Celestin Apprentice 2/Apprentice-Release2.iso/Tools/Languages/MacPerl 4.1.3/README.MPW

Text File | 1994-05-04 | 10.2 KB | 220 lines | [TEXT/ttxt]

WELCOME TO MPW PERL

This is Perl for the Mac, ported to MPW C by Matthias Neeracher
<[e-mail]> and Tim Endres <[e-mail]>. It runs every program in
the test suite that you could it reasonably expect to, and some you probably
didn't expect. Feel free to give this program away according to the terms stated
in the README file.

System Requirements

The MPW tool probably runs under System 6 and 7, although only System 7 has been
tested by me lately. The standalone application requires System 7, but "MacPerl
Runtime" provides a decent subset of the functionality under System 6. Some of
the really cool features require ToolServer, System 7, and enough RAM (Notably
stuff like `CFront MacApp.cp`, while (<≈.c>) or open(XXX, "Catenate ≈.c |"))
Some of the files barely compile with 5 megabytes of RAM. MPW C 3.3.1 is the
latest version of MPW C that has been used for rebuilding this release of Perl.

Bugs, Suggestions, Damnations

Please send your bug reports and/or fixes to <[e-mail]> (It is rather
unlikely that any of the bugs are relevant to the UNIX version). Note that MPW
Perl is neither developed nor supported by Apple Computer, Inc.

Mailing list

There is now a mailing list for announcing new releases, sharing scripts, and
discussions about how to make MPW Perl change your life. To subscribe, send
a mail to <[e-mail]>

Ftp sites

If you have internet access, you can obtain the newest versions of Perl by
anonymous ftp from one of the following addresses:

nic.switch.ch [130.59.1.40]       software/mac/perl
ftp.eunet.ch  [146.228.10.15]     software/mac/perl

Revision History

04May94    4.1.3

25Apr94    4.1.3b3

- implemented utime() as far as possible (i.e., for modification times, the
  Mac has no concept of access times) [James Burgess].
- Pressing Control when launching a droplet enters the Perl debugger.
- Introduced a preference option for inline input vs. floating input windows
  for Japanese input.
- Introduced a built-in variable $MacPerl'Version containing a string
  "4.1.3b3 MPW" or "4.1.3b3 Application", respectively.
- Attempting to write on half open sockets would still sometimes hang
  [Asa Packer].
- Permissions returned by stat() for locked files were wrong [John Kamp].
- rename() on aliases renamed the original, not the alias
  [Maki Watanabe, Man Wei Tam].
- gethostbyname() in scalar context would hang or return nonsense [Asa Packer].
  This bug even appears in Unix Perl.
- read() and recv() wouldn't work on stream sockets [James Burgess, Asa Packer].
- Under certain conditions, malloc() would allocate memory in a pathological way
  [Jim Kateley, Gary LaVoy, Barry Wolman]
- While I was fixing the following, I rewrote malloc() for small blocks, which
  appears to improve performance of the application considerably.
- The font list in the format dialog now scrolls to make the default font visible
  and draws font names in the correct *script system* (I don't believe in drawing
  fonts in their own font).
- (Hopefully) fixed the timelocal.pl library.
- Deleting all text in a console window would disable further input
  [Jim Kateley].
- The cursor would not always revert to an arrow at the end of a script
  [Jim Kateley].
- Added support for inline input for Japanese. This is supposed to work if
  a system extension "Inline Tuika Kinou" is present.
- Avoid interrupting Perl scripts in the middle of asynchronous calls. Now, it
  should first interrupt the call, and wait with killing the script until a safe
  state is reached. This might fix a few nonspecific bugs.
- Changed segmentation strategy and preloaded all segments which should fix a
  crash occuring when a window was dragged while a droplet ran
  [Michael Greenspon].
- The sleep strategy still was a disaster (among others, performance was bad, and
  TCP transfers would stop when Perl was in the background
  [Man Wei Tam, Michael Greenspon et al.]
- getservbyname would fail unless /etc/services was in the preferences folder
  [Alasdair Rawsthorne]
- gmtime should work now, provided you either live in Greenwich or set your
  location in the Map control panel correctly [reported long ago by Roger Linder]
- If any Perl script in a MacPerl session except the first one would try to use
  TCP/IP, utterly nasty crashes would result
  [Sal Gurnani, Torsten Ekedahl et al.].
- If no #! line was given, error line counts were off [David Friedlander]
- ... and a few more GUSI related bug fixes.

19Jan94    4.1.2

- Cursor wouldn't spin anymore [Jim Kateley]
- Droplets didn't accept dropped files [Brad Hanson]
- Opening two copies of MacPerl at the same time would give strange
  effects [Peter Lewis].

