This file is best viewed with "perldoc README.win32".

=head1 NAME

README.win32 - Parrot under Windows

=head1 SYNOPSIS

These are instructions for building the "native" port of Parrot under
Windows 2000/XP on the Intel x86 architecture.

=head1 DESCRIPTION

Win32 "native" ports require no additional software to run but the
operating system.  There should be other READMEs for (emulation)
systems that run on Win32, eg Cygwin.

Native compilers include:

       Borland C++ (bcc)		version xxx or later
       Microsoft Visual C++ (cl)	version 13.10.3077 or later
       MinGW32 with GCC (gcc)		version 3.2.3 or later
       Intel C++ (icl)                  version 8.0.48 works

=head2 Setting Up Parrot

=over

=item Make

You need "nmake" to build Parrot under Windows with Microsoft compilers.  
It should be available via Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003 or the 
Microsoft .NET Framework SDK 1.1.  The later can be downloaded from the 
Microsoft .NET Framework Homepage L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/netframework/>.

nmake should also be available at:
http://download.microsoft.com/download/vc15/Patch/1.52/W95/EN-US/Nmake15.exe
or
ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/Softlib/MSLFILES/nmake15.exe

MinGW works with its GNU "make" (v 3.80) port and its name is
'mingw32-make.exe'.

=item Command Shell

The surest way to build it is on Windows NT/2000/XP, using the cmd shell.

=item ICU

Parrot no longer comes with its own ICU, thus you need to install it on your
system if you want to use it.  Note that ICU is now optional, you can
build Parrot without it, by not installing it or asking Parrot to
ignore it (C<--without-icu>).  

If you want to use ICU, download it from
L<http://www-306.ibm.com/software/globalization/icu/downloads.jsp>.

If you want to use precompiled binaries, do the following.
Download the package matching your compiler, unpack it (say, into
C:\usr\lib), add the F<bin> directory to C<PATH>, and tell
Configure.pl to use it.

    mkdir C:\usr\lib
    unzip icu-3.2-Win32-msvc7.1.zip -d C:\usr\lib
    mkdir C:\usr\lib\data
    set PATH=%PATH%;C:\usr\lib\icu\bin
    cd <parrot directory>
    perl Configure.pl --icushared="C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icudt.lib C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icuuc.lib" --icuheaders="C:\usr\lib\icu\include" --icudatadir="C:\usr\local\icu\data"

With MinGW32, use icu-3.2-Win32-msvc6.zip.

Note the step of creating the F<C:\usr\lib\data> directory, as Parrot
really wants it and the binary packages don't contain it.  It doesn't
need to contain anything though, as the data is pulled in from
F<lib/icudt.lib>, which contains the standard data in binary form.

=item Inno Setup

Inno Setup is a I<free> installer for Windows programs.

The latest release of Inno Setup at the time of writing is 5.0.8. 

The HomePage is on L<http://www.jrsoftware.org/>.

Add the directory to PATH.

    set PATH=%PATH%;C:\Program Files\Inno Setup 5

=item Borland C++

XXX

=item Microsoft Visual C++

Since mid April 2004, Visual C++ comes in two flavors.  Microsoft
Visual Studio .NET 2003 (L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/>), which
includes the full blown IDE, and Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
(L<http://msdn.microsoft.com/visualc/vctoolkit2003/>), which is a free
(but unsupported) package, containing only the basic compiler and
linker stuff.

Only Microsoft Visual Studio is currently known to work.  XXX Add
Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit instructions here XXX

=item MinGW32 with GCC

The latest release of MinGW package at the time of writing is 3.1.0, 
which contains gcc-3.2.3. It can be downloaded here: 
L<http://prdownloads.sf.net/mingw/MinGW-3.1.0-1.exe>

The HomePage is on L<http://www.mingw.org/>.

With the ActiveState Perl distribution, tell Configure.pl to use gcc :

    perl Configure.pl --cc=gcc --icushared="C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icudt.lib C:\usr\lib\icu\lib\icuuc.lib" --icuheaders="C:\usr\lib\icu\include" --icudatadir="C:\usr\local\icu\data"
or
    perl Configure.pl --cc=gcc --without-icu

=item Intel C++

XXX

=back

=head2 Building

    $MAKE

=head2 Testing

    $MAKE test

=head2 Installation

    $MAKE install

=head2 Installer

    $MAKE win32-inno-installer
    
This command creats a setup-parrot-x.y.z.exe that contains all parrot install 
directories.

=head2 Usage Hints

    XXX

=head1 BUGS AND CAVEATS

=over

=item Dynclasses

Dynclasses are currently broken due to linkage.

=item Features

Threads, Events, and Signals are missing.

=back

=head1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

XXX

=head1 AUTHORS

=over

=item Ron Blaschke E<lt>ron@rblasch.orgE<gt>

=back

This document is maintained by The Parrot Developers
(E<lt>perl6-internals@perl.orgE<gt>).

=head1 SEE ALSO

    L<parrot>

=head1 HISTORY

This document borrows heavily from Perl's README.win32.

Last updated: 14 April 2005

=cut
