- NAME
- DESCRIPTION
- ISSUES
  - Newlines
  - Numbers endianness and Width
  - Files
  - System Interaction
  - Interprocess Communication (IPC)
  - External Subroutines (XS)
  - Standard Modules
  - Time and Date
  - Character sets and character encoding
  - Internationalisation
  - System Resources
  - Security
  - Style
- CPAN Testers
- PLATFORMS
  - Unix
  - DOS and Derivatives
  - Mac&nbsp;OS
  - VMS
  - EBCDIC Platforms
  - Acorn RISC OS
  - Other perls
- FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS
  - Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions
- CHANGES
- AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS
- VERSION

# NAME

perlport - Writing portable Perl

# DESCRIPTION

Perl runs on a variety of operating systems. While most of them share a lot in common, they also have their own very particular and unique features.

This document is meant to help you to find out what constitutes portable Perl code, so that once you have made your decision to write portably, you know where the lines are drawn, and you can stay within them.

There is a tradeoff between taking full advantage of a particular type of computer, and taking advantage of a full range of them. Naturally, as you make your range bigger (and thus more diverse), the common denominators drop, and you are left with fewer areas of common ground in which you can operate to accomplish a particular task. Thus, when you begin attacking a problem, it is important to consider which part of the tradeoff curve you want to operate under. Specifically, whether it is important to you that the task that you are coding needs the full generality of being portable, or if it is sufficient to just get the job done. This is the hardest choice to be made. The rest is easy, because Perl provides lots of choices, whichever way you want to approach your problem.

Looking at it another way, writing portable code is usually about willfully limiting your available choices. Naturally, it takes discipline to do that.

Be aware of two important points:

Not all Perl programs have to be portable

  There is no reason why you should not use Perl as a language to glue Unix tools together, or to prototype a Macintosh application, or to manage the Windows registry. If it makes no sense to aim for portability for one reason or another in a given program, then don't bother.

The vast majority of Perl is portable

  Don't be fooled into thinking that it is hard to create portable Perl code. It isn't. Perl tries its level-best to bridge the gaps between what's available on different platforms, and all the means available to use those features. Thus almost all Perl code runs on any machine without modification. But there are some significant issues in writing portable code, and this document is entirely about those issues.

Here's the general rule: When you approach a task that is commonly done using a whole range of platforms, think in terms of writing portable code. That way, you don't sacrifice much by way of the implementation choices you can avail yourself of, and at the same time you can give your users lots of platform choices. On the other hand, when you have to take advantage of some unique feature of a particular platform, as is often the case with systems programming (whether for Unix, Windows, Mac OS, VMS, etc.), consider writing platform-specific code.

When the code will run on only two or three operating systems, then you may only need to consider the differences of those particular systems. The important thing is to decide where the code will run, and to be deliberate in your decision.

The material below is separated into three main sections: main issues of portability (ISSUES, platform-specific issues (PLATFORMS, and builtin perl functions that behave differently on various ports (FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS.

This information should not be considered complete; it includes possibly transient information about idiosyncrasies of some of the ports, almost all of which are in a state of constant evolution. Thus this material should be considered a perpetual work in progress (< IMG SRC=``yellow_sign.gif'' ALT=``Under Construction''>).

# ISSUES

## Newlines

In most operating systems, lines in files are separated with newlines. Just what is used as a newline may vary from OS to OS. Unix traditionally uses `\012`, one kind of Windows I/O uses `\015\012`, and Mac OS uses `\015`.

Perl uses \n to represent the ``logical'' newline, where what is logical may depend on the platform in use. In MacPerl, \n always means `\015`. In DOSish perls, \n usually means `\012`, but when accessing a file in ``text'' mode, STDIO translates it to (or from) `\015\012`.

Due to the ``text'' mode translation, DOSish perls have limitations of using seek and tell when a file is being accessed in ``text'' mode. Specifically, if you stick to seek-ing to locations you got from tell (and no others), you are usually free to use seek and tell even in ``text'' mode. In general, using seek or tell or other file operations that count bytes instead of characters, without considering the length of \n, may be non-portable. If you use binmode on a file, however, you can usually use seek and tell with arbitrary values quite safely.

A common misconception in socket programming is that \n eq `\012` everywhere. When using protocols such as common Internet protocols, `\012` and `\015` are called for specifically, and the values of the logical \n and `\r` (carriage return) are not reliable.

        print SOCKET "Hi there, client!\r\n";      # WRONG
        print SOCKET "Hi there, client!\015\012";  # RIGHT

[NOTE: this does not necessarily apply to communications that are filtered by another program or module before sending to the socket; the the most popular EBCDIC webserver, for instance, accepts `\r\n`, which translates those characters, along with all other characters in text streams, from EBCDIC to ASCII.]

However, using `\015\012` (or `\cM\cJ`, or `\x0D\x0A`) can be tedious and unsightly, as well as confusing to those maintaining the code. As such, the Socket module supplies the Right Thing for those who want it.

        use Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf);
        print SOCKET "Hi there, client!$CRLF"      # RIGHT

When reading from a socket, remember that the default input record separator (`$/`) is \n, but code like this should recognize `$/` as `\012` or `\015\012`:

        while (<SOCKET>) {
            # ...
        }

Better:

        use Socket qw(:DEFAULT :crlf);
        local($/) = LF;      # not needed if $/ is already \012

        while (<SOCKET>) {
            s/$CR?$LF/\n/;   # not sure if socket uses LF or CRLF, OK
        #   s/\015?\012/\n/; # same thing
        }

And this example is actually better than the previous one even for Unix platforms, because now any `\015`'s (`\cM`'s) are stripped out (and there was much rejoicing).

