NAME

    Alien::MSYS - Tools required for GNU style configure scripts on Windows

VERSION

    version 0.10_05

SYNOPSIS

    from Perl:

     use Alien::MSYS;
     # runs uname from MSYS
     my $uname = msys { `uname` };

    From Prompt/Makefile

     C:\> perl -MAlien::MSYS -e msys_run uname

DESCRIPTION

    MSYS provides minimal shell and POSIX tools on Windows to enable GNU
    style configure scripts to run (the type usually generated by
    autoconf). This module aims to provide an interface for using MSYS on
    Windows and act as a no-op on Unix like operating systems which already
    have that capability. If you use this module, I recommend that you list
    this as a prerequisite only during MSWin32 installs.

    When installing, this distribution will look for an existing MSYS using
    the following methods in this order:

    environment variable ALIEN_INSTALL_TYPE or ALIEN_MSYS_INSTALL_TYPE

      If set to share a system install will not be attempted. If set to
      system then a share install will not be attempted.

    environment variable PERL_ALIEN_MSYS_BIN

      If set, this environment variable should be set to the root of MSYS
      (NOT MinGW). For example, if you have MinGW / MSYS installed on D:
      you might use this:

       C:\> set PERL_ALIEN_MSYS_BIN=D:\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin

      Keep in mind that this environment variable is consulted during both
      install and at run-time, so it is advisable to set this in the System
      Properties control panel.

    search PATH for mingw-get.exe

      Second, Alien::MSYS searches the PATH environment variable for the
      mingw-get.exe program, which is a common method for installing MinGW
      and MSYS. From there if it can deduce the location of MSYS it will
      use that.

    try C:\MinGW\msys\1.0\bin

      Next, Alien::MSYS tries the default install location.

    Use desktop shortcut for MinGW Installer

      Finally, Alien::MSYS will try to find MSYS from the desktop shortcut
      created by the GUI installer for MinGW. This method only works if you
      already have Win32::Shortcut installed, as it is an optional
      dependency.

    If MSYS cannot be found using any of these methods, then it will
    download and install MSYS in this distribution's share directory.

FUNCTIONS

 msys

     # get the uname from MSYS
     my $uname = msys { `uanem` };
     
     # run with GNU make from MSYS instead of
     # dmake from Strawberry Perl
     msys { system 'make' };

    This function takes a single argument, a code reference, and runs it
    with the correctly set environment so that calls to the system function
    or the qx quote like operator will use MSYS instead of the default
    environment.

 msys_run

     # pass command through @ARGV
     C:\> perl -MAlien::MSYS -e msys_run uname
     
     # pass command through @_
     C:\> perl -MAlien::MSYS -e "msys_run 'make'; msys_run 'make install'"

    This function runs a command with the MSYS environment. It gets the
    command and arguments either as passed to it, or if none are passed the
    the command is expected to be in @ARGV.

    If the command fails then it will exit with a non-zero error code. This
    is useful, in the second example above if either make or make install
    fails, then the whole command will fail, also make install will not be
    attempted unless make succeeds.

 msys_path

    This function returns the full path to the MSYS bin directory.

CAVEATS

    This Alien is big and slow to install. I am aware this is an annoying
    problem. It is also the only reliable way (that I know of) to install
    packages from source that use autotools on Strawberry or Visual C++
    Perl. Here are some things that you can do to avoid this painful cost:

    Use the system library if possible

      The Alien::Build system is usually smart enough to find the system
      library if it is available. Alien::MSYS is usually only necessary for
      so called share installs.

    Pre-install MSYS

      As mentioned above if you preinstall MSYS and set the
      PERL_ALIEN_MSYS_BIN environment variable, then you will save yourself
      some time if you use multiple installs of Perl like I do.

    Use another build system

      Some projects will provide a makefile that will work with GNU Make
      and cmd.exe that you can build without MSYS. An example of an Alien
      that takes advantage of this is Alien::libuv.

      Some projects provide both autoconf and CMake. Although using CMake
      reliably requires Alien::cmake3 for share installs, it is much much
      lighter than Alien::MSYS.

      Also obviously you can open a ticket, or make a pull request with the
      project that you are alienizing to support build systems that don't
      suck as much as autoconf.

    Use MSYS2

      Strawberry Perl is convenient for building XS modules without any
      dependencies or just dependencies on the small number of libraries
      that come bundled with Strawberry Perl. It is very very painful in my
      opinion if you depend on libraries that are not bundled, which is why
      this Alien exists. There is an alternative though.

      MSYS2 / MinGW provides a MSWin32 Perl as part of a Linux / open
      source like package that provides probably all of the libraries that
      you might want to use as dependencies, and if it doesn't you can
      build much easier than with Strawberry + Alien::MSYS.

      There are some notes here:

      https://project-renard.github.io/doc/development/meeting-log/posts/2016/05/03/windows-build-with-msys2/

      On using the MSYS2 / MinGW / MSWin32 Perl from the MSYS2 project.

AUTHOR

    Graham Ollis <plicease@cpan.org>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

    This software is copyright (c) 2013 by Graham Ollis.

    This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
    the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

