PERLQNX(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLQNX(1)
NAME
perlqnx - Perl version 5 on QNX
DESCRIPTION
As of perl5.7.2 all tests pass under:
QNX 4.24G
Watcom 10.6 with Beta/970211.wcc.update.tar.F
socket3r.lib Nov21 1996.
As of perl5.8.1 there is at least one test still failing.
Some tests may complain under known circumstances.
See below and hints/qnx.sh for more information.
Under QNX 6.2.0 there are still a few tests which fail. See below and
hints/qnx.sh for more information.
Required Software for Compiling Perl on QNX4
As with many unix ports, this one depends on a few "standard" unix
utilities which are not necessarily standard for QNX4.
/bin/sh
This is used heavily by Configure and then by perl itself. QNX4's
version is fine, but Configure will choke on the 16-bit version, so
if you are running QNX 4.22, link /bin/sh to /bin32/ksh
ar This is the standard unix library builder. We use wlib. With Watcom
10.6, when wlib is linked as "ar", it behaves like ar and all is
fine. Under 9.5, a cover is required. One is included in ../qnx
nm This is used (optionally) by configure to list the contents of
libraries. I will generate a cover function on the fly in the UU
directory.
cpp Configure and perl need a way to invoke a C preprocessor. I have
created a simple cover for cc which does the right thing. Without
this, Configure will create its own wrapper which works, but it
doesn't handle some of the command line arguments that perl will
throw at it.
make
You really need GNU make to compile this. GNU make ships by default
with QNX 4.23, but you can get it from quics for earlier versions.
Outstanding Issues with Perl on QNX4
There is no support for dynamically linked libraries in QNX4.
If you wish to compile with the Socket extension, you need to have the
TCP/IP toolkit, and you need to make sure that -lsocket locates the
correct copy of socket3r.lib. Beware that the Watcom compiler ships with
a stub version of socket3r.lib which has very little functionality. Also
beware the order in which wlink searches directories for libraries. You
may have /usr/lib/socket3r.lib pointing to the correct library, but
wlink may pick up /usr/watcom/10.6/usr/lib/socket3r.lib instead. Make
sure they both point to the correct library, that is,
/usr/tcptk/current/usr/lib/socket3r.lib.
The following tests may report errors under QNX4:
dist/Cwd/Cwd.t will complain if `pwd` and cwd don't give the same
results. cwd calls `fullpath -t`, so if you cd `fullpath -t` before
running the test, it will pass.
lib/File/Find/taint.t will complain if '.' is in your PATH. The PATH
test is triggered because cwd calls `fullpath -t`.
ext/IO/lib/IO/t/io_sock.t: Subtests 14 and 22 are skipped due to the
fact that the functionality to read back the non-blocking status of a
socket is not implemented in QNX's TCP/IP. This has been reported to QNX
and it may work with later versions of TCP/IP.
t/io/tell.t: Subtest 27 is failing. We are still investigating.
QNX auxiliary files
The files in the "qnx" directory are:
qnx/ar
A script that emulates the standard unix archive (aka library)
utility. Under Watcom 10.6, ar is linked to wlib and provides the
expected interface. With Watcom 9.5, a cover function is required.
This one is fairly crude but has proved adequate for compiling perl.
qnx/cpp
A script that provides C preprocessing functionality. Configure can
generate a similar cover, but it doesn't handle all the command-line
options that perl throws at it. This might be reasonably placed in
/usr/local/bin.
Outstanding issues with perl under QNX6
The following tests are still failing for Perl 5.8.1 under QNX 6.2.0:
op/sprintf.........................FAILED at test 91
lib/Benchmark......................FAILED at test 26
This is due to a bug in the C library's printf routine. printf("'%e'",
0. ) produces '0.000000e+0', but ANSI requires '0.000000e+00'. QNX has
acknowledged the bug.
Cross-compilation
Perl supports cross-compiling to QNX NTO through the Native Development
Kit (NDK) for the Blackberry 10. This means that you can cross-compile
for both ARM and x86 versions of the platform.
Setting up a cross-compilation environment
You can download the NDK from
<http://developer.blackberry.com/native/downloads/>.
See
<http://developer.blackberry.com/native/documentation/cascades/getting_started/setting_up.html>
for instructions to set up your device prior to attempting anything
else.
Once you've installed the NDK and set up your device, all that's left to
do is setting up the device and the cross-compilation environment.
Blackberry provides a script, "bbndk-env.sh" (occasionally named
something like "bbndk-env_10_1_0_4828.sh") which can be used to do this.
However, there's a bit of a snag that we have to work through: The
script modifies PATH so that 'gcc' or 'ar' point to their cross-
compilation equivalents, which screws over the build process.
So instead you'll want to do something like this:
$ orig_path=$PATH
$ source $location_of_bbndk/bbndk-env*.sh
$ export PATH="$orig_path:$PATH"
Besides putting the cross-compiler and the rest of the toolchain in your
PATH, this will also provide the QNX_TARGET variable, which we will pass
to Configure through -Dsysroot.
Preparing the target system
It's quite possible that the target system doesn't have a readily
available /tmp, so it's generally safer to do something like this:
$ ssh $TARGETUSER@$TARGETHOST 'rm -rf perl; mkdir perl; mkdir perl/tmp'
$ export TARGETDIR=`ssh $TARGETUSER@$TARGETHOST pwd`/perl
$ export TARGETENV="export TMPDIR=$TARGETDIR/tmp; "
Later on, we'll pass this to Configure through -Dtargetenv
Calling Configure
If you are targetting an ARM device -- which currently includes the vast
majority of phones and tablets -- you'll want to pass
-Dcc=arm-unknown-nto-qnx8.0.0eabi-gcc to Configure. Alternatively, if
you are targetting an x86 device, or using the simulator provided with
the NDK, you should specify -Dcc=ntox86-gcc instead.
A sample Configure invocation looks something like this:
./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
-Dsysroot=$QNX_TARGET \
-Dtargetdir=$TARGETDIR \
-Dtargetenv="$TARGETENV" \
-Dcc=ntox86-gcc \
-Dtarghost=... # Usual cross-compilation options
AUTHOR
Norton T. Allen (allen@huarp.harvard.edu)
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