## Numbers endianness and Width

Different CPUs store integers and floating point numbers in different orders (called endianness) and widths (32-bit and 64-bit being the most common). This affects your programs if they attempt to transfer numbers in binary format from a CPU architecture to another over some channel: either 'live' via network connections or storing the numbers to secondary storage such as a disk file.

Conflicting storage orders make utter mess out of the numbers: if a little-endian host (Intel, Alpha) stores 0x12345678 (305419896 in decimal), a big-endian host (Motorola, MIPS, Sparc, PA) reads it as 0x78563412 (2018915346 in decimal). To avoid this problem in network (socket) connections use the pack() and unpack() formats "n" and `"N"`, the ``network'' orders, they are guaranteed to be portable.

Different widths can cause truncation even between platforms of equal endianness: the platform of shorter width loses the upper parts of the number. There is no good solution for this problem except to avoid transferring or storing raw binary numbers.

One can circumnavigate both these problems in two ways: either transfer and store numbers always in text format, instead of raw binary, or consider using modules like `Data::Dumper` (included in the standard distribution as of Perl 5.005) and `Storable`.

## Files

Most platforms these days structure files in a hierarchical fashion. So, it is reasonably safe to assume that any platform supports the notion of a ``path'' to uniquely identify a file on the system. Just how that path is actually written, differs.

While they are similar, file path specifications differ between Unix, Windows, Mac OS, OS/2, VMS, RISC OS and probably others. Unix, for example, is one of the few OSes that has the idea of a single root directory.

VMS, Windows, and OS/2 can work similarly to Unix with `/` as path separator, or in their own idiosyncratic ways (such as having several root directories and various ``unrooted'' device files such NIL: and LPT:).

Mac OS uses `:` as a path separator instead of `/`.

`RISC OS` perl can emulate Unix filenames with `/` as path separator, or go native and use `.` for path separator and `:` to signal filing systems and disc names.

As with the newline problem above, there are modules that can help. The `File::Spec` modules provide methods to do the Right Thing on whatever platform happens to be running the program.

        use File::Spec;
        chdir(File::Spec->;updir());        # go up one directory
        $file = File::Spec->;catfile(
            File::Spec->;curdir(), 'temp', 'file.txt'
        );
        # on Unix and Win32, './temp/file.txt'
        # on Mac OS, ':temp:file.txt'

File::Spec is available in the standard distribution, as of version 5.004_05.

In general, production code should not have file paths hardcoded; making them user supplied or from a configuration file is better, keeping in mind that file path syntax varies on different machines.

This is especially noticeable in scripts like Makefiles and test suites, which often assume `/` as a path separator for subdirectories.

Also of use is `File::Basename`, from the standard distribution, which splits a pathname into pieces (base filename, full path to directory, and file suffix).

Even when on a single platform (if you can call UNIX a single platform), remember not to count on the existence or the contents of system-specific files, like /etc/passwd, /etc/sendmail.conf, or /etc/resolv.conf. For example the /etc/passwd may exist but it may not contain the encrypted passwords because the system is using some form of enhanced security-- or it may not contain all the accounts because the system is using NIS. If code does need to rely on such a file, include a description of the file and its format in the code's documentation, and make it easy for the user to override the default location of the file.

Do not have two files of the same name with different case, like test.pl and <Test.pl>, as many platforms have case-insensitive filenames. Also, try not to have non-word characters (except for `.`) in the names, and keep them to the 8.3 convention, for maximum portability.

Likewise, if using AutoSplit, try to keep the split functions to 8.3 naming and case-insensitive conventions; or, at the very least, make it so the resulting files have a unique (case-insensitively) first 8 characters.

Don't assume &lt; won't be the first character of a filename. Always use &gt; explicitly to open a file for reading:

        open(FILE, "<$existing_file") or die $!;

## System Interaction

Not all platforms provide for the notion of a command line, necessarily. These are usually platforms that rely on a Graphical User Interface (GUI) for user interaction. So a program requiring command lines might not work everywhere. But this is probably for the user of the program to deal with.

Some platforms can't delete or rename files that are being held open by the system. Remember to close files when you are done with them. Don't unlink or rename an open file. Don't tie to or open a file that is already tied to or opened; untie or close first.

Don't open the same file more than once at a time for writing, as some operating systems put mandatory locks on such files.

Don't count on a specific environment variable existing in `%ENV`. Don't count on `%ENV` entries being case-sensitive, or even case-preserving.

Don't count on signals.

Don't count on filename globbing. Use opendir, readdir, and closedir instead.

Don't count on per-program environment variables, or per-program current directories.

## Interprocess Communication (IPC)

In general, don't directly access the system in code that is meant to be portable. That means, no system, exec, fork, pipe, ````, qx//, open with a `|`, nor any of the other things that makes being a Unix perl hacker worth being.

Commands that launch external processes are generally supported on most platforms (though many of them do not support any type of forking), but the problem with using them arises from what you invoke with them. External tools are often named differently on different platforms, often not available in the same location, often accept different arguments, often behave differently, and often represent their results in a platform-dependent way. Thus you should seldom depend on them to produce consistent results.

