Add a note about a perl issue on VMS and how to work around it

[openssl.git] / NOTES.VMS

diff --git a/NOTES.VMS b/NOTES.VMS
index 2c7b80b58fcfd944d670197b9817363521178b21..3e9a57e8052b60455c9ad400797dcec0e4f2ed16 100644 (file)
--- a/NOTES.VMS
+++ b/NOTES.VMS
@@ -5,8 +5,8 @@
  Requirement details
  -------------------
 
- In addition to the requirements listed in INSTALL, these are required
- as well:
+ In addition to the requirements and instructions listed in INSTALL,
+ this are required as well:
 
   * At least ODS-5 disk organization for source and build.
     Installation can be done on any existing disk organization.
@@ -15,11 +15,45 @@
  About ANSI C compiler
  ---------------------
 
- An ANSI C compiled is needed among other things.  This means that VAX C
- is not and will not be supported.
+ An ANSI C compiled is needed among other things.  This means that
+ VAX C is not and will not be supported.
 
- We have only tested with DEC C (a.k.a HP VMS C / VSI C), compiling with
- a different ANSI C compiler may require some work.
+ We have only tested with DEC C (a.k.a HP VMS C / VSI C) and require
+ version 7.1 or later.  Compiling with a different ANSI C compiler may
+ require some work.
+
+ Please avoid using C RTL feature logical names DECC$* when building
+ and testing OpenSSL.  Most of all, they can be disruptive when
+ running the tests, as they affect the Perl interpreter.
+
+
+ About ODS-5 directory names and Perl
+ ------------------------------------
+
+ It seems that the perl function canonpath() in the File::Spec module
+ doesn't treat file specifications where the last directory name
+ contains periods very well.  Unfortunately, some versions of VMS tar
+ will keep the periods in the OpenSSL source directory instead of
+ converting them to underscore, thereby leaving your source in
+ something like [.openssl-1^.1^.0].  This will lead to issues when
+ configuring and building OpenSSL.
+
+ We have no replacement for Perl's canonpath(), so the best workaround
+ for now is to rename the OpenSSL source directory, as follows (please
+ adjust for the actual source directory name you have):
+
+    $ rename openssl-1^.1^.0.DIR openssl-1_1_0.DIR 
+
+
+ About MMS and DCL
+ -----------------
+
+ MMS has certain limitations when it comes to line length, and DCL has
+ certain limitations when it comes to total command length.  We do
+ what we can to mitigate, but there is the possibility that it's not
+ enough.  Should you run into issues, a very simple solution is to set
+ yourself up a few logical names for the directory trees you're going
+ to use.
 
 
  Checking the distribution