In a nutshell you need to compile your code with the same compiler that compiled perl. If you are using Active State Perl the compiler is cl.exe which is part of MSVC++. See A Practical Guide to Compiling C based Modules under ActiveState using Microsoft C++ for some hints.

It works fine for me using the setup described and cl.exe:

# Have a look at the options perl was built with (we don't need all of
+ them!)......

C:\>perl -MExtUtils::Embed -e ccopts -e ldopts
  -nologo -nodefaultlib -debug -opt:ref,icf  -libpath:"D:\Perl\lib\COR
+E"  -machine:x86  D:\Perl\lib\CORE\perl56.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\oldnam
+e
s.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\kernel32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\user32.lib D:\Per
+l\lib\CORE\gdi32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\winspool.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\c
+o
mdlg32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\advapi32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\shell32.lib 
+D:\Perl\lib\CORE\ole32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\oleaut32.lib D:\Perl\lib\
+C
ORE\netapi32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\uuid.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\wsock32.li
+b D:\Perl\lib\CORE\mpr.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\winmm.lib D:\Perl\lib\COR
+E
\version.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\odbc32.lib D:\Perl\lib\CORE\odbccp32.lib
+ D:\Perl\lib\CORE\msvcrt.lib
 -nologo -O1 -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT -DHAVE_DE
+S_FCRYPT  -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DPERL_MSVCRT_R
+E
ADFIX  -I"D:\Perl\lib\CORE"


# here is the code

C:\>type interp.c
#include <EXTERN.h>     /* from the Perl distribution     */
#include <perl.h>       /* from the Perl distribution     */

static PerlInterpreter *my_perl;  /* The Perl interpreter */

int main(int argc, char **argv, char **env)
{
    my_perl = perl_alloc();
    perl_construct(my_perl);
    perl_parse(my_perl, NULL, argc, argv, (char **)NULL);
    perl_run(my_perl);
    perl_destruct(my_perl);
    perl_free(my_perl);
}


# Here are the flags that I passed to make it compile

# Essentially we pass all the same -D defines that perl was built with
+ plus
# the include dir to find the perl headers and the perl56.lib binary w
+hich is 
# what where the real functions defined in the headers are found and w
+hat we 
# will be linking against........

C:\>cl.exe  -nologo  -MD -Zi -DNDEBUG -DWIN32 -D_CONSOLE -DNO_STRICT -
+DHAVE_DES_FCRYPT  -DPERL_IMPLICIT_CONTEXT -DPERL_IMPLICIT_SYS -DPERL_
+MSVCRT_READFIX  -I"D:\Perl\lib\CORE"  D:\Perl\lib\CORE\perl56.lib -o 
+interp.exe interp.c

interp.c


# no messages, no errors, so let's test it......


C:\>interp.exe
print "Hello World! It will work if you try hard enough.....\n";
^D
Hello World! It will work if you try hard enough.....

C:\>


# the bare minimum I needed to get a compile is this

C:\>cl.exe -DWIN32 -I"D:\Perl\lib\CORE" D:\Perl\lib\CORE\perl56.lib -o
+ interp.exe interp.c

Microsoft (R) 32-bit C/C++ Standard Compiler Version 13.00.9466 for 80
+x86
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation 1984-2001. All rights reserved.

interp.c
Microsoft (R) Incremental Linker Version 7.00.9466
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

/out:interp.exe
/out:interp.exe
D:\Perl\lib\CORE\perl56.lib
interp.obj

C:\>interp.exe
print "japh!\n";
^D
japh!

C:\>
[download]

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