFile, file);
 239      newXS("Win32::Sleep", w32_Sleep, file);
 240      newXS("Win32::MessageBox", w32_MessageBox, file);
 241      newXS("Win32::GetPowerStatus", w32_GetPowerStatus, file);
 242      newXS("Win32::GetOemInfo", w32_GetOemInfo, file);
 243      newXS("Win32::ShellEx", w32_ShellEx, file);
 244  
 245  =head2 BUGS
 246  
 247  Opening files for read-write is currently not supported if
 248  they use stdio (normal perl file handles).
 249  
 250  If you find bugs or if it does not work at all on your
 251  device, send mail to the address below. Please report
 252  the details of your device (processor, ceversion, 
 253  devicetype (hpc/palm/pocket)) and the date of the downloaded
 254  files. 
 255  
 256  =head2 INSTALLATION
 257  
 258  Currently installation instructions are at L<http://perlce.sourceforge.net/>.
 259  
 260  After installation & testing processes will stabilize, information will
 261  be more precise.
 262  
 263  =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
 264  
 265  The port for Win32 was used as a reference.
 266  
 267  =head1 History of WinCE port
 268  
 269  =over
 270  
 271  =item 5.6.0
 272  
 273  Initial port of perl to WinCE. It was performed in separate directory
 274  named C<wince>. This port was based on contents of C<./win32> directory.
 275  C<miniperl> was not built, user must have HOST perl and properly edit 
 276  C<makefile.ce> to reflect this.
 277  
 278  =item 5.8.0
 279  
 280  wince port was kept in the same C<./wince> directory, and C<wince/Makefile.ce>
 281  was used to invoke native compiler to create HOST miniperl, which then
 282  facilitates cross-compiling process.
 283  Extension building support was added.
 284  
 285  =item 5.9.4
 286  
 287  Two directories C<./win32> and C<./wince> were merged, so perlce build
 288  process comes in C<./win32> directory.
 289  
 290  =back
 291  
 292  =head1 AUTHORS
 293  
 294  =over
 295  
 296  =item Rainer Keuchel <coyxc@rainer-keuchel.de>
 297  
 298  provided initial port of Perl, which appears to be most essential work, as
 299  it was a breakthrough on having Perl ported at all.
 300  Many thanks and obligations to Rainer!
 301  
 302  =item Vadim Konovalov
 303  
 304  made further support of WinCE port.
 305  
 306  =back