One especially common bit of Perl code is opening a pipe to sendmail:

        open(MAIL, '|/usr/lib/sendmail -t') or die $!;

This is fine for systems programming when sendmail is known to be available. But it is not fine for many non-Unix systems, and even some Unix systems that may not have sendmail installed. If a portable solution is needed, see the `Mail::Send` and `Mail::Mailer` modules in the `MailTools` distribution. `Mail::Mailer` provides several mailing methods, including mail, sendmail, and direct SMTP (via `Net::SMTP`) if a mail transfer agent is not available.

The rule of thumb for portable code is: Do it all in portable Perl, or use a module (that may internally implement it with platform-specific code, but expose a common interface).

The UNIX System V IPC ( `msg*(), sem*(), shm*()`) is not available even in all UNIX platforms.

## External Subroutines (XS)

XS code, in general, can be made to work with any platform; but dependent libraries, header files, etc., might not be readily available or portable, or the XS code itself might be platform-specific, just as Perl code might be. If the libraries and headers are portable, then it is normally reasonable to make sure the XS code is portable, too.

There is a different kind of portability issue with writing XS code: availability of a C compiler on the end-user's system. C brings with it its own portability issues, and writing XS code will expose you to some of those. Writing purely in perl is a comparatively easier way to achieve portability.

## Standard Modules

In general, the standard modules work across platforms. Notable exceptions are `CPAN.pm` (which currently makes connections to external programs that may not be available), platform-specific modules (like `ExtUtils::MM_VMS`), and DBM modules.

There is no one DBM module that is available on all platforms. SDBM_File and the others are generally available on all Unix and DOSish ports, but not in MacPerl, where only `NBDM_File` and DB_File are available.

The good news is that at least some DBM module should be available, and AnyDBM_File will use whichever module it can find. Of course, then the code needs to be fairly strict, dropping to the lowest common denominator (e.g., not exceeding 1K for each record).

## Time and Date

The system's notion of time of day and calendar date is controlled in widely different ways. Don't assume the timezone is stored in `$ENV{TZ}`, and even if it is, don't assume that you can control the timezone through that variable.

Don't assume that the epoch starts at 00:00:00, January 1, 1970, because that is OS-specific. Better to store a date in an unambiguous representation. The ISO 8601 standard defines YYYY-MM-DD as the date format. A text representation (like `1 Jan 1970`) can be easily converted into an OS-specific value using a module like `Date::Parse`. An array of values, such as those returned by localtime, can be converted to an OS-specific representation using `Time::Local`.

## Character sets and character encoding

Assume very little about character sets. Do not assume anything about the numerical values (ord(), chr()) of characters. Do not assume that the alphabetic characters are encoded contiguously (in numerical sense). Do no assume anything about the ordering of the characters. The lowercase letters may come before or after the uppercase letters, the lowercase and uppercase may be interlaced so that both 'a' and 'A' come before the 'b', the accented and other international characters may be interlaced so that ä comes before the 'b'.

## Internationalisation

If you may assume POSIX (a rather large assumption, that: in practise that means UNIX) you may read more about the POSIX locale system from the perllocale manpage. The locale system at least attempts to make things a little bit more portable or at least more convenient and native-friendly for non-English users. The system affects character sets and encoding, and date and time formatting, among other things.

## System Resources

If your code is destined for systems with severely constrained (or missing!) virtual memory systems then you want to be especially mindful of avoiding wasteful constructs such as:

        # NOTE: this is no longer "bad" in perl5.005
        for (0..10000000) {}                       # bad
        for (my $x = 0; $x <= 10000000; ++$x) {}   # good

        @lines = <VERY_LARGE_FILE>;                # bad

        while (<FILE>) {$file .= $_}               # sometimes bad
        $file = join('', <FILE>);                  # better

The last two may appear unintuitive to most people. The first of those two constructs repeatedly grows a string, while the second allocates a large chunk of memory in one go. On some systems, the latter is more efficient that the former.

## Security

Most multi-user platforms provide basic levels of security that is usually felt at the file-system level. Other platforms usually don't (unfortunately). Thus the notion of user id, or ``home'' directory, or even the state of being logged-in, may be unrecognizable on many platforms. If you write programs that are security conscious, it is usually best to know what type of system you will be operating under, and write code explicitly for that platform (or class of platforms).

## Style

For those times when it is necessary to have platform-specific code, consider keeping the platform-specific code in one place, making porting to other platforms easier. Use the Config module and the special variable $^O to differentiate platforms, as described in PLATFORMS.

# CPAN Testers

Modules uploaded to CPAN are tested by a variety of volunteers on different platforms. These CPAN testers are notified by mail of each new upload, and reply to the list with PASS, FAIL, NA (not applicable to this platform), or UNKNOWN (unknown), along with any relevant notations.

The purpose of the testing is twofold: one, to help developers fix any problems in their code that crop up because of lack of testing on other platforms; two, to provide users with information about whether or not a given module works on a given platform.

Mailing list: cpan-testers@perl.org
Testing results: http://www.connect.net/gbarr/cpan-test/

# PLATFORMS

As of version 5.002, Perl is built with a $^O variable that indicates the operating system it was built on. This was implemented to help speed up code that would otherwise have to `use Config;` and use the value of `$Config{'osname'}`. Of course, to get detailed information about the system, looking into %Config is certainly recommended.

