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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  README.symbian - Perl version 5 on Symbian OS
   8  
   9  =head1 DESCRIPTION
  10  
  11  This document describes various features of the Symbian operating
  12  system that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
  13  is compiled and/or runs.
  14  
  15  B<NOTE: this port (as of 0.4.1) does not compile into a Symbian
  16  OS GUI application, but instead it results in a Symbian DLL.>
  17  The DLL includes a C++ class called CPerlBase, which one can then
  18  (derive from and) use to embed Perl into applications, see F<symbian/README>.
  19  
  20  The base port of Perl to Symbian only implements the basic POSIX-like
  21  functionality; it does not implement any further Symbian or Series 60,
  22  Series 80, or UIQ bindings for Perl.
  23  
  24  It is also possible to generate Symbian executables for "miniperl"
  25  and "perl", but since there is no standard command line interface
  26  for Symbian (nor full keyboards in the devices), these are useful
  27  mainly as demonstrations.
  28  
  29  =head2 Compiling Perl on Symbian
  30  
  31  (0) You need to have the appropriate Symbian SDK installed.
  32  
  33      These instructions have been tested under various Nokia Series 60
  34      Symbian SDKs (1.2 to 2.6, 2.8 should also work, 1.2 compiles but
  35      does not work), Series 80 2.0, and Nokia 7710 (Series 90) SDK.
  36      You can get the SDKs from Forum Nokia (http://www.forum.nokia.com/).
  37      A very rough port ("it compiles") to UIQ 2.1 has also been made.
  38  
  39      A prerequisite for any of the SDKs is to install ActivePerl
  40      from ActiveState, http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/
  41  
  42      Having the SDK installed also means that you need to have either
  43      the Metrowerks CodeWarrior installed (2.8 and 3.0 were used in testing)
  44      or the Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 installed (SP3 minimum, SP5 recommended).
  45  
  46      Note that for example the Series 60 2.0 VC SDK installation talks
  47      about ActivePerl build 518, which does no more (as of mid-2005) exist
  48      at the ActiveState website.  The ActivePerl 5.8.4 build 810 was
  49      used successfully for compiling Perl on Symbian.  The 5.6.x ActivePerls
  50      do not work.
  51  
  52      Other SDKs or compilers like Visual.NET, command-line-only
  53      Visual.NET, Borland, GnuPoc, or sdk2unix have not been tried.
  54  
  55      These instructions almost certainly won't work with older Symbian
  56      releases or other SDKs.  Patches to get this port running in other
  57      releases, SDKs, compilers, platforms, or devices are naturally welcome.
  58  
  59  (1) Get a Perl source code distribution (for example the file
  60      perl-5.9.2.tar.gz is fine) from http://www.cpan.org/src/
  61      and unpack it in your the C:/Symbian directory of your Windows
  62      system.
  63  
  64  (2) Change to the perl source directory.
  65  
  66      cd c:\Symbian\perl-5.x.x
  67  
  68  (3) Run the following script using the perl coming with the SDK
  69  
  70      perl symbian\config.pl
  71  
  72      You must use the cmd.exe, the Cygwin shell will not work.
  73      The PATH must include the SDK tools, including a Perl,
  74      which should be the case under cmd.exe.  If you do not
  75      have that, see the end of symbian\sdk.pl for notes of
  76      how your environment should be set up for Symbian compiles.
  77  
  78  (4) Build the project, either by
  79  
  80      make all
  81  
  82      in cmd.exe or by using either the Metrowerks CodeWarrior
  83      or the Visual C++ 6.0, or the Visual Studio 8 (the Visual C++
  84      2005 Express Edition works fine).
  85  
  86      If you use the VC IDE, you will have to run F<symbian\config.pl>
  87      first using the cmd.exe, and then run 'make win.mf vc6.mf' to generate
  88      the VC6 makefiles and workspaces.  "make vc6" will compile for the VC6,
  89      and "make cw" for the CodeWarrior.
  90  
  91      The following SDK and compiler configurations and Nokia phones were
  92      tested at some point in time (+ = compiled and PerlApp run, - = not),
  93      both for Perl 5.8.x and 5.9.x:
  94  
  95          SDK     | VC | CW |
  96          --------+----+----+---
  97          S60 1.2 | +  | +  | 3650 (*)
  98          S60 2.0 | +  | +  | 6600
  99          S60 2.1 | -  | +  | 6670
 100          S60 2.6 | +  | +  | 6630    
 101          S60 2.8 | +  | +  | (not tested in a device)
 102          S80 2.6 | -  | +  | 9300
 103          S90 1.1 | +  | -  | 7710
 104          UIQ 2.1 | -  | +  | (not tested in a device)
 105  
 106      (*) Compiles but does not work, unfortunately, a problem with Symbian.
