PERLVOS(1) Perl Programmers Reference Guide PERLVOS(1)
NAME
perlvos - Perl for Stratus OpenVOS
SYNOPSIS
This file contains notes for building perl on the Stratus OpenVOS
operating system. Perl is a scripting or macro language that is popular
on many systems. See perlbook for a number of good books on Perl.
These are instructions for building Perl from source. This version of
Perl requires the dynamic linking support that is found in OpenVOS
Release 17.1 and thus is not supported on OpenVOS Release 17.0 or
earlier releases.
If you are running VOS Release 14.4.1 or later, you can obtain a pre-
compiled, supported copy of perl by purchasing the GNU Tools product
from Stratus Technologies.
BUILDING PERL FOR OPENVOS
To build perl from its source code on the Stratus V Series platform you
must have OpenVOS Release 17.1.0 or later, GNU Tools Release 3.5 or
later, and the C/POSIX Runtime Libraries.
Follow the normal instructions for building perl; e.g, enter bash, run
the Configure script, then use "gmake" to build perl.
INSTALLING PERL IN OPENVOS
1. After you have built perl using the Configure script, ensure that
you have modify and default write permission to ">system>ported" and
all subdirectories. Then type
gmake install
2. While there are currently no architecture-specific extensions or
modules distributed with perl, the following directories can be used
to hold such files (replace the string VERSION by the appropriate
version number):
>system>ported>lib>perl5>VERSION>i786
3. Site-specific perl extensions and modules can be installed in one of
two places. Put architecture-independent files into:
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION
Put site-specific architecture-dependent files into one of the
following directories:
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION>i786
4. You can examine the @INC variable from within a perl program to see
the order in which Perl searches these directories.
USING PERL IN OPENVOS
Restrictions of Perl on OpenVOS
This port of Perl version 5 prefers Unix-style, slash-separated
pathnames over OpenVOS-style greater-than-separated pathnames. OpenVOS-
style pathnames should work in most contexts, but if you have trouble,
replace all greater-than characters by slash characters. Because the
slash character is used as a pathname delimiter, Perl cannot process
OpenVOS pathnames containing a slash character in a directory or file
name; these must be renamed.
This port of Perl also uses Unix-epoch date values internally. As long
as you are dealing with ASCII character string representations of dates,
this should not be an issue. The supported epoch is January 1, 1980 to
January 17, 2038.
See the file pod/perlport.pod for more information about the OpenVOS
port of Perl.
TEST STATUS
A number of the perl self-tests fails for various reasons; generally
these are minor and due to subtle differences between common POSIX-based
environments and the OpenVOS POSIX environment. Ensure that you conduct
sufficient testing of your code to guarantee that it works properly in
the OpenVOS environment.
SUPPORT STATUS
I'm offering this port "as is". You can ask me questions, but I can't
guarantee I'll be able to answer them. There are some excellent books
available on the Perl language; consult a book seller.
If you want a supported version of perl for OpenVOS, purchase the
OpenVOS GNU Tools product from Stratus Technologies, along with a
support contract (or from anyone else who will sell you support).
AUTHOR
Paul Green (Paul.Green@stratus.com)
LAST UPDATE
February 28, 2013
perl v5.40.1 2026-08-30 PERLVOS(1)
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