Thanks for the pointer on MinGW64. Why is that difficult to use? The release notes that came with Perl state that Microsoft Visual and Mingw are the two supported compilers. I guess neither is correct. Which makes me wonder where all the standard modules that it shipped with came from?

—John

Thanks for the pointer on MinGW64. Why is that difficult to use?

I don't have an informed answer, and there's a chance that it might not be as hard as I envisage, but on the few occasions I've tried, I always strike problems. For example, MinGW32 can link to a 32-bit Perl/lib/CORE/perl510.lib. But MinGW64 seems unable to link to a 64-bit Perl/lib/CORE/perl510.lib. And whereas VC6 and VC7 can link to MinGW32-built libraries, I can't get the 64-bit Platform SDK compiler to link to MinGW64-built libraries.

With 32-bit builds of ActivePerl, either Visual Studio or MinGW will work straight out of the box (and it's simply a case of whichever compiler is found, is the one that will be used). If the release notes say that the 64-bit build of ActivePerl can also use either Visual Studio or MinGW, then I think those notes need amending.

Which makes me wonder where all the standard modules that it shipped with came from?

That 64-bit build of ActivePerl (including the standard modules) was built using the "Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2" compiler. You can use that compiler to build other modules for 64-bit ActivePerl.

Cheers,
Rob

Thanks. Assuming I can find that older compiler on MSDN subscription, and install it, how do I tell makeMaker, cpan, etc. which compiler to use?

Someone else said using "o conf" in cpan, but I can't find more documentation on that: does that affect only cpan-hosted builds? And what to use for the options?

—John