## Unix

Perl works on a bewildering variety of Unix and Unix-like platforms (see e.g. most of the files in the hints/ directory in the source code kit). On most of these systems, the value of $^O (hence `$Config{'osname'}`, too) is determined by lowercasing and stripping punctuation from the first field of the string returned by typing `uname -a` (or a similar command) at the shell prompt. Here, for example, are a few of the more popular Unix flavors:

        uname        $^O        $Config{'archname'}
        -------------------------------------------
        AIX          aix        aix
        FreeBSD      freebsd    freebsd-i386
        Linux        linux      i386-linux
        HP-UX        hpux       PA-RISC1.1
        IRIX         irix       irix
        OSF1         dec_osf    alpha-dec_osf
        SunOS        solaris    sun4-solaris
        SunOS        solaris    i86pc-solaris
        SunOS4       sunos      sun4-sunos

Note that because the `$Config{'archname'}` may depend on the hardware architecture it may vary quite a lot, much more than the $^O.

## DOS and Derivatives

Perl has long been ported to PC style microcomputers running under systems like PC-DOS, MS-DOS, OS/2, and most Windows platforms you can bring yourself to mention (except for Windows CE, if you count that). Users familiar with COMMAND.COM and/or CMD.EXE style shells should be aware that each of these file specifications may have subtle differences:

        $filespec0 = "c:/foo/bar/file.txt";
        $filespec1 = "c:\\foo\\bar\\file.txt";
        $filespec2 = 'c:\foo\bar\file.txt';
        $filespec3 = 'c:\\foo\\bar\\file.txt';

System calls accept either `/` or `\` as the path separator. However, many command-line utilities of DOS vintage treat `/` as the option prefix, so they may get confused by filenames containing `/`. Aside from calling any external programs, `/` will work just fine, and probably better, as it is more consistent with popular usage, and avoids the problem of remembering what to backwhack and what not to.

The DOS FAT filesystem can only accommodate ``8.3'' style filenames. Under the ``case insensitive, but case preserving'' HPFS (OS/2) and NTFS (NT) filesystems you may have to be careful about case returned with functions like readdir or used with functions like open or opendir.

DOS also treats several filenames as special, such as AUX, PRN, NUL, CON, COM1, LPT1, LPT2 etc. Unfortunately these filenames won't even work if you include an explicit directory prefix, in some cases. It is best to avoid such filenames, if you want your code to be portable to DOS and its derivatives.

Users of these operating systems may also wish to make use of scripts such as pl2bat.bat or pl2cmd as appropriate to put wrappers around your scripts.

Newline (\n) is translated as `\015\012` by STDIO when reading from and writing to files. binmode(FILEHANDLE) will keep \n translated as `\012` for that filehandle. Since it is a noop on other systems, binmode should be used for cross-platform code that deals with binary data.

The $^O variable and the `$Config{'archname'}` values for various DOSish perls are as follows:

        OS            $^O        $Config{'archname'}
        --------------------------------------------
        MS-DOS        dos
        PC-DOS        dos
        OS/2          os2
        Windows 95    MSWin32    MSWin32-x86
        Windows NT    MSWin32    MSWin32-x86
        Windows NT    MSWin32    MSWin32-alpha
        Windows NT    MSWin32    MSWin32-ppc

Also see:

The djgpp environment for DOS, http://www.delorie.com/djgpp/
The EMX environment for DOS, OS/2, etc. emx@iaehv.nl, http://www.juge.com/bbs/Hobb.19.html
Build instructions for Win32, perlwin32.
The ActiveState Pages, http://www.activestate.com/

## Mac&nbsp;OS

Any module requiring XS compilation is right out for most people, because MacPerl is built using non-free (and non-cheap!) compilers. Some XS modules that can work with MacPerl are built and distributed in binary form on CPAN. See MacPerl: Power and Ease and CPAN Testers for more details.

Directories are specified as:

        volume:folder:file              for absolute pathnames
        volume:folder:                  for absolute pathnames
        :folder:file                    for relative pathnames
        :folder:                        for relative pathnames
        :file                           for relative pathnames
        file                            for relative pathnames

Files in a directory are stored in alphabetical order. Filenames are limited to 31 characters, and may include any character except `:`, which is reserved as a path separator.

Instead of flock, see `FSpSetFLock` and `FSpRstFLock` in the `Mac::Files` module.

In the MacPerl application, you can't run a program from the command line; programs that expect `@ARGV` to be populated can be edited with something like the following, which brings up a dialog box asking for the command line arguments.

        if (!@ARGV) {
            @ARGV = split /\s+/, MacPerl::Ask('Arguments?');
        }

A MacPerl script saved as a droplet will populate `@ARGV` with the full pathnames of the files dropped onto the script.

Mac users can use programs on a kind of command line under MPW (Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, a free development environment from Apple). MacPerl was first introduced as an MPW tool, and MPW can be used like a shell:

        perl myscript.plx some arguments

ToolServer is another app from Apple that provides access to MPW tools from MPW and the MacPerl app, which allows MacPerl programs to use system, backticks, and piped open.

``Mac OS'' is the proper name for the operating system, but the value in $^O is ``MacOS''. To determine architecture, version, or whether the application or MPW tool version is running, check:

        $is_app    = $MacPerl::Version =~ /App/;
        $is_tool   = $MacPerl::Version =~ /MPW/;
        ($version) = $MacPerl::Version =~ /^(\S+)/;
        $is_ppc    = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'MacPPC';
        $is_68k    = $MacPerl::Architecture eq 'Mac68K';

Mac OS X, to be based on NeXT's OpenStep OS, will be able to run MacPerl natively (in the Blue Box, and even in the Yellow Box, once some changes to the toolbox calls are made), but Unix perl will also run natively.

