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
specially designed to be readable as is.

=head1 NAME

README.epoc - Perl for EPOC

=head1 SYNOPSIS

Perl 5 README file for the EPOC operating system.

=head1 INTRODUCTION

EPOC is an OS for palmtops and mobile phones. For more informations look at:
http://www.symbian.com/

This is a port of perl to EPOC. It runs on ER5 machines: Psion 5mx,
5mx Pro, Psion Revo, Psion Netbook and on the Ericson M128. It runs on
ER3 Hardware (Series 5 classic), too. For more information about this
hardware please refer to http://www.psion.com.

Vendors which like to have support for their devices are free to send
me a sample. 

=head1 INSTALLING PERL ON EPOC

You can download a ready-to-install version from
http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl. You may find other
versions with some CPAN modules included at this location.

You will need at least ~4MB free space in order to install and run
perl.

Install perl.sis on the EPOC machine. If you do not know how to do
that, consult your PsiWin documentation.

Perl itself and its standard library is using 2.5 MB disk space.
Unicode support and some other modules are left out. (For details,
please look into epoc/createpkg.pl). If you like to use these modules,
you are free to copy them from a current perl release.

=head1 STARTING PERL ON EPOC

For ER5 machines, you can get the software Perlstart
http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl. It contains file
recognizers for files with the extension .pl and .pm. With it you can
start perl with a double click on the camel icon. Be sure to configure
the perl installation drive first. You can even provide a script with
a special commandline, if needed.

Alternatively you can use the epocemx shell

If you have an ER3 machine (i.e. a PSION 5), you may have to supply the
full path to the perl executable C:\system\programs\perl.exe.

If you need to set the current directory of perl, please use the
command line switch '-x'. See L<perlrun> for details.

=head1 STOPPING PERL ON EPOC

You can stop a running perl process in the task list by closing the
application `STDOUT'. You can use the kill command in the epocemx
shell to kill perl.

=head1 USING PERL ON EPOC

=head2 I/O Redirection on Epoc

You can redirect the output with the UNIX bourne shell syntax (this is
built into perl rather then eshell) For instance the following command
line will run the script test.pl with the output redirected to
stdout_file, the errors to stderr_file and input from stdin_file.

perl test.pl >stdout_file <stdin_file 2>stderr_file

Alternatively you can use 2>&1 in order to add the standard error
output to stdout.

=head2 PATH Names on Epoc

ESHELL looks for executables in ?:/System/Programs. The SIS file
installs perl in this special folder directory. The default drive and
path are the same as folder the executable resides. The EPOC
filesystem is case-preserving, not case-sensitive.

The EPOC estdlib uses the ?: syntax for establishing a search order:
First in C: (RAM), then on D: (CF Card, if present) and last in Z:
(ROM). For instance ?:\a.txt searches for C:\a.txt, D:\a.txt (and
Z:\a.txt)

The perl @INC search path is implemented with '?:'. Your perl
executable can live on a different drive than the perl library or even
your scripts.

ESHELL paths have to be written with backslashes '\', file arguments
to perl with slashes '/'. Remember that I/O redirection is done
internally in perl, so please use slashes for redirects.

perl.exe C:/test.pl >C:/output.txt

=head2 Editors on Epoc

A suitable text editor can be downloaded from symbian
http://www.symbian.com/developer/downloads/files/editor.zip

=head2 Features of Perl on Epoc

The built-in function EPOC::getcwd returns the current directory.

=head2 Restrictions of Perl on Epoc

Features are left out, because of restrictions of the POSIX support in
EPOC:

=over 4

=item *

backquoting, pipes etc.

=item *

system() does not inherit resources like: file descriptors,
environment etc.

=item *

signal, kill, alarm. Do not try to use them. This may be
impossible to implement on EPOC.

=item *

select is missing.

=item *

binmode does not exist. (No CR LF to LF translation for text files)

=item *

EPOC does not handle the notion of current drive and current
directory very well (i.e. not at all, but it tries hard to emulate
one) See PATH.

=item *

Heap is limited to 4MB.

=item *

Dynamic loading is not implemented.

=back

=head2 Compiling Perl 5 on the EPOC cross compiling environment

Sorry, this is far too short.

=over 4

=item *

You will need the epocemx SDK from Eberhard Mattes. Watch out for an
announcement.

=item *

Get the Perl sources from your nearest CPAN site.

=item *

Unpack the sources. 

=item *

Build a native perl from this sources... Make sure to save the
miniperl executable as miniperl.native.

Start again from scratch

      cp epoc/* .
      ./Configure -S
      make 
      cp miniperl.native miniperl
      make
      perl createpkg.pl 

      emxsis perl.pkg perl.sis

=back

=head1 SUPPORT STATUS OF PERL ON EPOC

I'm offering this port "as is". You can ask me questions, but I can't
guarantee I'll be able to answer them.

=head1 AUTHOR

Olaf Flebbe <o.flebbe@science-computing.de>
http://www.science-computing.de/o.flebbe/perl/

=head1 LAST UPDATE

2001-12-12

=cut