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   1  
   2  This document is written in pod format hence there are punctuation
   3  characters in odd places.  Do not worry, you've apparently got
   4  the ASCII->EBCDIC translation worked out correctly.  You can read
   5  more about pod in pod/perlpod.pod or the short summary in the
   6  INSTALL file.
   7  
   8  =head1 NAME
   9  
  10  README.vmesa - building and installing Perl for VM/ESA.
  11  
  12  =head1 SYNOPSIS
  13  
  14  This document will help you Configure, build, test and install Perl
  15  on VM/ESA.
  16  
  17  =head1 DESCRIPTION
  18  
  19  This is a fully ported perl for VM/ESA 2.3.0.  It may work on
  20  other versions, but that's the one we've tested it on.
  21  
  22  If you've downloaded the binary distribution, it needs to be
  23  installed below /usr/local.  Source code distributions have an
  24  automated "make install" step that means you do not need to extract
  25  the source code below /usr/local (though that is where it will be
  26  installed by default).  You may need to worry about the networking
  27  configuration files discussed in the last bullet below.
  28  
  29  =head2 Unpacking Perl Distribution on VM/ESA
  30  
  31  To extract an ASCII tar archive on VM/ESA, try this:
  32  
  33     pax -o to=IBM-1047,from=ISO8859-1 -r < latest.tar
  34  
  35  =head2 Setup Perl and utilities on VM/ESA
  36  
  37  GNU make for VM/ESA, which may be required for the build of perl,
  38  is available from:
  39  
  40    http://vm.marist.edu/~neale/vmoe.html
  41  
  42  =head2 Configure Perl on VM/ESA
  43  
  44  Once you've unpacked the distribution, run Configure (see INSTALL for
  45  full discussion of the Configure options), and then run make, then
  46  "make test" then "make install" (this last step may require UID=0
  47  privileges).
  48  
  49  There is a "hints" file for vmesa that specifies the correct values
  50  for most things.  Some things to watch out for are:
  51  
  52  =over 4
  53  
  54  =item *
  55  
  56  this port does support dynamic loading but it's not had much testing
  57  
  58  =item *
  59  
  60  Don't turn on the compiler optimization flag "-O".  There's
  61  a bug in the compiler (APAR PQ18812) that generates some bad code
  62  the optimizer is on.
  63  
  64  =item *
  65  
  66  As VM/ESA doesn't fully support the fork() API programs relying on
  67  this call will not work. I've replaced fork()/exec() with spawn()
  68  and the standalone exec() with spawn(). This has a side effect when
  69  opening unnamed pipes in a shell script: there is no child process
  70  generated under.
  71  
  72  =item *
  73  
  74  At the moment the hints file for VM/ESA basically bypasses all of the
  75  automatic configuration process.  This is because Configure relies on:
  76  1. The header files living in the Byte File System (you could put the
  77  there if you want); 2. The C preprocessor including the #include 
  78  statements in the preprocessor output (.i) file.
  79  
  80  =back
  81  
  82  =head2 Testing Anomalies of Perl on VM/ESA
  83  
  84  The "make test" step runs a Perl Verification Procedure, usually before
  85  installation.  As the 5.6.1 kit was being assembled
  86  the following "failures" were known to appear on some machines
  87  during "make test" (mostly due to ASCII vs. EBCDIC conflicts),
  88  your results may differ:
  89  
  90  [the list of failures being compiled]
  91  
  92  =head2 Usage Hints for Perl on VM/ESA
  93  
  94  When using perl on VM/ESA please keep in mind that the EBCDIC and ASCII
  95  character sets are different.  Perl builtin functions that may behave
  96  differently under EBCDIC are mentioned in the perlport.pod document.
  97  
  98  OpenEdition (UNIX System Services) does not (yet) support the #! means
  99  of script invocation.
 100  See:
 101  
 102      head `whence perldoc`
 103  
 104  for an example of how to use the "eval exec" trick to ask the shell to
 105  have perl run your scripts for you.
 106  
 107  =head1 AUTHORS
 108  
 109  Neale Ferguson.
 110  
 111  =head1 SEE ALSO
 112  
 113  L<INSTALL>, L<perlport>, L<perlebcdic>.
 114  
 115  =head2 Mailing list for Perl on VM/ESA
 116  
 117  If you are interested in the VM/ESA, z/OS (formerly known as OS/390)
 118  and POSIX-BC (BS2000) ports of Perl then see the perl-mvs mailing list.
 119  To subscribe, send an empty message to perl-mvs-subscribe@perl.org.
 120  
 121  See also:
 122  
 123      http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=perl-mvs
 124  
 125  There are web archives of the mailing list at:
 126  
 127      http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl-mvs/
 128      http://archive.develooper.com/perl-mvs@perl.org/
 129  
 130  =cut
 131