Also see:

The MacPerl Pages, http://www.ptf.com/macperl/.
The MacPerl mailing list, mac-perl-request@iis.ee.ethz.ch.

## VMS

Perl on VMS is discussed in vms/perlvms.pod in the perl distribution. Note that perl on VMS can accept either VMS- or Unix-style file specifications as in either of the following:

        $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" SYS$LOGIN:LOGIN.COM
        $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" /sys$login/login.com

but not a mixture of both as in:

        $ perl -ne "print if /perl_setup/i" sys$login:/login.com
        Can't open sys$login:/login.com: file specification syntax error

Interacting with Perl from the Digital Command Language (DCL) shell often requires a different set of quotation marks than Unix shells do. For example:

        $ perl -e "print ""Hello, world.\n"""
        Hello, world.

There are a number of ways to wrap your perl scripts in DCL .COM files if you are so inclined. For example:

        $ write sys$output "Hello from DCL!"
        $ if p1 .eqs. ""
        $ then perl -x 'f$environment("PROCEDURE")
        $ else perl -x - 'p1 'p2 'p3 'p4 'p5 'p6 'p7 'p8
        $ deck/dollars="__END__"
        #!/usr/bin/perl

        print "Hello from Perl!\n";

        __END__
        $ endif

Do take care with `$ ASSIGN/nolog/user SYS$COMMAND: SYS$INPUT` if your perl-in-DCL script expects to do things like `$read = &lt;STDIN&gt;;`.

Filenames are in the format ``name.extension;version''. The maximum length for filenames is 39 characters, and the maximum length for extensions is also 39 characters. Version is a number from 1 to 32767. Valid characters are `/[A-Z0-9$_-]/`.

VMS' RMS filesystem is case insensitive and does not preserve case. readdir returns lowercased filenames, but specifying a file for opening remains case insensitive. Files without extensions have a trailing period on them, so doing a readdir with a file named A.;5 will return a. (though that file could be opened with open(FH, 'A')).

RMS had an eight level limit on directory depths from any rooted logical (allowing 16 levels overall) prior to VMS 7.2. Hence `PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8]` is a valid directory specification but `PERL_ROOT:[LIB.2.3.4.5.6.7.8.9]` is not. Makefile.PL authors might have to take this into account, but at least they can refer to the former as `/PERL_ROOT/lib/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/`.

The `VMS::Filespec` module, which gets installed as part of the build process on VMS, is a pure Perl module that can easily be installed on non-VMS platforms and can be helpful for conversions to and from RMS native formats.

What \n represents depends on the type of file that is open. It could be `\015`, `\012`, `\015\012`, or nothing. Reading from a file translates newlines to `\012`, unless binmode was executed on that handle, just like DOSish perls.

TCP/IP stacks are optional on VMS, so socket routines might not be implemented. UDP sockets may not be supported.

The value of $^O on OpenVMS is ``VMS''. To determine the architecture that you are running on without resorting to loading all of %Config you can examine the content of the `@INC` array like so:

        if (grep(/VMS_AXP/, @INC)) {
            print "I'm on Alpha!\n";
        } elsif (grep(/VMS_VAX/, @INC)) {
            print "I'm on VAX!\n";
        } else {
            print "I'm not so sure about where $^O is...\n";
        }

Also see:

perlvms.pod
vmsperl list, vmsperl-request@newman.upenn.edu

  Put words `SUBSCRIBE VMSPERL` in message body.

vmsperl on the web, http://www.sidhe.org/vmsperl/index.html

## EBCDIC Platforms

Recent versions of Perl have been ported to platforms such as OS/400 on AS/400 minicomputers as well as OS/390 for IBM Mainframes. Such computers use EBCDIC character sets internally (usually Character Code Set ID 00819 for OS/400 and IBM-1047 for OS/390). Note that on the mainframe perl currently works under the ``Unix system services for OS/390'' (formerly known as OpenEdition).

As of R2.5 of USS for OS/390 that Unix sub-system did not support the `#!` shebang trick for script invocation. Hence, on OS/390 perl scripts can executed with a header similar to the following simple script:

        : # use perl
            eval 'exec /usr/local/bin/perl -S $0 ${1+"$@"}'
                if 0;
        #!/usr/local/bin/perl     # just a comment really

        print "Hello from perl!\n";

On these platforms, bear in mind that the EBCDIC character set may have an effect on what happens with some perl functions (such as chr, pack, print, printf, ord, sort, sprintf, unpack), as well as bit-fiddling with ASCII constants using operators like `^`, `&` and `|`, not to mention dealing with socket interfaces to ASCII computers (see NEWLINES).

Fortunately, most web servers for the mainframe will correctly translate the \n in the following statement to its ASCII equivalent (note that `\r` is the same under both Unix and OS/390):

        print "Content-type: text/html\r\n\r\n";

The value of $^O on OS/390 is ``os390''.

Some simple tricks for determining if you are running on an EBCDIC platform could include any of the following (perhaps all):

        if ("\t" eq "\05")   { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; }

        if (ord('A') == 193) { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; }

        if (chr(169) eq 'z') { print "EBCDIC may be spoken here!\n"; }

Note that one thing you may not want to rely on is the EBCDIC encoding of punctuation characters since these may differ from code page to code page (and once your module or script is rumoured to work with EBCDIC, folks will want it to work with all EBCDIC character sets).

Also see:

perl-mvs list

  The perl-mvs@perl.org list is for discussion of porting issues as well as general usage issues for all EBCDIC Perls. Send a message body of ``subscribe perl-mvs'' to majordomo@perl.org.

