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   1  If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
   2  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
   3  designed to be readable as is.
   4  
   5  =head1 NAME
   6  
   7  perlplan9 - Plan 9-specific documentation for Perl
   8  
   9  =head1 DESCRIPTION
  10  
  11  These are a few notes describing features peculiar to
  12  Plan 9 Perl. As such, it is not intended to be a replacement
  13  for the rest of the Perl 5 documentation (which is both 
  14  copious and excellent). If you have any questions to 
  15  which you can't find answers in these man pages, contact 
  16  Luther Huffman at lutherh@stratcom.com and we'll try to 
  17  answer them.
  18  
  19  =head2 Invoking Perl
  20  
  21  Perl is invoked from the command line as described in 
  22  L<perl>. Most perl scripts, however, do have a first line 
  23  such as "#!/usr/local/bin/perl". This is known as a shebang 
  24  (shell-bang) statement and tells the OS shell where to find 
  25  the perl interpreter. In Plan 9 Perl this statement should be 
  26  "#!/bin/perl" if you wish to be able to directly invoke the 
  27  script by its name.
  28       Alternatively, you may invoke perl with the command "Perl"
  29  instead of "perl". This will produce Acme-friendly error
  30  messages of the form "filename:18".
  31  
  32  Some scripts, usually identified with a *.PL extension, are 
  33  self-configuring and are able to correctly create their own 
  34  shebang path from config information located in Plan 9 
  35  Perl. These you won't need to be worried about.
  36  
  37  =head2 What's in Plan 9 Perl
  38  
  39  Although Plan 9 Perl currently only  provides static 
  40  loading, it is built with a number of useful extensions. 
  41  These include Opcode, FileHandle, Fcntl, and POSIX. Expect 
  42  to see others (and DynaLoading!) in the future.
  43  
  44  =head2 What's not in Plan 9 Perl
  45  
  46  As mentioned previously, dynamic loading isn't currently 
  47  available nor is MakeMaker. Both are high-priority items.
  48  
  49  =head2 Perl5 Functions not currently supported in Plan 9 Perl
  50  
  51  Some, such as C<chown> and C<umask> aren't provided 
  52  because the concept does not exist within Plan 9. Others,
  53  such as some of the socket-related functions, simply
  54  haven't been written yet. Many in the latter category 
  55  may be supported in the future.
  56  
  57  The functions not currently implemented include:
  58  
  59      chown, chroot, dbmclose, dbmopen, getsockopt, 
  60      setsockopt, recvmsg, sendmsg, getnetbyname, 
  61      getnetbyaddr, getnetent, getprotoent, getservent, 
  62      sethostent, setnetent, setprotoent, setservent, 
  63      endservent, endnetent, endprotoent, umask
  64  
  65  There may be several other functions that have undefined 
  66  behavior so this list shouldn't be considered complete.
  67  
  68  =head2 Signals in Plan 9 Perl
  69  
  70  For compatibility with perl scripts written for the Unix 
  71  environment, Plan 9 Perl uses the POSIX signal emulation
  72  provided in Plan 9's ANSI POSIX Environment (APE). Signal stacking
  73  isn't supported. The signals provided are:
  74  
  75      SIGHUP, SIGINT, SIGQUIT, SIGILL, SIGABRT,
  76      SIGFPE, SIGKILL, SIGSEGV, SIGPIPE, SIGPIPE, SIGALRM, 
  77      SIGTERM, SIGUSR1, SIGUSR2, SIGCHLD, SIGCONT,
  78      SIGSTOP, SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, SIGTTOU
  79  
  80  =head1 COMPILING AND INSTALLING PERL ON PLAN 9
  81  
  82  WELCOME to Plan 9 Perl, brave soul!
  83  
  84     This is a preliminary alpha version of Plan 9 Perl. Still to be
  85  implemented are MakeMaker and DynaLoader. Many perl commands are
  86  missing or currently behave in an inscrutable manner. These gaps will,
  87  with perseverance and a modicum of luck, be remedied in the near
  88  future.To install this software:
  89  
  90  1. Create the source directories and libraries for perl by running the
  91  plan9/setup.rc command (i.e., located in the plan9 subdirectory).
  92  Note: the setup routine assumes that you haven't dearchived these
  93  files into /sys/src/cmd/perl. After running setup.rc you may delete
  94  the copy of the source you originally detarred, as source code has now
  95  been installed in /sys/src/cmd/perl. If you plan on installing perl
  96  binaries for all architectures, run "setup.rc -a".
  97  
  98  2. After making sure that you have adequate privileges to build system
  99  software, from /sys/src/cmd/perl/5.00301 (adjust version
 100  appropriately) run:
 101  
 102      mk install
 103  
 104  If you wish to install perl versions for all architectures (68020,
 105  mips, sparc and 386) run:
 106  
 107      mk installall
 108  
 109  3. Wait. The build process will take a *long* time because perl
 110  bootstraps itself. A 75MHz Pentium, 16MB RAM machine takes roughly 30
 111  minutes to build the distribution from scratch.
 112  
 113  =head2 Installing Perl Documentation on Plan 9
 114  
 115  This perl distribution comes with a tremendous amount of
 116  documentation. To add these to the built-in manuals that come with
 117  Plan 9, from /sys/src/cmd/perl/5.00301 (adjust version appropriately)
 118  run:
 119  
 120      mk man
 121  
 122  To begin your reading, start with:
 123  
 124      man perl
 125  
 126  This is a good introduction and will direct you towards other man
 127  pages that may interest you.
 128  
 129  (Note: "mk man" may produce some extraneous noise. Fear not.)
 130  
 131  =head1 BUGS
 132  
 133  "As many as there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the 
 134  world . . ." - Carl Sagan
 135  
 136  =head1 Revision date
 137  
 138  This document was revised 09-October-1996 for Perl 5.003_7.
 139  
 140  =head1 AUTHOR
 141  
 142  Direct questions, comments, and the unlikely bug report (ahem) direct
 143  comments toward:
 144  
 145  Luther Huffman, lutherh@stratcom.com, 
 146  Strategic Computer Solutions, Inc.