Use “perl6” command with Git Bash on windows

Question

Using Windows, I installed Rakudo Star and Git and ensured that C:\\rakudo\\bin and C:\\rakudo\\share\\perl6\\site\\bin are in my Path environment variable.

Now, typing perl6 inside Git Bash afterwards gives the command not found error, while the command does work inside powershell and cmd . Typing echo $PATH inside Git Bash confirms again that the folders above are in my path variable here as well.

How can I get the perl6 command working inside Git Bash?

Note: Using moar (moar.exe) which resides in the same folder as perl6 works as well in Git Bash. Also hitting Tab show the autocomplete suggestion for moar , it does not do that for perl6 .

Answer 1

Bash doesn't run Windows batch files, so you'll have to work around that.

An easy solution might be to add something like this you your .bashrc :

alias perl6='cmd /c perl6.bat'

Alternatively, you can convert perl6.bat to a shell script and put it somewhere in your $PATH . I use the following:

#!/bin/sh

PATH=/cygdrive/c/rakudo/bin:/cygdrive/c/rakudo/share/perl6/site/bin:$PATH
unset HOME

moar --execname="$0" \
     --libpath='C:\rakudo\share\nqp\lib' \
     --libpath='C:\rakudo\share\perl6\lib' \
     --libpath='C:\rakudo\share\perl6\runtime' \
     'C:\rakudo\share\perl6\runtime\perl6.moarvm' \
     "$@"

This is using Cygwin; you may need to adapt it a bit for Git bash (I don't know, no experience with it).

Alternatively, if you're using Windows 10, I can recommend installing WSL, and using perl6 in a WSL bash prompt instead. This runs much smoother for me than the Windows version under Cygwin.

Answer 2

I tried to install perl6 from the link you provided and I can confirm the same behavior on Cygwin on Windows 10.

If I type in the Cygwin terminal window:

$ perl6
-bash: perl6: command not found
$ echo  $PATH
/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/system32:/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS:/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem:/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/cygdrive/c/WINDOWS/System32/OpenSSH:/cygdrive/c/Users/Bruker/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/cygdrive/c/rakudo/bin:/cygdrive/c/rakudo/share/perl6/site/bin
$ cd /cygdrive/c/rakudo/bin
$ ls -l
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM  930663 May 11  2017 libgcc_s_seh-1.dll
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM  136146 Mar 30 20:55 libmoar.dll.a
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM   56978 May 11  2017 libwinpthread-1.dll
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM 7021172 Mar 30 20:55 moar.dll
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM   64066 Mar 30 20:55 moar.exe
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM     126 Mar 30 20:56 nqp.bat
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM     126 Mar 30 20:56 nqp-m.bat
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM     242 Mar 30 20:56 perl6.bat
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM     248 Mar 30 20:56 perl6-debug-m.bat
-rwxrwx---+ 1 SYSTEM SYSTEM     242 Mar 30 20:56 perl6-m.bat
$ cat perl6.bat
@ "C:\rakudo\bin\moar" --execname="%~dpf0" --libpath="C:\rakudo\share\nqp\lib" --libpath="C:\rakudo\share\nqp\lib" --libpath="C:\rakudo\share/perl6/lib" --libpath="C:\rakudo\share/perl6/runtime" C:\rakudo\share\perl6\runtime\perl6.moarvm %*

Notice that the paths in the bat file are not cygwin paths . So that might explain why it does not work..

For example:

$ "C:\rakudo\bin\moar"
-bash: C:\rakudo\bin\moar: command not found
$  /cygdrive/c/rakudo/bin/moar
ERROR: Missing input file.

USAGE: moar [--crash] [--libpath=...] input.moarvm [program args]
       moar --dump input.moarvm
       moar --help
[...]

Update :

I also tried install Git Bash , and then from the MINGW64 terminal window:

$ echo $PATH
/c/Users/Bruker/bin:/mingw64/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/mingw64/bin:/usr/bin:/c/Users/Bruker/bin:/c/WINDOWS/system32:/c/WINDOWS:/c/WINDOWS/System32/Wbem:/c/WINDOWS/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0:/c/WINDOWS/System32/OpenSSH:/c/Users/Bruker/AppData/Local/Microsoft/WindowsApps:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl
$ PATH=/c/rakudo/bin:$PATH
$ perl6
bash: perl6: command not found
$ moar
ERROR: Missing input file.
USAGE: moar [--crash] [--libpath=...] input.moarvm [program args]
       moar --dump input.moarvm
       moar --help
[...]

Note that moar is an .exe file while perl6 is a .bat file.

Also it seems perl6 is not "offical" for Cygwin yet according to this issue .