3 This file is best viewed with "perldoc README_win32".
7 README.win32 - Parrot under Windows
11 These are instructions for building the "native" port of Parrot under
12 Windows 2000/XP on the Intel x86 architecture.
16 Win32 "native" ports require no additional software to run but the
17 operating system. There should be other READMEs for (emulation)
18 systems that run on Win32, eg Cygwin.
20 Native compilers include:
22 Borland C++ (bcc) version xxx or later
23 Microsoft Visual C++ (cl) version 13.10.3077 or later
24 MinGW32 with GCC (gcc) version 3.4.2 or later
25 Intel C++ (icl) version 8.0.48 works
27 =head2 Setting Up Parrot
33 You need "nmake" to build Parrot under Windows with Microsoft compilers. It
34 should be available via Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 or the Microsoft .NET
35 Framework SDK 1.1. Download the latter from the Microsoft .NET Framework
36 Homepage L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/>.
38 Note: Parrot will not build using nmake v1.5 from the MS web site. Download
39 one of the above toolkits to obtain a later version, either v7 or v8.
41 MinGW works with its GNU "make" (v 3.81) port and its name is
42 'mingw32-make.exe'. If you also have the Minimal SYStem (MSYS) installed,
43 you will need to remove the Msys/bin folder from your PATH environment
44 variable before calling "perl Configure.pl" and mingw32-make. Perl detects
45 and calls /bin/sh.exe, if found, whenever shelling a new process. sh.exe
46 causes problems for mingw32-make.exe because of its inability to handle
47 Windows pathnames with backslashes. You must run "perl Configure.pl" and
48 mingw32-make from a dosbox; running those commands from an MSYS shell window
49 will experience the same backslash path problems.
53 The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP, using the cmd shell.
57 Parrot no longer comes with its own ICU, thus you need to install it on your
58 system if you want to use it. Note that ICU is now optional, you can
59 build Parrot without it, by not installing it or asking Parrot to
60 ignore it (C<--without-icu>).
62 If you want to use ICU, download it from
63 L<http://site.icu-project.org/download>.
65 If you want to use precompiled binaries, do the following.
66 Download the package matching your compiler, unpack it (say, into
67 C:\usr\lib), add the F<bin> directory to C<PATH>, and tell
68 Configure.pl to use it.
71 unzip icu4c-4_2_1-Win32-msvc9.zip -d C:\usr\lib
73 set PATH=%PATH%;C:\usr\lib\icu\bin
76 --icushared="C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icudt.lib C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icuuc.lib"
77 --icuheaders="C:\usr\lib\icu\include"
79 Note the step of creating the F<C:\usr\lib\data> directory, as Parrot
80 really wants it and the binary packages don't contain it. It doesn't
81 need to contain anything though, as the data is pulled in from
82 F<lib/icudt.lib>, which contains the standard data in binary form.
84 =item Optional libraries
86 The availability of these libraries is checked by Configure.pl.
88 B<gettext> - library and tools for native language support
89 L<http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/>
91 B<GMP> - GNU multiple precision arithmetic library
92 L<http://developer.berlios.de/projects/win32gmp/>
94 B<OpenGL> / B<GLUT> - Open Graphics Library
95 L<http://www.xmission.com/~nate/glut.html> or
96 L<http://www.transmissionzero.co.uk/computing/using-glut-with-mingw/>
98 B<pcre> - Perl-Compatible Regular Expression library
99 L<http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/>
101 B<readline> - edit command lines
102 L<http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/>
104 =item Optional utilities
106 The availability of these utilities is checked by Configure.pl
109 B<antlr> - ANother Tool for Language Recognition
110 L<http://www.antlr.org/>
112 B<ctags> - Exuberant Ctags
113 L<http://ctags.sourceforge.net/>
117 Inno Setup is a I<free> installer for Windows programs.
119 The latest release of Inno Setup at the time of writing is 5.3.7.
121 The HomePage is on L<http://www.jrsoftware.org/>.
123 Add the directory to PATH.
125 set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Inno Setup 5
131 =item Microsoft Visual C++
133 Since mid April 2004, Visual C++ comes in two flavors. Microsoft
134 Visual Studio .NET 2003 (L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/>), which
135 includes the full blown IDE, and Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
136 (L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/>), which is a free
137 (but unsupported) package, containing only the basic compiler and
140 If you use the Toolkit, be sure to follow the directions for setting up
141 your build environment that come with the perl distributions. (README.win32
142 in the latest perl distribution.) You may have to substitute "Microsoft
143 Platform SDK" wherever "Microsoft SDK" is listed, depending on the your
144 install. You can ignore the entries regarding "win32/config.vc", but be sure
145 to create the "link.bat" batch file. Copy the missing files mentioned,
146 run the Toolkit Command Prompt, set the appropriate env vars, and you
147 should be fine. (For env vars, you can update them under My Computer->
148 properties so they are available whenever you open a shell.)
150 Note: It is possible to use ActiveState Perl with the Toolkit: you don't
151 have to compile your own perl.
153 =item Strawberry Perl
155 With the Strawberry perl distro from
156 L<http://strawberryperl.com/>, gcc is included. To build parrot,
157 use the strawberry perl binary to run Configure.pl, and then
158 follow the directions.
160 =item MinGW32 with GCC
162 The latest release of MinGW package at the time of writing is 5.1.6,
163 which contains gcc-3.4.5 as current release.
164 It can be downloaded here:
165 L<http://sourceforge.net/projects/mingw/files/>
167 The HomePage is on L<http://www.mingw.org/>.
169 With the ActiveState Perl distribution, tell Configure.pl to use gcc :
173 --icushared="C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icudt.lib C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icuuc.lib"
174 --icuheaders="C:\usr\lib\icu\include"
176 perl Configure.pl --cc=gcc --without-icu
198 $MAKE win32-inno-installer
200 This command creates a setup-parrot-x.y.z.exe that contains all parrot install
207 =head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS
213 Threads, Events, and Signals are missing.
217 =head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
225 =item Ron Blaschke E<lt>ron@rblasch.orgE<gt>
227 =item François Perrad E<lt>francois.perrad@gadz.orgE<gt>
231 This document is maintained by The Parrot Developers
232 (E<lt>parrot-dev@lists.parrot.orgE<gt>).
240 This document borrows heavily from Perl's README.win32.
242 GCC/mingw32 support was added in 0.1.2 (François Perrad).
244 Last updated: 20 Jan 2009