EXTUTILS::MM_VMS(3perl)

📦
version 5.44.0 · 14 versions
, in arch rolling

💖 NAME 💖

ExtUtils::MM_VMS — the methods that override UN*X behaviour in ExtUtils::MakeMaker 🦋

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

okay bestie, listen:

Do not use this directly.
Instead, use ExtUtils::MM and it will figure out which MM_*
class to use for you.

like, do not come for this module directly. ExtUtils::MM handles the matchmaking 💅

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The methods that live here are documented over in ExtUtils::MM_Unix — go look there for the full tour. What this package does is override the implementation of those methods, not the semantics. Same energy, different plumbing ✨

🎀 Methods always loaded 🎀

  • wraplist — converts a list into a string, wrapped at approximately 80 columns. cute, tidy, no cap.

💅 Methods 💅

Two flavours here, and they're labelled:

  • methods that override the default MM_Unix behaviour are marked (override)
  • methods that are unique to MM_VMS are marked (specific)

For the overridden ones, the docs only tell you why this method overrides the MM_Unix one — for everything else, the ExtUtils::MM_Unix docs are your bestie 🫶

  • guess_name (override) — tries to figure out the name of the extension being built. It starts with the name of the current directory. But since VMS filenames are case-insensitive, it goes looking for a .pm file whose name matches the current directory (presumably the 'main' .pm file for this extension) and tries to find a package statement so it can get the Mixed::Case package name out of it. detective work fr 🔍
  • find_perl (override) — uses VMS file specification syntax and CLI commands to find and invoke Perl images.
  • _fixin_replace_shebang (override) — helper routine for MM->fixin(). It's overridden because there's literally no such thing as an actual shebang line that a shell will interpret here, so we just prepend $Config{startperl} and preserve the shebang line argument for any switches it might contain.
  • maybe_command (override) — follows VMS naming conventions for executable files. If the name passed in doesn't exactly match an executable file, it appends .Exe (or the equivalent) to check for an executable image, and .Com to check for a DCL procedure. If that flops, it checks directories in DCL$PATH and finally Sys$System: for an executable file with the name specified, with or without the .Exe-equivalent suffix. it's giving persistence 💀
  • pasthru (override) — the list of macro definitions to pass through has to be specified using the /MACRO qualifier and must not add another /DEFINE qualifier. We prepend our own comma to the contents of $(PASTHRU_DEFINE) here, because it's often empty and a comma that's always present in CCFLAGS would generate a missing qualifier value error.
  • pm_to_blib (override) — VMS wants a dot in every file, so we can't have one called pm_to_blib — it becomes pm_to_blib. and MMS/K isn't smart enough to know that when you have a target called pm_to_blib it should look for pm_to_blib..

So on VMS it's pm_to_blib.ts. periodt.