AS/400 Perl information at http://as400.rochester.ibm.com/

## Acorn RISC OS

As Acorns use ASCII with newlines (\n) in text files as `\012` like Unix and Unix filename emulation is turned on by default, it is quite likely that most simple scripts will work ``out of the box''. The native filing system is modular, and individual filing systems are free to be case-sensitive or insensitive, and are usually case-preserving. Some native filing systems have name length limits which file and directory names are silently truncated to fit - scripts should be aware that the standard disc filing system currently has a name length limit of 10 characters, with up to 77 items in a directory, but other filing systems may not impose such limitations.

Native filenames are of the form

        Filesystem#Special_Field::DiscName.$.Directory.Directory.File

where

        Special_Field is not usually present, but may contain . and $ .
        Filesystem =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_]|
        DsicName   =~ m|[A-Za-z0-9_/]|
        $ represents the root directory
        . is the path separator
        @ is the current directory (per filesystem but machine global)
        ^ is the parent directory
        Directory and File =~ m|[^\0- "\.\$\%\&:\@\\^\|\177]+|

The default filename translation is roughly tr|/.|./|;

Note that `"ADFS::HardDisc.$.File" ne 'ADFS::HardDisc.$.File'` and that the second stage of `$` interpolation in regular expressions will fall foul of the `$.` if scripts are not careful.

Logical paths specified by system variables containing comma-separated search lists are also allowed, hence `System:Modules` is a valid filename, and the filesystem will prefix `Modules` with each section of `System$Path` until a name is made that points to an object on disc. Writing to a new file `System:Modules` would only be allowed if `System$Path` contains a single item list. The filesystem will also expand system variables in filenames if enclosed in angle brackets, so `&lt;System$Dir&gt;.Modules` would look for the file `$ENV{'System$Dir'} . 'Modules'`. The obvious implication of this is that B&lt;&gt; and should be protected when open is used for input.

Because `.` was in use as a directory separator and filenames could not be assumed to be unique after 10 characters, Acorn implemented the C compiler to strip the trailing .c .h .s and `.o` suffix from filenames specified in source code and store the respective files in subdirectories named after the suffix. Hence files are translated:

        foo.h           h.foo
        C:foo.h         C:h.foo        (logical path variable)
        sys/os.h        sys.h.os       (C compiler groks Unix-speak)
        10charname.c    c.10charname
        10charname.o    o.10charname
        11charname_.c   c.11charname   (assuming filesystem truncates at 10)

The Unix emulation library's translation of filenames to native assumes that this sort of translation is required, and allows a user defined list of known suffixes which it will transpose in this fashion. This may appear transparent, but consider that with these rules `foo/bar/baz.h` and `foo/bar/h/baz` both map to `foo.bar.h.baz`, and that readdir and glob cannot and do not attempt to emulate the reverse mapping. Other `.`s in filenames are translated to `/`.

As implied above the environment accessed through `%ENV` is global, and the convention is that program specific environment variables are of the form `Program$Name`. Each filing system maintains a current directory, and the current filing system's current directory is the global current directory. Consequently, sociable scripts don't change the current directory but rely on full pathnames, and scripts (and Makefiles) cannot assume that they can spawn a child process which can change the current directory without affecting its parent (and everyone else for that matter).

As native operating system filehandles are global and currently are allocated down from 255, with 0 being a reserved value the Unix emulation library emulates Unix filehandles. Consequently, you can't rely on passing STDIN, `STDOUT`, or `STDERR` to your children.

The desire of users to express filenames of the form `&lt;Foo$Dir&gt;.Bar` on the command line unquoted causes problems, too: ```` command output capture has to perform a guessing game. It assumes that a string `&lt;[^&lt;&gt;]+\$[^&lt;&gt;]&gt;` is a reference to an environment variable, whereas anything else involving &lt; or &gt; is redirection, and generally manages to be 99% right. Of course, the problem remains that scripts cannot rely on any Unix tools being available, or that any tools found have Unix-like command line arguments.

Extensions and XS are, in theory, buildable by anyone using free tools. In practice, many don't, as users of the Acorn platform are used to binary distribution. MakeMaker does run, but no available make currently copes with MakeMaker's makefiles; even if/when this is fixed, the lack of a Unix-like shell can cause problems with makefile rules, especially lines of the form `cd sdbm && make all`, and anything using quoting.

``RISC OS'' is the proper name for the operating system, but the value in $^O is ``riscos'' (because we don't like shouting).

Also see:

perl list

## Other perls

Perl has been ported to a variety of platforms that do not fit into any of the above categories. Some, such as AmigaOS, BeOS, QNX, and Plan 9, have been well-integrated into the standard Perl source code kit. You may need to see the ports/ directory on CPAN for information, and possibly binaries, for the likes of: aos, atari, lynxos, riscos, Tandem Guardian, vos, etc. (yes we know that some of these OSes may fall under the Unix category, but we are not a standards body.)

See also:

Atari, Guido Flohr's page http://stud.uni-sb.de/~gufl0000/
HP 300 MPE/iX http://www.cccd.edu/~markb/perlix.html
Novell Netware

  A free perl5-based PERL.NLM for Novell Netware is available from `http://www.novell.com/`

# FUNCTION IMPLEMENTATIONS

Listed below are functions unimplemented or implemented differently on various platforms. Following each description will be, in parentheses, a list of platforms that the description applies to.