12Jan94    4.1.1

- chdir() under some circumstances would not fail when trying to change to
  a nonexistent directory [Peter Lewis]
- Added StandardFile.pl, originally written by Maki Watanabe.
- Console windows behave better under stress (like when used by
  GUSIRemoteConsole).
- Adapted semantics of GUSI select() on eof to the Un*x behavior.
- Overwriting a file with a shorter version would sometimes produce trailing
  garbage.
- Supports -i without backup extension now [Reported long ago by Steve Dorner]
- Supports opening up to 64 stdio files or 32 sockets [James Tisdall]
- Fixed handling of default arguments to standard putfile/getfile/getfolder
  dialogs [Maki Watanabe]
- Get folder dialogs now show the prompt argument given to choose [Maki Watanabe]
- Fixed many aspects about cursor handling in MacPerl
  [Peter Lewis, Maki Watanabe].
- When opening a script bigger than 32K, you are now offered to save it in any
  format that MacPerl supports, which makes creating big runtimes or droplets
  easier [David N. Blank-Edelman].
- Perl would on startup open all network drivers, causing inconveniences and
  crashes on machines running SLIP or PPP [Lots of people].
- MacPerl would die ungracefully under System 6.0.x. Now it dies gracefully.
- MacPerl didn't display the list of acknowledgments correctly.
- MacPerl didn't handle the desk scrap correctly [Maki Watanabe].
- Made Perl more robust against out of memory situations [James Tisdall].
- -t in MacPerl would lie for console windows [James Tisdall].
- Cleaned up usage messages for &MacPerl'XXX extensions and in droplets.
- Perl now supports calling many HyperCard XCMDs.
- Added support for faccess() in the MPW Tool [Scott Collins].
- Added a few options to MacPerl's preference dialog [Joe Bearly]. Among
  others, you can make MacPerl insist on a #! in your scripts.

23Oct93    4.1.0

- Unified version for E.T.O. and non-E.T.O. release.
- The standalone application has been completely rewritten and now supports:
  - A separate window for the debugger
  - Built-in support for creating Droplet applications and Runtimes for both
    System 6 and System 7.
  - Online Help, including balloons for all Perl commands.
  - Recordability and scriptability from AppleScript.
  - A cool new suite of icons (don't forget to rebuild the desktop file after
    installing if you had an old version of MacPerl installed).

  I have tried to credit all people who contributed to the development of Perl in
  the About box. If you feel left out, feel free to drop me a note :-)
- Disk based associative arrays are supported again.
- All Mac specific commands are renamed again (maybe this time for good).
- AppleScript is supported through the &MacPerl'DoAppleScript command.

09Apr93    4.0.7•

- Cleaned packaging up for E.T.O. release.
- This version currently excludes support for disk based associative arrays. A
  version which supports them is available by anonymous ftp from the above sites.

14Mar93    4.0.7

- Upgraded to UNIX pathlevel 36
- Added &fgetinfo() and &fsetinfo() (David N. Blank-Edelman suggested these)
- `pwd` or `Directory` (case is important) are hardcoded as a substitute for
  getcwd().
- find2perl works now, thanks to Charlie Reiman
- The Mac specific Perl routines are discussed in MacPerl.Specifics, as are my
  namespace migration plans (as suggested by numerous people). This file is
  still in a very rough state; suggestions for improvements are welcome.
- The standalone version no longer presents a save dialog before quitting (as
  suggested by David N. Blank-Edelman).
- Line numbers for extracted scripts (that is, practically all MPW Perl scripts)
  are now presented more honestly. Unfortunately, this currently seems to break
  the "b subroutine" function of the debugger.
- GUSI related changes:
    - Added support for the Printer Access Protocol (PAP): You can open a
      connection to the currently chosen LaserWriter with open("Dev:Printer").
    - Added support for Dave Peterson's forthcoming inetd.
    - st_nlink in statbufs used to return 1 for both files and folders. While it
      might be argued that this is true, it breaks some Unix programs. Therefore,
      the current version returns for folders either the number of items the
      folder contains + 2 or the number of subdirectories the folder contains + 2
      (the 2 is an Unixism), depending on a flag in the configuration resource
      (thanks to Charlie Reiman for reporting).
    - fstat() used to claim that sockets were regular files. This bug had horrible
     consequences for Perl. Now, it correctly declares sockets to be
     such.
    - PPC sockets might work better now.

24Jan93    4.0.6

- choose() for files no longer includes the terminating null character.
- rename() and TCP sockets work better (thanks to Brad Pickering for reporting
  these bugs).
- standalone version can read scripts from its data fork and accepts more
  startup files.
- (hopefully) improved the documentation a little. Added ObiWan support.

20Dec92    4.0.5

- Supports sockets and symbolic links.
- "ask", "answer" and "pick" are now builtins with a slightly changed syntax
  (sorry).
- A few mac scripts are now provided in :t:mac and :macscripts:
- The application now always searches for a #! line first. If none is found,
  the script is executed anyway, but the file has to be read twice.

27Sep92    4.0.4

This release upgrades the Mac version to UNIX patchlevel 35.

08Jun92    4.0.3

This release supports opendir (In fact, I thought the last one'd already
support it. Thanks to Mike Meckler <[e-mail]> for reporting
this bug).

dbmopen & friends are now supported.

20Jan92    4.0.2

First public release.