PERLVOS(1perl)

📦
version 5.44.0 · 2 versions
, in arch rolling

🌸 NAME 🌸

perlvos — Perl for Stratus OpenVOS 💫

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

Okay bestie, so real talk: this page is literally just the notes you need for building perl on the Stratus OpenVOS operating system 🫶. If you don't already know, Perl is a scripting or macro language that is popular on many systems — iconic behavior tbh 👑. And if you want actual books about it, go check out perlbook, it lists a bunch of good ones 📚.

These are the instructions for building Perl from source, no shortcuts. And here's the tea: this version of Perl requires the dynamic linking support that shows up in OpenVOS Release 17.1, so it is not supported on OpenVOS Release 17.0 or any earlier release. Periodt 💅.

But wait — if you're running VOS Release 14.4.1 or later, you can get a pre-compiled, supported copy of perl by purchasing the GNU Tools product from Stratus Technologies. Slay, no compiling required ✨.

🔨 BUILDING PERL FOR OPENVOS 🔨

To build perl from its source code on the Stratus V Series platform, you gotta have all three of these lined up, no skipping:

  • OpenVOS Release 17.1.0 or later
  • GNU Tools Release 3.5 or later
  • the C/POSIX Runtime Libraries

Then just follow the normal instructions for building perl 🧚. Like, enter bash, run the Configure script, then use gmake to build perl. That's it, that's the vibe:

gmake

💾 INSTALLING PERL IN OPENVOS 💾

  1. After you have built perl using the Configure script, make sure you have modify and default write permission to >system>ported and all its subdirectories. Then type:
gmake install
  1. So there are currently no architecture-specific extensions or modules distributed with perl, but the following directories can be used to hold such files if you've got some (replace the string VERSION with the appropriate version number):
>system>ported>lib>perl5>VERSION>i786
  1. Site-specific perl extensions and modules can be installed in one of two places, depending on the vibe 😌. Put architecture-independent files into:
>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION

And put site-specific architecture-dependent files into this one:

>system>ported>lib>perl5>site_perl>VERSION>i786
  1. You can peek at the @INC variable from within a perl program to see the order in which Perl searches these directories 👀.

🦋 USING PERL IN OPENVOS 🦋

🚧 Restrictions of Perl on OpenVOS 🚧

This port of Perl version 5 prefers Unix-style, slash-separated pathnames over OpenVOS-style greater-than-separated pathnames 🌈. OpenVOS-style pathnames should work in most contexts, but if you have trouble, just replace all the greater-than characters with slash characters. Also, because the slash character is used as a pathname delimiter, Perl cannot process OpenVOS pathnames containing a slash character in a directory or file name — those have to be renamed, no cap 😭.

This port of Perl also uses Unix-epoch date values internally ⏳. As long as you're dealing with ASCII character string representations of dates, this should not be an issue. The supported epoch is January 1, 1980 to January 17, 2038.

Wanna know more about the OpenVOS port of Perl? Go read the file pod/perlport.pod 💜

🧪 TEST STATUS 🧪

Ngl, a number of the perl self-tests fails for various reasons 😬. Generally these are minor, and they're due to subtle differences between common POSIX-based environments and the OpenVOS POSIX environment. So basically: make sure you conduct sufficient testing of your code to guarantee that it works properly in the OpenVOS environment 🙏.

🫂 SUPPORT STATUS 🫂

So the author is offering this port "as is" — you can ask questions, but there's no guarantee they'll be able to answer them 💀. There are some excellent books available on the Perl language though; consult a book seller 📖.

If you want a supported version of perl for OpenVOS, purchase the OpenVOS GNU Tools product from Stratus Technologies, along with a support contract (or from anyone else who will sell you support). Get that bag, secure that support 💖.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Paul Green (Paul.Green@stratus.com) 💌

🗓️ LAST UPDATE 🗓️

February 28, 2013 ⭐

And that's the whole page, bestie — this was perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17, from the Perl Programmers Reference Guide 🎀. Go forth and build, mwah 💅💖

📦 where this page comes from