README.riscos

If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you
see.  It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is
specifically designed to be readable as is.

=head1 NAME

README.riscos - Perl version 5 for RISC OS

=head1 DESCRIPTION

This document gives instructions for building Perl for RISC OS. It is
complicated by the need to cross compile. There is a binary version of
perl available from L<http://www.cp15.org/perl/> which you may wish to
use instead of trying to compile it yourself.

=head1 BUILD

You need an installed and working gccsdk cross compiler
L<http://gccsdk.riscos.info/> and REXEN
L<http://www.cp15.org/programming/>

Firstly, copy the source and build a native copy of perl for your host
system.
Then, in the source to be cross compiled:

=over 4

=item

    $ ./Configure

=item

Select the riscos hint file. The default answers for the rest of the
questions are usually sufficient.

Note that, if you wish to run Configure non-interactively (see the INSTALL
document for details), to have it select the correct hint file, you'll
need to provide the argument -Dhintfile=riscos on the Configure
command-line.

=item

    $ make miniperl

=item

This should build miniperl and then fail when it tries to run it.

=item

Copy the miniperl executable from the native build done earlier to
replace the cross compiled miniperl.

=item

    $ make

=item

This will use miniperl to complete the rest of the build.

=back

=head1 AUTHOR

Alex Waugh <alex@alexwaugh.com>