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PERLSYMBIAN(1)                             Perl Programmers Reference Guide                            PERLSYMBIAN(1)



NAME
       perlsymbian - Perl version 5 on Symbian OS

DESCRIPTION
       This document describes various features of the Symbian operating system that will affect how Perl version 5
       (hereafter just Perl) is compiled and/or runs.

       NOTE: this port (as of 0.4.1) does not compile into a Symbian OS GUI application, but instead it results in a
       Symbian DLL.  The DLL includes a C++ class called CPerlBase, which one can then (derive from and) use to embed
       Perl into applications, see symbian/README.

       The base port of Perl to Symbian only implements the basic POSIX-like functionality; it does not implement any
       further Symbian or Series 60, Series 80, or UIQ bindings for Perl.

       It is also possible to generate Symbian executables for "miniperl" and "perl", but since there is no standard
       command line interface for Symbian (nor full keyboards in the devices), these are useful mainly as
       demonstrations.

   Compiling Perl on Symbian
       (0) You need to have the appropriate Symbian SDK installed.

           These instructions have been tested under various Nokia Series 60
           Symbian SDKs (1.2 to 2.6, 2.8 should also work, 1.2 compiles but
           does not work), Series 80 2.0, and Nokia 7710 (Series 90) SDK.
           You can get the SDKs from Forum Nokia (L<http://www.forum.nokia.com/>).
           A very rough port ("it compiles") to UIQ 2.1 has also been made.

           A prerequisite for any of the SDKs is to install ActivePerl
           from ActiveState, L<http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/>

           Having the SDK installed also means that you need to have either
           the Metrowerks CodeWarrior installed (2.8 and 3.0 were used in testing)
           or the Microsoft Visual C++ 6.0 installed (SP3 minimum, SP5 recommended).

           Note that for example the Series 60 2.0 VC SDK installation talks
           about ActivePerl build 518, which does no more (as of mid-2005) exist
           at the ActiveState website.  The ActivePerl 5.8.4 build 810 was
           used successfully for compiling Perl on Symbian.  The 5.6.x ActivePerls
           do not work.

           Other SDKs or compilers like Visual.NET, command-line-only
           Visual.NET, Borland, GnuPoc, or sdk2unix have not been tried.

           These instructions almost certainly won't work with older Symbian
           releases or other SDKs.  Patches to get this port running in other
           releases, SDKs, compilers, platforms, or devices are naturally welcome.

       (1) Get a Perl source code distribution (for example the file
           perl-5.9.2.tar.gz is fine) from <http://www.cpan.org/src/>
           and unpack it in your the C:/Symbian directory of your Windows
           system.

       (2) Change to the perl source directory.

               cd c:\Symbian\perl-5.x.x

               make all

           in cmd.exe or by using either the Metrowerks CodeWarrior
           or the Visual C++ 6.0, or the Visual Studio 8 (the Visual C++
           2005 Express Edition works fine).

           If you use the VC IDE, you will have to run F<symbian\config.pl>
           first using the cmd.exe, and then run 'make win.mf vc6.mf' to generate
           the VC6 makefiles and workspaces.  "make vc6" will compile for the VC6,
           and "make cw" for the CodeWarrior.

           The following SDK and compiler configurations and Nokia phones were
           tested at some point in time (+ = compiled and PerlApp run, - = not),
           both for Perl 5.8.x and 5.9.x:

               SDK     | VC | CW |
               --------+----+----+---
               S60 1.2 | +  | +  | 3650 (*)
               S60 2.0 | +  | +  | 6600
               S60 2.1 | -  | +  | 6670
               S60 2.6 | +  | +  | 6630
               S60 2.8 | +  | +  | (not tested in a device)
               S80 2.6 | -  | +  | 9300
               S90 1.1 | +  | -  | 7710
               UIQ 2.1 | -  | +  | (not tested in a device)

           (*) Compiles but does not work, unfortunately, a problem with Symbian.

           If you are using the 'make' directly, it is the GNU make from the SDKs,
           and it will invoke the right make commands for the Windows emulator
           build and the Arm target builds ('thumb' by default) as necessary.

           The build scripts assume the 'absolute style' SDK installs under C:,
           the 'subst style' will not work.

           If using the VC IDE, to build use for example the File->Open Workspace->
           C:\Symbian\8.0a\S60_2nd_FP2\epoc32\build\symbian\perl\perl\wins\perl.dsw
           The emulator binaries will appear in the same directory.

