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https://github.com/cosimo/libwin32

A collection of Perl modules that allow access to the functionality provided by the Win32 API, while maintaining the style and spirit of Perl.
https://github.com/cosimo/libwin32

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A collection of Perl modules that allow access to the functionality provided by the Win32 API, while maintaining the style and spirit of Perl.

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README 

        
Welcome to libwin32 version 0.28.



All discussion of development / maintenance of the libwin32 package

should happen on the [email protected] mailing list.  You can

subscribe by sending an empty email message to:



    [email protected]



An NNTP archive of previous messages is available from:



    http://www.nntp.perl.org/group/perl.libwin32



Please report any bugs or enhancement requests to the CPAN

request tracker at:



    http://rt.cpan.org/NoAuth/Bugs.html?Dist=libwin32



This 0.28 release of libwin32 is mostly identical to version 0.27.

The only change is the removal of the Win32API::Registry and Tie::Registry

modules, which are maintained separately on CPAN.



I've added a Bundle::libwin32 module to provide an easy way to install

all modules that used to be included in the libwin32 package.



I intend to release updated versions of libwin32 modules to CPAN as

individual distributions too, to make it easier to release them in

a more timely manner.



Cheers,

Jan Dubois

[email protected]

14 September 2007



WHAT

----



This used to be a bundle of extensions that provided a quick migration path

for people wanting to use the core support for win32 in perl 5.004 and later.



With the release of Perl version 5.005 (which brings ActiveState's changes

to Perl sources into the mainstream), this library of extensions has

assumed loftier motives.  The long term goal of this project is to provide

a coherent collection of modules that allow access to the functionality

provided by the Win32 API, while maintaining the style and spirit of Perl.

Like Perl, the intention is to make "easy things easy, and hard things

possible".  Note that we are nowhere close to this goal at the present

time, but we are slowly getting there.



As the name suggests, all modules in this distribution are Win32-specific.

They cannot be used on platforms that do not support the Win32 API.



WHAT HAS CHANGED

----------------



The top level "Changes" file contains a version by version overview of

the most significant changes.



This release has the following changes over the previous one (version 0.24):



0.28  14 September 2007



   + Win32API::Registry and Win32::TieRegistry modules have been removed; they

     are maintained independently on CPAN.



   + Bundle::libwin32 has been added.  Installing this bundle via the

     CPAN shell will install all the modules that used to be part of

     libwin32 (currently Win32, Win32API::File, Win32API::Registry and

     Win32::TieRegistry in addition to libwin32 itself).



Many thanks to all the contributors.



WHAT TO DO

----------



Many modules come with their own test files.  You may want to use them

as a source of examples.  Many of the test files will only run on

Windows NT, others may require Windows NT 4.0, and still others may

require Administrator privileges, or a full-fledged Windows network.



This set of modules will build with perl v5.6.0 and later on the Windows

NT platform.  Building on Windows 95 is not supported (it *may* be

possible if you use the 4DOS command shell, but your mileage may vary).



   + First you need to build perl 5.6.0 or later (you will need

     either Visual C++ 5.x+ or Borland C++ 5.02+), and install it.  See

     README.win32 in the perl distribution for details on how to build

     perl for the Win32 platform.  ActivePerl build 613 or later will

     also suffice.



   + Make sure your perl is properly configured.  "perl -V:libpth" should

     report a valid path to your compiler's library files.



     If you built perl yourself, make sure you specify the C compiler's

     library location properly in the Makefile used to build perl.



     If your C compiler and libraries are installed in a path with

     spaces, you'll need to quote any components with spaces, or use

     the short path name equivalents.



   + All that done, you need to extract this distribution into an NTFS

     partition (the tests in the FileSecurity module and Net* modules

     will fail otherwise).  The testsuite for OLE needs Excel (from

     Office 2000) to run.  NetAdmin will only work if you have some kind

     of live network connection, and are in a domain with a properly

     configured domain controller.  NetResource requires that you

     be part of a domain or workgroup.  You may also need

     Administrator privileges for running some of the tests.

     If one or more of these conditions will not be met, you may

     wish to build in the subdirectories one by one.  The steps

     below will work either at the toplevel directory, or in each

     of the individual extension subdirectories.

   

   + You need either MS Visual C++ (OLE needs 4.2b, NetAdmin needs ver.

     4.x+, Internet needs ver. 5.0. ver. 2.0 should suffice for the

     others) or Borland C++ 5.02.  Make sure you have the full installation

     of either of these compilers ("Minimal" installations or CDROM-based

     installations may have problems finding all the libraries).

     [NOTE: I have only tested building this release with Visual Studio 98,

     aka Visual C++ 6.0.  Please send patches if you hit problems with

     the other compilers.] 

     

   + If the Internet extension doesn't build due to lack of libraries

     (the wininet.h header is included), fetch the Platform SDK from

     "http://www.microsoft.com/msdn/sdk/".  You need to look for wininet.h

     and wininet.dll.  If either of those is newer than the ones you already

     have, replace the older ones, and copy the newer wininet.lib into the

     Internet/ directory.



   + perl Makefile.PL               [either at toplevel or in subdirs]

   

   + $MAKE                          [either at toplevel or in subdirs]

   

   + $MAKE test                     [optional, some interactive tests]

   

   + $MAKE install                  [either at toplevel or in subdirs]



$MAKE above stands for either "dmake" or "nmake" depending on your

available compiler, and perl configuration.



WHAT THEN

---------



If you find any problems with these modules, kindly report them to both

the original author and to me.  While I have fixed many problems in these

modules, I may also have introduced brand new bugs in the process :)



I wish to thank the authors of these modules for their effort in making

them useful, and for making them freely available.



Suggestions, patches, testsuite additions, and wholesale rewrites welcome.



Enjoy!



Gurusamy Sarathy

[email protected]

8 July 2002



WHATEVER

--------



Copyright for many of the modules is held by their respective authors.

Look in the module subdirectories for any conditions of use.



The following copyright applies to all files that don't have an explicit

copyright statement:



    (c) 1995 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. 

	Developed by ActiveWare Internet Corp., http://www.ActiveWare.com



    Other modifications (c) 1997-2000 by Gurusamy Sarathy 

                        (c) 1999-2002 by ActiveState Corp.



    You may distribute under the terms of either the GNU General Public

    License or the Artistic License, as specified in the README file

    of the Perl distribution.