 107  
 108      If you are using the 'make' directly, it is the GNU make from the SDKs,
 109      and it will invoke the right make commands for the Windows emulator
 110      build and the Arm target builds ('thumb' by default) as necessary.
 111  
 112      The build scripts assume the 'absolute style' SDK installs under C:,
 113      the 'subst style' will not work.
 114  
 115      If using the VC IDE, to build use for example the File->Open Workspace->
 116      C:\Symbian\8.0a\S60_2nd_FP2\epoc32\build\symbian\perl\perl\wins\perl.dsw
 117      The emulator binaries will appear in the same directory.
 118  
 119      If using the VC IDE, you will a lot of warnings in the beginning of
 120      the build because a lot of headers mentioned by the source cannot
 121      be found, but this is not serious since those headers are not used.
 122  
 123      The Metrowerks will give a lot of warnings about unused variables and
 124      empty declarations, you can ignore those.
 125  
 126      When the Windows and Arm DLLs are built do not be scared by a very long
 127      messages whizzing by: it is the "export freeze" phase where the whole
 128      (rather large) API of Perl is listed.
 129  
 130      Once the build is completed you need to create the DLL SIS file by
 131  
 132      make perldll.sis
 133  
 134      which will create the file perlXYZ.sis (the XYZ being the Perl version)
 135      which you can then install into your Symbian device: an easy way
 136      to do this is to send them via Bluetooth or infrared and just open
 137      the messages.
 138  
 139      Since the total size of all Perl SIS files once installed is
 140      over 2 MB, it is recommended to do the installation into a
 141      memory card (drive E:) instead of the C: drive.
 142  
 143      The size of the perlXYZ.SIS is about 370 kB but once it is in the
 144      device it is about one 750 kB (according to the application manager).
 145  
 146      The perlXYZ.sis includes only the Perl DLL: to create an additional
 147      SIS file which includes some of the standard (pure) Perl libraries,
 148      issue the command
 149  
 150          make perllib.sis
 151  
 152      Some of the standard Perl libraries are included, but not all:
 153      see L</HISTORY> or F<symbian\install.cfg> for more details
 154      (250 kB -> 700 kB).
 155  
 156      Some of the standard Perl XS extensions (see L</HISTORY> are
 157      also available:
 158  
 159          make perlext.sis
 160  
 161      which will create perlXYZext.sis (290 kB -> 770 kB).
 162  
 163      To compile the demonstration application PerlApp you need first to
 164      install the Perl headers under the SDK.
 165  
 166      To install the Perl headers and the class CPerlBase documentation
 167      so that you no more need the Perl sources around to compile Perl
 168      applications using the SDK:
 169  
 170          make sdkinstall
 171  
 172      The destination directory is C:\Symbian\perl\X.Y.Z.  For more
 173      details, see F<symbian\PerlBase.pod>.
 174  
 175      Once the headers have been installed, you can create a SIS for
 176      the PerlApp:
 177  
 178          make perlapp.sis
 179  
 180      The perlapp.sis (11 kB -> 16 kB) will be built in the symbian
 181      subdirectory, but a copy will also be made to the main directory.
 182  
 183      If you want to package the Perl DLLs (one for WINS, one for ARMI),
 184      the headers, and the documentation:
 185  
 186          make perlsdk.zip
 187  
 188      which will create perlXYZsdk.zip that can be used in another
 189      Windows system with the SDK, without having to compile Perl in
 190      that system.
 191  
 192      If you want to package the PerlApp sources:
 193  
 194          make perlapp.zip
 195  
 196      If you want to package the perl.exe and miniperl.exe, you
 197      can use the perlexe.sis and miniperlexe.sis make targets.
 198      You also probably want the perllib.sis for the libraries
 199      and maybe even the perlapp.sis for the recognizer.
 200  
 201      The make target 'allsis' combines all the above SIS targets.
 202  
 203      To clean up after compilation you can use either of
 204  
 205          make clean
 206          make distclean
 207  
 208      depending on how clean you want to be.
 209  
 210  =head2 Compilation problems
 211  
 212  If you see right after "make" this
 213  
 214      cat makefile.sh >makefile
 215      'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
 216      operable program or batch file.