The list may very well be incomplete, or wrong in some places. When in doubt, consult the platform-specific README files in the Perl source distribution, and other documentation resources for a given port.

Be aware, moreover, that even among Unix-ish systems there are variations.

For many functions, you can also query %Config, exported by default from `Config.pm`. For example, to check if the platform has the lstat call, check `$Config{'d_lstat'}`. See Config.pm for a full description of available variables.

## Alphabetical Listing of Perl Functions

-X FILEHANDLE
-X EXPR
-X

  `-r`, -w, and -x have only a very limited meaning; directories and applications are executable, and there are no uid/gid considerations. `-o` is not supported. (Mac OS)

  `-r`, -w, -x, and `-o` tell whether or not file is accessible, which may not reflect UIC-based file protections. (VMS)

  -s returns the size of the data fork, not the total size of data fork plus resource fork. (Mac OS).

  -s by name on an open file will return the space reserved on disk, rather than the current extent. -s on an open filehandle returns the current size. (RISC OS)

  -R, -W, -X, -O are indistinguishable from `-r`, -w, -x, `-o`. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

  -b, -c, `-k`, `-g`, -p, `-u`, -A are not implemented. (Mac OS)

  `-g`, `-k`, -l, -p, `-u`, -A are not particularly meaningful. (Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

  -d is true if passed a device spec without an explicit directory. (VMS)

  -T and -B are implemented, but might misclassify Mac text files with foreign characters; this is the case will all platforms, but may affect Mac OS often. (Mac OS)

  -x (or -X) determine if a file ends in one of the executable suffixes. -S is meaningless. (Win32)

  -x (or -X) determine if a file has an executable file type. (RISC OS)

binmode FILEHANDLE

  Meaningless. (Mac OS, RISC OS)

  Reopens file and restores pointer; if function fails, underlying filehandle may be closed, or pointer may be in a different position. (VMS)

  The value returned by tell may be affected after the call, and the filehandle may be flushed. (Win32)

chmod LIST

  Only limited meaning. Disabling/enabling write permission is mapped to locking/unlocking the file. (Mac OS)

  Only good for changing ``owner'' read-write access, ``group'', and ``other'' bits are meaningless. (Win32)

  Only good for changing ``owner'' and ``other'' read-write access. (RISC OS)

chown LIST

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9, RISC OS)

  Does nothing, but won't fail. (Win32)

chroot FILENAME
chroot

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, Plan9, RISC OS)

crypt PLAINTEXT,SALT

  May not be available if library or source was not provided when building perl. (Win32)

dbmclose HASH

  Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9)

dbmopen HASH,DBNAME,MODE

  Not implemented. (VMS, Plan9)

dump LABEL

  Not useful. (Mac OS, RISC OS)

  Not implemented. (Win32)

  Invokes VMS debugger. (VMS)

exec LIST

  Not implemented. (Mac OS)

fcntl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR

  Not implemented. (Win32, VMS)

flock FILEHANDLE,OPERATION

  Not implemented (Mac OS, VMS, RISC OS).

  Available only on Windows NT (not on Windows 95). (Win32)

fork

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, AmigaOS, RISC OS)

getlogin

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, RISC OS)

getpgrp PID

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

getppid

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

getpriority WHICH,WHO

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

getpwnam NAME

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

  Not useful. (RISC OS)

getgrnam NAME

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

getnetbyname NAME

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

getpwuid UID

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

  Not useful. (RISC OS)

getgrgid GID

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

getnetbyaddr ADDR,ADDRTYPE

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

getprotobynumber NUMBER

  Not implemented. (Mac OS)

getservbyport PORT,PROTO

  Not implemented. (Mac OS)

getpwent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

getgrent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS)

gethostent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

getnetent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

getprotoent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

getservent

  Not implemented. (Win32, Plan9)

setpwent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, RISC OS)

setgrent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

sethostent STAYOPEN

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9, RISC OS)

setnetent STAYOPEN

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9, RISC OS)

setprotoent STAYOPEN

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9, RISC OS)

setservent STAYOPEN

  Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32, RISC OS)

endpwent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

endgrent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

endhostent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32)

endnetent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

endprotoent

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, Plan9)

endservent

  Not implemented. (Plan9, Win32)

getsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Plan9)

glob EXPR
glob

  Globbing built-in, but only `*` and `?` metacharacters are supported. (Mac OS)

  Features depend on external perlglob.exe or perlglob.bat. May be overridden with something like File::DosGlob, which is recommended. (Win32)

  Globbing built-in, but only `*` and `?` metacharacters are supported. Globbing relies on operating system calls, which may return filenames in any order. As most filesystems are case-insensitive, even ``sorted'' filenames will not be in case-sensitive order. (RISC OS)

ioctl FILEHANDLE,FUNCTION,SCALAR

  Not implemented. (VMS)

  Available only for socket handles, and it does what the `ioctlsocket()` call in the Winsock API does. (Win32)

  Available only for socket handles. (RISC OS)

kill LIST

  Not implemented, hence not useful for taint checking. (Mac OS, RISC OS)

  Available only for process handles returned by the system(1, ...) method of spawning a process. (Win32)

link OLDFILE,NEWFILE

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

lstat FILEHANDLE
lstat EXPR
lstat

  Not implemented. (VMS, RISC OS)

  Return values may be bogus. (Win32)

msgctl ID,CMD,ARG
msgget KEY,FLAGS
msgsnd ID,MSG,FLAGS
msgrcv ID,VAR,SIZE,TYPE,FLAGS

