Visual Studio

A guide to building Windows applications with Strawberry Perl, spvmcc, and Visual Studio.

Install Strawberry Perl, Git, and Visual Studio Build Tools

On Windows Power Shell:

# Update winget sources
winget source update

# Install Strawberry Perl
winget install --id StrawberryPerl.StrawberryPerl --exact --accept-source-agreements
winget list --id StrawberryPerl.StrawberryPerl --exact

# Install Git
winget install --id Git.Git --exact --accept-source-agreements
winget list --id Git.Git --exact

# Install Visual Studio 2022 Build Tools
winget install --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --exact --override "--add Microsoft.VisualStudio.Workload.VCTools --includeRecommended --passive"
winget list --id Microsoft.VisualStudio.2022.BuildTools --exact

Git Settings

On Git Bash:

# Disable automatic CRLF conversion to keep line endings as-is
git config --global core.autocrlf false

# Prevent Git from quoting non-ASCII filenames in the output
git config --global core.quotepath false

How to use Straberry Perl on Git Bash

On Git Bash:

find /c -maxdepth 6 -name perl.exe 2>/dev/null

The following instructions assume that your Perl executable is located at:

/c/Strawberry/perl/bin/perl.exe

Add Strawberry Perl bin directory to the head of PATH environment variable.

echo 'export PATH="/c/Strawberry/perl/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bashrc

Add make alias for gmake.

echo "alias make='gmake'" >> ~/.bashrc

Add alias for perldoc.

echo "alias perldoc='perldoc.bat'" >> ~/.bashrc

Reflect ~/.bashrc:

source ~/.bashrc

Check Perl version.

perl -v

Output Example:

Summary of my perl5 (revision 5 version 42 subversion 0) configuration:

  Platform:
    osname=MSWin32
    osvers=10.0.26100.4652
    archname=MSWin32-x64-multi-thread
    uname='Win32 strawberry-perl 5.42.0.1 # 05:37:25 Fri August 01 2025 x64'

Install SPVM.

cpanm -v SPVM

Check spvm and spvmcc.

spvm -v

spvmcc -v

How to Get Visual Studio Information

How to Find Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler

find "/c/Program Files/Microsoft Visual Studio" "/c/Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio" -name cl.exe 2>/dev/null | \
/bin/perl -e '
    # Get architecture (e.g., x86_64, aarch64)
    $arch = `uname -m`; chomp $arch;
    
    # Map uname to MSVC path string
    $target = ($arch =~ /x86_64/) ? "Hostx64/x64" : 
              ($arch =~ /aarch64/) ? "Hostarm64/arm64" : "Hostx86/x86";

    while(<>) {
        if (index($_, $target) != -1) {
            # Convert to Windows path and print first match
            s|^/([a-z])/|$1:/|i; s|/|\\|g; print; exit;
        }
    }
'

Ouput Example:

c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\Hostx64\x64\cl.exe

How to Get Environment Variables for Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler

export MSVC_CC_LONG='C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\BuildTools\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\Hostx64\x64\cl.exe'

export MSVC_CC=$(/bin/perl -MWin32 -e "print Win32::GetShortPathName(q($MSVC_CC_LONG))")

export VCVARS=$(echo "$MSVC_CC" | /bin/perl -pe 's|VC\\Tools\\MSVC\\.*|VC\\Auxiliary\\Build\\vcvarsall.bat|i')

env MSYS2_ARG_CONV_EXCL="*" cmd.exe /c "$VCVARS x64 && set" | grep -iE "^(INCLUDE|LIB|PATH)="

Output Examples:

INCLUDE=C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\include;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\VC\Auxiliary\VS\include;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\include\10.0.26100.0\ucrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\um;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\shared;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\winrt;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\include\10.0.26100.0\\cppwinrt
LIB=C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\lib\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\lib\10.0.26100.0\ucrt\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\\lib\10.0.26100.0\\um\x64
PATH=C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\VC\Tools\MSVC\14.44.35207\bin\HostX64\x64;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\VC\VCPackages;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\TestWindow;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\MSBuild\Current\bin\Roslyn;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Team Tools\DiagnosticsHub\Collector;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\Extensions\Microsoft\CodeCoverage.Console;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\10.0.26100.0\\x64;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\bin\\x64;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\\MSBuild\Current\Bin\amd64;C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\Tools\;C:\Strawberry\perl\bin;C:\Strawberry\perl\bin;C:\Users\kimot\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\local\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\mingw64\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin;C:\Users\kimot\bin;C:\WINDOWS\system32;C:\WINDOWS;C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wbem;C:\WINDOWS\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0;C:\WINDOWS\System32\OpenSSH;C:\Strawberry\c\bin;C:\Strawberry\perl\site\bin;C:\Strawberry\perl\bin;C:\Program Files\Git\cmd;C:\Users\kimot\AppData\Local\Microsoft\WindowsApps;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\vendor_perl;C:\Program Files\Git\usr\bin\core_perl;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\Ninja;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\Common7\IDE\VC\Linux\bin\ConnectionManagerExe;C:\PROGRA~2\MICROS~2\2022\BUILDT~1\VC\vcpkg