           If using the VC IDE, you will a lot of warnings in the beginning of
           the build because a lot of headers mentioned by the source cannot
           be found, but this is not serious since those headers are not used.

           The Metrowerks will give a lot of warnings about unused variables and
           empty declarations, you can ignore those.

           When the Windows and Arm DLLs are built do not be scared by a very long
           messages whizzing by: it is the "export freeze" phase where the whole
           (rather large) API of Perl is listed.

           Once the build is completed you need to create the DLL SIS file by

               make perldll.sis


           The perlXYZ.sis includes only the Perl DLL: to create an additional
           SIS file which includes some of the standard (pure) Perl libraries,
           issue the command

               make perllib.sis

           Some of the standard Perl libraries are included, but not all:
           see L</HISTORY> or F<symbian\install.cfg> for more details
           (250 kB -> 700 kB).

           Some of the standard Perl XS extensions (see L</HISTORY> are
           also available:

               make perlext.sis

           which will create perlXYZext.sis (290 kB -> 770 kB).

           To compile the demonstration application PerlApp you need first to
           install the Perl headers under the SDK.

           To install the Perl headers and the class CPerlBase documentation
           so that you no more need the Perl sources around to compile Perl
           applications using the SDK:

               make sdkinstall

           The destination directory is C:\Symbian\perl\X.Y.Z.  For more
           details, see F<symbian\PerlBase.pod>.

           Once the headers have been installed, you can create a SIS for
           the PerlApp:

               make perlapp.sis

           The perlapp.sis (11 kB -> 16 kB) will be built in the symbian
           subdirectory, but a copy will also be made to the main directory.

           If you want to package the Perl DLLs (one for WINS, one for ARMI),
           the headers, and the documentation:

               make perlsdk.zip

           which will create perlXYZsdk.zip that can be used in another
           Windows system with the SDK, without having to compile Perl in
           that system.

           If you want to package the PerlApp sources:

               make perlapp.zip

           If you want to package the perl.exe and miniperl.exe, you
           can use the perlexe.sis and miniperlexe.sis make targets.
           You also probably want the perllib.sis for the libraries
           and maybe even the perlapp.sis for the recognizer.

           cat makefile.sh >makefile
           'cat' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
           operable program or batch file.

       it means you need to (re)run the symbian\config.pl.

       If you get the error

               'perl' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
               operable program or batch file.

       you may need to reinstall the ActivePerl.

       If you see this

           ren makedef.pl nomakedef.pl
           The system cannot find the file specified.
           C:\Symbian\...\make.exe: [rename_makedef] Error 1 (ignored)

       please ignore it since it is nothing serious (the build process of renames the Perl makedef.pl as nomakedef.pl
       to avoid confusing it with a makedef.pl of the SDK).

   PerlApp
       The PerlApp application demonstrates how to embed Perl interpreters to a Symbian application.  The "Time" menu
       item runs the following Perl code: "print "Running in ", $^O, "\n", scalar localtime", the "Oneliner" allows
       one to type in Perl code, and the "Run" opens a file chooser for selecting a Perl file to run.

       The PerlApp also is started when the "Perl recognizer" (also included and installed) detects a Perl file being
       activated through the GUI, and offers either to install it under \Perl (if the Perl file is in the inbox of
       the messaging application) or to run it (if the Perl file is under \Perl).

   sisify.pl
       In the symbian subdirectory there is sisify.pl utility which can be used to package Perl scripts and/or Perl
       library directories into SIS files, which can be installed to the device.  To run the sisify.pl utility, you
       will need to have the 'makesis' and 'uidcrc' utilities already installed.  If you don't have the Win32 SDKs,
       you may try for example <http://gnupoc.sourceforge.net/> or <http://symbianos.org/~andreh/>.

   Using Perl in Symbian
       First of all note that you have full access to the Symbian device when using Perl: you can do a lot of damage
       to your device (like removing system files) unless you are careful.  Please do take backups before doing
       anything.

       The Perl port has been done for the most part using the Symbian standard POSIX-ish STDLIB library. It is a
       reasonably complete library, but certain corners of such emulation libraries that tend to be left
       unimplemented on non-UNIX platforms have been left unimplemented also this time: fork(), signals(), user/group
       ids, select() working for sockets, non-blocking sockets, and so forth.  See the file symbian/config.sh and
       look for 'undef' to find the unsupported APIs (or from Perl use Config).