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, Plan9, RISC OS)

open FILEHANDLE,EXPR
open FILEHANDLE

  The `|` variants are only supported if ToolServer is installed. (Mac OS)

  open to `|-` and `-|` are unsupported. (Mac OS, Win32, RISC OS)

pipe READHANDLE,WRITEHANDLE

  Not implemented. (Mac OS)

readlink EXPR
readlink

  Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

select RBITS,WBITS,EBITS,TIMEOUT

  Only implemented on sockets. (Win32)

  Only reliable on sockets. (RISC OS)

semctl ID,SEMNUM,CMD,ARG
semget KEY,NSEMS,FLAGS
semop KEY,OPSTRING

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

setpgrp PID,PGRP

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

setpriority WHICH,WHO,PRIORITY

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

setsockopt SOCKET,LEVEL,OPTNAME,OPTVAL

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Plan9)

shmctl ID,CMD,ARG
shmget KEY,SIZE,FLAGS
shmread ID,VAR,POS,SIZE
shmwrite ID,STRING,POS,SIZE

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

socketpair SOCKET1,SOCKET2,DOMAIN,TYPE,PROTOCOL

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

stat FILEHANDLE
stat EXPR
stat

  mtime and atime are the same thing, and ctime is creation time instead of inode change time. (Mac OS)

  device and inode are not meaningful. (Win32)

  device and inode are not necessarily reliable. (VMS)

  mtime, atime and ctime all return the last modification time. Device and inode are not necessarily reliable. (RISC OS)

symlink OLDFILE,NEWFILE

  Not implemented. (Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

syscall LIST

  Not implemented. (Mac OS, Win32, VMS, RISC OS)

sysopen FILEHANDLE,FILENAME,MODE,PERMS

  The traditional ``0'', ``1'', and ``2'' MODEs are implemented with different numeric values on some systems. The flags exported by Fcntl (O_RDONLY, O_WRONLY, O_RDWR) should work everywhere though. ( Mac OS, OS/390)

system LIST

  Only implemented if ToolServer is installed. (Mac OS)

  As an optimization, may not call the command shell specified in `$ENV{PERL5SHELL}`. system(1, @args) spawns an external process and immediately returns its process designator, without waiting for it to terminate. Return value may be used subsequently in wait or waitpid. (Win32)

  There is no shell to process metacharacters, and the native standard is to pass a command line terminated by ``\n'' ``\r'' or ``\0'' to the spawned program. Redirection such as `&gt; foo` is performed (if at all) by the run time library of the spawned program. system list will call the Unix emulation library's exec emulation, which attempts to provide emulation of the stdin, stdout, stderr in force in the parent, providing the child program uses a compatible version of the emulation library. scalar will call the native command line direct and no such emulation of a child Unix program will exists. Mileage will vary. (RISC OS)

times

  Only the first entry returned is nonzero. (Mac OS)

  ``cumulative'' times will be bogus. On anything other than Windows NT, ``system'' time will be bogus, and ``user'' time is actually the time returned by the `clock()` function in the C runtime library. (Win32)

  Not useful. (RISC OS)

truncate FILEHANDLE,LENGTH
truncate EXPR,LENGTH

  Not implemented. (VMS)

umask EXPR
umask

  Returns undef where unavailable, as of version 5.005.

utime LIST

  Only the modification time is updated. (Mac OS, VMS, RISC OS)

  May not behave as expected. Behavior depends on the C runtime library's implementation of `utime(),` and the filesystem being used. The FAT filesystem typically does not support an ``access time'' field, and it may limit timestamps to a granularity of two seconds. (Win32)

wait
waitpid PID,FLAGS

  Not implemented. (Mac OS)

  Can only be applied to process handles returned for processes spawned using system(1, ...). (Win32)

  Not useful. (RISC OS)

# CHANGES

1. 33, 06 August 1998

   Integrate more minor changes.

2. 32, 05 August 1998

   Integrate more minor changes.

3. 30, 03 August 1998

   Major update for RISC OS, other minor changes.

4. 23, 10 July 1998

   First public release with perl5.005.

# AUTHORS / CONTRIBUTORS

Abigail <abigail@fnx.com>, Charles Bailey <bailey@genetics.upenn.edu>, Graham Barr <gbarr@pobox.com>, Tom Christiansen <tchrist@perl.com>, Nicholas Clark <Nicholas.Clark@liverpool.ac.uk >, Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu >, Dominic Dunlop <domo@vo.lu>, M.J.T. Guy <mjtg@cus.cam.ac.uk>, Luther Huffman <lutherh@stratcom.com>, Nick Ing-Simmons <nick@ni-s.u-net.com>, Andreas J. König <koenig@kulturbox.de>, Andrew M. Langmead <aml@world.std.com>, Paul Moore <Paul.Moore@uk.origin-it.com>, Chris Nandor <pudge@pobox.com>, Matthias Neeracher <neeri@iis.ee.ethz.ch>, Gary Ng <71564.1743@CompuServe.COM>, Tom Phoenix <rootbeer@teleport.com>, Peter Prymmer <pvhp@forte.com>, Hugo van der Sanden <hv@crypt0.demon.co.uk>, Gurusamy Sarathy <gsar@umich.edu>, Paul J. Schinder <schinder@pobox.com>, Dan Sugalski <sugalskd@ous.edu>, Nathan Torkington <gnat@frii.com>.

This document is maintained by Chris Nandor.

# VERSION

Version 1.34, last modified 07 August 1998.