source: trunk/third/perl/README.ce @ 20075

If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
specifically designed to be readable as is.

=head1 NAME

perlce - Perl for WinCE

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This file gives the instructions for building Perl5.8 and above for
WinCE.  Please read and understand the terms under which this
software is distributed.

=head1 BUILD

This section describes the steps to be performed to build PerlCE.
You may find additional and newer information about building perl
for WinCE using following URL:

  http://perlce.sourceforge.net

There should also be pre-built binaries there.

Don't be confused by large size of downloaded distribution or constructed
binaries: entire distribution could be large for WinCE ideology, but
you may strip it at your wish and use only required parts.

=head2 Tools & SDK

For compiling, you need following:

=over 4

=item * Microsoft Embedded Visual Tools

=item * Microsoft Visual C++

=item * Rainer Keuchel's celib-sources

=item * Rainer Keuchel's console-sources

=back

Needed source files can be downloaded via:
www.rainer-keuchel.de/wince/dirlist.html

=head2 Make

Please pay attention that starting from 5.8.0 miniperl *is* built
and it facilitates in further building process. This means that
in addition to compiler installation for mobile device you also need
to have Microsoft Visual C++ installed as well.

On the bright side, you do not need to edit any files from ./win32
subdirectory. Normally you only need to edit ./wince/compile.bat
to reflect your system and run it.

File ./wince/compile.bat is actually a wrapper to call
nmake -f makefile.ce with appropriate parameters and it accepts extra
parameters and forwards them to "nmake" command as additional
arguments. You should pass target this way.

To prepare distribution you need to do following:

=over 4

=item * go to ./wince subdirectory

=item * edit file compile.bat

=item * run 
  compile.bat

=item * run 
  compile.bat dist

=back

makefile.ce has CROSS_NAME macro, and it is used further to refer to
your cross-compilation scheme. You could assign a name to it, but this
is not necessary, because by default it is assigned after your machine
configuration name, such as "wince-sh3-hpc-wce211", and this is enough
to distinguish different builds at the same time. This option could be
handy for several different builds on same platform to perform, say,
threaded build. In a following example we assume that all required
environment variables are set properly for C cross-compiler (a special
*.bat file could fit perfectly to this purpose) and your compile.bat
has proper "MACHINE" parameter set, to, say, "wince-mips-pocket-wce300".

  compile.bat
  compile.bat dist
  compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" "USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define"
  compile.bat CROSS_NAME=mips-wce300-thr "USE_ITHREADS=define" "USE_IMP_SYS=define" "USE_MULTI=define" dist

If all goes okay and no errors during a build, you'll get two independent
distributions: "wince-mips-pocket-wce300" and "mips-wce300-thr".

Target 'dist' prepares distribution file set. Target 'zipdist' performs
same as 'dist' but additionally compresses distribution files into zip
archive.

NOTE: during a build there could be created a number (or one) of Config.pm
for cross-compilation ("foreign" Config.pm) and those are hidden inside
../xlib/$(CROSS_NAME) with other auxilary files, but, and this is important to
note, there should be *no* Config.pm for host miniperl.
If you'll get an error that perl could not find Config.pm somewhere in building
process this means something went wrong. Most probably you forgot to
specify a cross-compilation when invoking miniperl.exe to Makefile.PL
When building an extension for cross-compilation your command line should
look like

  ..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross=mips-wce300-thr Makefile.PL

or just

  ..\miniperl.exe -I..\lib -MCross Makefile.PL

to refer a cross-compilation that was created last time.


If you decided to build with fcrypt.c file, please refer to README.win32
file, as long as all legal considerations and steps to do are exactly same 
in this case.

All questions related to building for WinCE devices could be asked in
perlce-users@lists.sourceforge.net mailing list.

=head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The port for Win32 was used as a reference.

=head1 AUTHORS

Rainer Keuchel (keuchel@netwave.de)
Vadim Konovalov (vkonovalov@spb.lucent.com)