       The filesystem of Symbian devices uses DOSish syntax, "drives" separated from paths by a colon, and
       backslashes for the path.  The exact assignment of the drives probably varies between platforms, but for
       example in Series 60 you might see C: as the (flash) main memory, D: as the RAM drive, E: as the memory card
       (MMC), Z: as the ROM.  In Series 80 D: is the memory card.  As far the devices go the NUL: is the bit bucket,
       the COMx: are the serial lines, IRCOMx: are the IR ports, TMP: might be C:\System\Temp.  Remember to double
       need them.  PerlBase.h undefines the Perl definitions and redefines them as PerlNew() and PerlCopy().

TO DO
       Lots.  See symbian/TODO.

WARNING
       As of Perl Symbian port version 0.4.1 any part of Perl's standard regression test suite has not been run on a
       real Symbian device using the ported Perl, so innumerable bugs may lie in wait.  Therefore there is absolutely
       no warranty.

NOTE
       When creating and extending application programming interfaces (APIs) for Symbian or Series 60 or Series 80 or
       Series 90 it is suggested that trademarks, registered trademarks, or trade names are not used in the API
       names.  Instead, developers should consider basing the API naming in the existing (C++, or maybe Java) public
       component and API naming, modified as appropriate by the rules of the programming language the new APIs are
       for.

       Nokia is a registered trademark of Nokia Corporation. Nokia's product names are trademarks or registered
       trademarks of Nokia.  Other product and company names mentioned herein may be trademarks or trade names of
       their respective owners.

AUTHOR
       Jarkko Hietaniemi

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright (c) 2004-2005 Nokia.  All rights reserved.

       Copyright (c) 2006-2007 Jarkko Hietaniemi.

LICENSE
       The Symbian port is licensed under the same terms as Perl itself.

HISTORY
       ·   0.1.0: April 2005

           (This will show as "0.01" in the Symbian Installer.)

             - The console window is a very simple console indeed: one can
               get the newline with "000" and the "C" button is a backspace.
               Do not expect a terminal capable of vt100 or ANSI sequences.
               The console is also "ASCII", you cannot input e.g. any accented
               letters.  Because of obvious physical constraints the console is
               also very small: (in Nokia 6600) 22 columns, 17 rows.
             - The following libraries are available:
               AnyDBM_File AutoLoader base Carp Config Cwd constant
               DynaLoader Exporter File::Spec integer lib strict Symbol
               vars warnings XSLoader
             - The following extensions are available:
               attributes Compress::Zlib Cwd Data::Dumper Devel::Peek Digest::MD5 DynaLoader
               Fcntl File::Glob Filter::Util::Call IO List::Util MIME::Base64
               PerlIO::scalar PerlIO::via SDBM_File Socket Storable Time::HiRes
             - The following extensions are missing for various technical reasons:
               B ByteLoader Devel::DProf Devel::PPPort Encode GDBM_File
               I18N::Langinfo IPC::SysV NDBM_File Opcode PerlIO::encoding POSIX

             - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 25741)
             - Compress::Zlib and IO::Zlib supported
             - sisify.pl added

           We maintain the binary incompatibility.

       ·   0.3.0: October 2005

             - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 25911)
             - Series 80 2.0 and UIQ 2.1 support

           We maintain the binary incompatibility.

       ·   0.4.0: November 2005

             - Perl 5.9.3 (patch level 26052)
             - adding a sample Symbian extension

           We maintain the binary incompatibility.

       ·   0.4.1: December 2006

             - Perl 5.9.5-to-be (patch level 30002)
             - added extensions: Compress/Raw/Zlib, Digest/SHA,
               Hash/Util, Math/BigInt/FastCalc, Text/Soundex, Time/Piece
             - port to S90 1.1 by alexander smishlajev

           We maintain the binary incompatibility.

       ·   0.4.2: March 2007

             - catchup with Perl 5.9.5-to-be (patch level 30812)
             - tested to build with Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition
               (which uses Microsoft Visual C 8, instead of the old VC6),
               SDK used for testing S60_2nd_FP3 aka 8.1a

           We maintain the binary incompatibility.



perl v5.16.3                                          2013-03-04                                       PERLSYMBIAN(1)