 217  
 218  it means you need to (re)run the symbian\config.pl.
 219  
 220  If you get the error
 221  
 222          'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
 223          operable program or batch file.
 224  
 225  you may need to reinstall the ActivePerl.
 226  
 227  If you see this
 228  
 229      ren makedef.pl nomakedef.pl
 230      The system cannot find the file specified.
 231      C:\Symbian\...\make.exe: [rename_makedef] Error 1 (ignored)
 232  
 233  please ignore it since it is nothing serious (the build process of
 234  renames the Perl makedef.pl as nomakedef.pl to avoid confusing it
 235  with a makedef.pl of the SDK).
 236  
 237  =head2 PerlApp
 238  
 239  The PerlApp application demonstrates how to embed Perl interpreters
 240  to a Symbian application.  The "Time" menu item runs the following
 241  Perl code: C<print "Running in ", $^O, "\n", scalar localtime>,
 242  the "Oneliner" allows one to type in Perl code, and the "Run"
 243  opens a file chooser for selecting a Perl file to run.
 244  
 245  The PerlApp also is started when the "Perl recognizer" (also included
 246  and installed) detects a Perl file being activated througg the GUI,
 247  and offers either to install it under \Perl (if the Perl file is in
 248  the inbox of the messaging application) or to run it (if the Perl file
 249  is under \Perl).
 250  
 251  =head2 sisify.pl
 252  
 253  In the symbian subdirectory there is sisify.pl utility which can be
 254  used to package Perl scripts and/or Perl library directories into SIS
 255  files, which can be installed to the device.  To run the sisify.pl
 256  utility, you will need to have the 'makesis' and 'uidcrc' utilities
 257  already installed.  If you don't have the Win32 SDKs, you may try
 258  for example http://gnupoc.sourceforge.net/ or http://symbianos.org/~andreh/.
 259  
 260  =head2 Using Perl in Symbian
 261  
 262  First of all note that you have full access to the Symbian device
 263  when using Perl: you can do a lot of damage to your device (like
 264  removing system files) unless you are careful.  Please do take
 265  backups before doing anything.
 266  
 267  The Perl port has been done for the most part using the Symbian
 268  standard POSIX-ish STDLIB library. It is a reasonably complete
 269  library, but certain corners of such emulation libraries that tend
 270  to be left unimplemented on non-UNIX platforms have been left
 271  unimplemented also this time: fork(), signals(), user/group ids,
 272  select() working for sockets, non-blocking sockets, and so forth.
 273  See the file symbian/config.sh and look for 'undef' to find the
 274  unsupported APIs (or from Perl use Config).
 275    
 276  The filesystem of Symbian devices uses DOSish syntax, "drives"
 277  separated from paths by a colon, and backslashes for the path.  The
 278  exact assignment of the drives probably varies between platforms, but
 279  for example in Series 60 you might see C: as the (flash) main memory,
 280  D: as the RAM drive, E: as the memory card (MMC), Z: as the ROM.  In
 281  Series 80 D: is the memory card.  As far the devices go the NUL: is
 282  the bit bucket, the COMx: are the serial lines, IRCOMx: are the IR
 283  ports, TMP: might be C:\System\Temp.  Remember to double those
 284  backslashes in doublequoted strings.
 285  
 286  The Perl DLL is installed in \System\Libs\.  The Perl libraries and
 287  extension DLLs are installed in \System\Libs\Perl\X.Y.Z\.  The PerlApp
 288  is installed in \System\Apps\, and the SIS also installs a couple of
 289  demo scripts in \Perl\ (C:\Mydocs\Perl\ on Nokia 7710).
 290  
 291  Note that the Symbian filesystem is very picky: it strongly prefers
 292  the \ instead of the /.
 293  
 294  When doing XS / Symbian C++ programming include first the Symbian
 295  headers, then any standard C/POSIX headers, then Perl headers, and finally
 296  any application headers.
 297  
 298  New() and Copy() are unfortunately used by both Symbian and Perl code
 299  so you'll have to play cpp games if you need them.  PerlBase.h undefines
 300  the Perl definitions and redefines them as PerlNew() and PerlCopy().
 301  
 302  =head1 TO DO
 303  
 304  Lots.  See F<symbian\TODO>.
 305  
 306  =head1 WARNING
 307  
 308  As of Perl Symbian port version 0.4.1 any part of Perl's standard
 309  regression test suite has not been run on a real Symbian device using
 310  the ported Perl, so innumerable bugs may lie in wait.  Therefore there
 311  is absolutely no warranty.
