Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!midway!linac!uwm.edu!wuarchive!emory!wa4mei!holos0!lbr
From: lbr@holos0.uucp (Len Reed)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.perl
Subject: Proposed enhancements to MS-DOS perl
Message-ID: <1990Sep20.013320.9162@holos0.uucp>
Date: 20 Sep 90 01:33:20 GMT
Sender: lbr@holos0.uucp (Len Reed)
Organization: Holos Software, Inc., Atlanta, GA
Lines: 59

I'm planning on make several important enhancements to the MS-DOS
version of perl.  I'd appreciate knowing about any problems,
ideas, or applicable code anyone may have.

1)   Fix up the test scripts to work under MS-DOS.  Most do
     already.  Those that don't typically do one of the
     following:
       a) Attempt to access an illegal DOS file name.  For
          example, open(HANDLE, ">This.file.tmp");  There's no
          reason that both Unix and MS-DOS couldn't use the same,
          shorter name.
       b) Doing something that MS-DOS can't do, like forking.
       c) Using a Unixism, like "/bin/rm".

2)   Minor bug corrections.  The program should pass as much of
     the test suite as possible under DOS.

3)   Better determine where optimization fails and selectively
     turn off specific optimizer switches as needed.

4)   Swapping while running a subprocess.  Since 640K isn't much
     when you're running perl, it would be nice to have perl swap
     itself out when doing subprocesses.  Fortunately, I have
     already modified one program to do this, so it'll just mean
     hooking perl to run that code.

5)   Complete MKS compatibility (see below for a plug for MKS). 
     I don't usually modify free software to have full MKS
     compatibility, but perl is an obvious case for such
     treatment.  I have parts of this lying around from other
     work.
       a) Accept 8 K-bytes of arguments as per MKS conventions,
          so that Korn shell commands like "perl script *.c" work
          even if there are a lot of c files.
       b) Pass extended argument list to sub processes.
       c) Run Korn shell instead of command.com to do
          subprocesses when a shell is needed, handling
          metacharacter set properly.
       d) Run MKS glob.exe to do globbing of things like <ab*.c>.
       e) Handle "switch" character properly.  (Currently
          perl.exe will run "command /c the_command" instead of
          "command -c the_command" when the switch character is a
          hyphen instead of a slash.
       f) Continue to work as well as can be expected if MKS tool
          kit is not present.  I.e., the enhancements shouldn't
          mess anything up.

Mortice Kern Systems (MKS) sells a line of Unix clone tools for
MS-DOS and OS/2.  If you're a Unix aficionado stuck in these
environments, you should buy at least the basic tool kit.  It
includes vi, the Korn shell, most of the usual head/tail/ls type
tools, and awk.  (Well, perhaps Larry Wall has made that
obsolete.)  I have no relationship with MKS other than that of
satisfied customer and consultant to a satisfied customer.
-- 
Len Reed
Holos Software, Inc.
Voice: (404) 496-1358
UUCP: ...!gatech!holos0!lbr