  • perl_script (override) — if the name passed in doesn't specify a readable file, it appends .com or .pl and tries again, since it's customary to have file types on all files under VMS.
  • replace_manpage_separator — uses as separator a character which is legal in a VMS-syntax file name.
  • init_DEST (override) — because concatenating VMS filepaths is such a struggle, we have to pre-expand the DEST* variables. 😭
  • init_DIRFILESEP — no separator between a directory path and a filename on VMS. none. zero. iconic.
  • init_main (override)
  • init_tools (override) — provides VMS-specific forms of various utility commands.
    • Sets DEV_NULL to nothing because I don't know how to do it on VMS.
    • Changes EQUALIZE_TIMESTAMP to set the revision date of the target file to one second later than the source file, since MMK interprets precisely equal revision dates for a source and target file as a sign that the target needs to be updated. 👑
  • init_platform (override) — adds PERL_VMS, MM_VMS_REVISION and MM_VMS_VERSION.
    • MM_VMS_REVISION is for backwards compatibility, from before MM_VMS had a $VERSION.
  • platform_constants (no extra deets on this one in the original — it just exists)
  • init_VERSION (override) — overrides the *DEFINE_VERSION macros with VMS semantics, and translates the MAKEMAKER filepath to VMS style.
  • constants (override) — fixes up numerous file and directory macros to insure VMS syntax regardless of the input syntax. Also makes lists of files comma-separated.
  • special_targets — clears the default .SUFFIXES and puts in our own list.
  • cflags (override) — bypasses the shell script and produces qualifiers for CC directly (but warns the user if a shell script for this extension exists). Folds multiple /Defines into one, since some C compilers pay attention to only one instance of this qualifier on the command line. 👀
  • const_cccmd (override) — adds directives to point the C preprocessor to the right place when handling #include <sys/foo.h> directives. Also constructs the CC command line a bit differently than the MM_Unix method does.
  • tools_other (override) — throws in some dubious extra macros for Makefile args. Also keeps the old $(SAY) macro around in case somebody's using it.
  • init_dist (override) — VMSish defaults for some values:
    • ZIPFLAGS — flags to pass to ZIP, default: -Vu
    • COMPRESS — compression command to use for tarfiles, default: gzip
    • SUFFIX — suffix to put on compressed files, default: -gz
    • SHAR — shar command to use, default: vms_share
    • DIST_DEFAULT — default target to use to create a distribution, default: tardist
    • DISTVNAME — use VERSION_SYM instead of VERSION for the name, default: $(DISTNAME)-$(VERSION_SYM)
  • c_o (override) — uses VMS syntax on the command line. In particular, $(DEFINE) and $(PERL_INC) have been pulled into $(CCCMD). Also uses MM[SK] macros.
  • xs_c (override) — uses MM[SK] macros.
  • xs_o (override) — uses MM[SK] macros, and the VMS command line for the C compiler.
  • _xsbuild_replace_macro (override) — there is no simple replacement possible, since a qualifier and all its subqualifiers have to be considered together, so we use our own utility routine for the replacement.
  • _xsbuild_value (override) — converts the extension spec to Unix format, because that's what will match what's in the XSBUILD data structure.
  • dlsyms (override) — creates VMS linker options files specifying universal symbols for this extension's shareable image(s), and listing other shareable images or libraries to which it should be linked. 🔗
  • xs_obj_opt — override to fixup -o flags.
  • dynamic_lib (override) — uses the VMS Link command.
  • xs_make_static_lib (override) — uses VMS commands to manipulate the object library.
  • static_lib_pure_cmd (override) — uses VMS commands to manipulate the object library.
  • xs_static_lib_is_xs (no extra deets in the original 💅)
  • extra_clean_files — cleans up some OS specific files. Plus the temp file used to shorten a lot of commands. And the name mangler database.
  • zipfile_target
  • tarfile_target
  • shdist_target — the syntax for invoking shar, tar and zip differs from the Unix one.
  • install (override) — works around DCL's 255 character limit several times, and uses VMS-style command line quoting in a few cases.
  • perldepend (override) — uses VMS-style syntax for files; it's cheaper to just do it directly here than to have the MM_Unix method call catfile repeatedly. Also, if we have to rebuild Config.pm, it uses MM[SK] to do it.
  • makeaperl (override) — undertakes to build a new set of Perl images using VMS commands. Since VMS does dynamic loading, it's not necessary to statically link each extension into the Perl image, so this isn't the normal build path. Consequently, it hasn't really been tested, and may well be incomplete.
bestie. read that again. not really tested, possibly incomplete. proceed with the appropriate level of caution 🙈
  • maketext_filter (override) — ensures that colons marking targets are preceded by a space, in order to distinguish the target delimiter from a colon appearing as part of a filespec.
  • prefixify (override) — prefixifying on VMS is simple. Each should simply be:
perl_root:[some.dir]

which can just be converted to:

volume:[your.prefix.some.dir]

otherwise you get the default layout.

In effect, your search prefix is ignored and $Config{vms_prefix} is used instead.

  • cd
  • oneliner
  • echo — perl trips up on <foo> thinking it's an input redirect. So we use the native Write command instead. Besides, it's faster. ✨
  • quote_literal
  • escape_dollarsigns — quote, don't escape.
  • escape_all_dollarsigns — quote, don't escape.
  • escape_newlines
  • max_exec_len — 256 characters.
  • init_linker
  • catdir (override)
  • catfile (override) — eliminate the macros in the output to the MMS/MMK file.
    • (File::Spec::VMS used to do this for us, but it's being removed. rip 💀)
  • eliminate_macros — expands MM[KS]/Make macros in a text string, using the contents of identically named elements of %$self, and returns the result as a file specification in Unix syntax.
NOTE: this is the canonical version of the method. The version in File::Spec::VMS is deprecated.
  • fixpath — catchall routine to clean up problem MM[SK]/Make macros. Expands macros in any directory specification, in order to avoid juxtaposing two VMS-syntax directories when MM[SK] is run. Also expands expressions which are all macro, so that we can tell how long the expansion is, and avoid overrunning DCL's command buffer when MM[KS] is running.
      my $path = $mm->fixpath($path);
      my $path = $mm->fixpath($path, $is_dir);

fixpath() checks to see whether the result matches the name of a directory in the current default directory and returns a directory or file specification accordingly. $is_dir can be set to true to force fixpath() to consider the path to be a directory, or false to force it to be a file.

NOTE: this is the canonical version of the method. The version in File::Spec::VMS is deprecated.
  • os_flavor — VMS is VMS. 🌈
  • is_make_type (override) — none of the make types being checked for is viable on VMS, plus our $self->{MAKE} is an unexpanded (and unexpandable) macro whose value is known only to the make utility itself.
  • make_type (override) — returns a suitable string describing the type of makefile being written.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Original author: Charles Bailey bailey@newman.upenn.edu

Maintained by: Michael G Schwern schwern@pobox.com

See ExtUtils::MakeMaker for patching and contact information.

okay that's the whole lore bestie 🫶 this was perl v5.44.0, dated 2026-10-17, from the ExtUtils::MM_VMS(3perl) page — go forth and make your VMS Makefiles, you absolute icon 💖✨🎀🦋🌸💅

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