 312  
 313  =head1 NOTE
 314  
 315  When creating and extending application programming interfaces (APIs)
 316  for Symbian or Series 60 or Series 80 or Series 90 it is suggested
 317  that trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names are not used in
 318  the API names.  Instead, developers should consider basing the API
 319  naming in the existing (C++, or maybe Java) public component and API
 320  naming, modified as appropriate by the rules of the programming
 321  language the new APIs are for.
 322    
 323  Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Nokia's product
 324  names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Nokia.  Other product
 325  and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of
 326  their respective owners.
 327  
 328  =head1 AUTHOR
 329  
 330  Jarkko Hietaniemi
 331  
 332  =head1 COPYRIGHT
 333  
 334  Copyright (c) 2004-2005 Nokia.  All rights reserved.
 335  
 336  Copyright (c) 2006-2007 Jarkko Hietaniemi.
 337  
 338  =head1 LICENSE
 339  
 340  The Symbian port is licensed under the same terms as Perl itself.
 341  
 342  =head1 HISTORY
 343  
 344  =over 4
 345  
 346  =item *
 347  
 348  0.1.0: April 2005
 349  
 350  (This will show as "0.01" in the Symbian Installer.)
 351  
 352    - The console window is a very simple console indeed: one can
 353      get the newline with "000" and the "C" button is a backspace.
 354      Do not expect a terminal capable of vt100 or ANSI sequences.
 355      The console is also "ASCII", you cannot input e.g. any accented
 356      letters.  Because of obvious physical constraints the console is
 357      also very small: (in Nokia 6600) 22 columns, 17 rows.
 358    - The following libraries are available:
 359      AnyDBM_File AutoLoader base Carp Config Cwd constant
 360      DynaLoader Exporter File::Spec integer lib strict Symbol
 361      vars warnings XSLoader
 362    - The following extensions are available:
 363      attrs Compress::Zlib Cwd Data::Dumper Devel::Peek Digest::MD5 DynaLoader
 364      Fcntl File::Glob Filter::Util::Call IO List::Util MIME::Base64
 365      PerlIO::scalar PerlIO::via SDBM_File Socket Storable Time::HiRes
 366    - The following extensions are missing for various technical reasons:
 367      B ByteLoader Devel::DProf Devel::PPPort Encode GDBM_File
 368      I18N::Langinfo IPC::SysV NDBM_File Opcode PerlIO::encoding POSIX
 369      re Safe Sys::Hostname Sys::Syslog
 370      threads threads::shared Unicode::Normalize
 371    - Using MakeMaker or the Module::* to build and install modules
 372      is not supported.
 373    - Building XS other than the ones in the core is not supported.
 374  
 375  Since this is 0.something release, any future releases are almost
 376  guaranteed to be binary incompatible.  As a sign of this the Symbian
 377  symbol exports are kept unfrozen and the .def files fully rebuilt
 378  every time.
 379  
 380  =item *
 381  
 382  0.2.0: October 2005
 383  
 384    - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 25741)
 385    - Compress::Zlib and IO::Zlib supported
 386    - sisify.pl added
 387  
 388  We maintain the binary incompatibility.
 389  
 390  =item *
 391  
 392  0.3.0: October 2005
 393  
 394    - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 25911)
 395    - Series 80 2.0 and UIQ 2.1 support
 396  
 397  We maintain the binary incompatibility.
 398  
 399  =item *
 400  
 401  0.4.0: November 2005
 402  
 403    - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 26052)
 404    - adding a sample Symbian extension
 405  
 406  We maintain the binary incompatibility.
 407  
 408  =item *
 409  
 410  0.4.1: December 2006
 411  
 412    - Perl 5.9.5-to-be (patch level 30002)
 413    - added extensions: Compress/Raw/Zlib, Digest/SHA,
 414      Hash/Util, Math/BigInt/FastCalc, Text/Soundex, Time/Piece
 415    - port to S90 1.1 by alexander smishlajev
 416  
 417  We maintain the binary incompatibility.
 418  
 419  =item *
 420  
 421  0.4.2: March 2007
 422  
 423    - catchup with Perl 5.9.5-to-be (patch level 30812)
 424    - tested to build with Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
 425      (which uses Microsoft Visual C 8, instead of the old VC6),
 426      SDK used for testing S60_2nd_FP3 aka 8.1a
 427  
 428  We maintain the binary incompatibility.
 429  
 430  =back
 431  
 432  =cut
 433