Re: Exceptions in IPC::Open2
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
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8e07c86e 1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
8e07c86e 8
dc45a647 9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
8e07c86e 10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 17 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7beaa944 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 24
7beaa944 25For information on what's new in this release, see the
26pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 28
1ec51d55 29=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 33read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
34by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
35
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
37 C<code> literal code
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
39
40You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
41proceeding.
c3edaffb 42
eed2e782 43If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
46
203c3eec 47If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
50
693762b4 51=head1 NOTE: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
52
53For Perl 5.004 it was possible to be binary compatible with 5.003.
54Starting from Perl 5.004_50 this is no longer possible because there were
55many deep and far-reaching changes to the language internals.
56
57If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under perl
585.003 or 5.004 and the so-called 'bincompat3' mode (the default mode)
59and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.005, you may need to
60reinstall the extensions. If you wish to continue to support both 5.004
61and 5.005 on your system, you will have to move the 5.004 extensions
62over to the 5.004 architecture-dependent library. See the discussion
63below on L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.">
64
65The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
66
67In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
68changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
69pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
70
aa689395 71=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 72
dc45a647 73The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
74complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
1ec51d55 75actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
dc45a647 76directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 77value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 78
aa689395 79=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 80
edb1cbcb 81If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
82with the command
83
dc45a647 84 make distclean
85
86or
87
edb1cbcb 88 make realclean
c3edaffb 89
dc45a647 90The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
91your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
92
93The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
94files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
95change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
96you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
97not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
8e07c86e 98
99 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 100
e57fd563 101If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
102version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
103the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
104includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
105name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
106Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
107probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
108Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
109numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
110
111Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
1ec51d55 112(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
113pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
e57fd563 114
115In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
116Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 117
dc45a647 118If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
119particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
120same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
121L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
122
aa689395 123=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 124
125Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
126things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
1ec51d55 127you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
a3cb178b 128is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
203c3eec 129and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 130
131After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 132*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 133
fb73857a 134Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
135get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
138To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
8e07c86e 139
140 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
141
142This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
143compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
144
4633a7c4 145If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
146with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
147
8e07c86e 148By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
149/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
150the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
151using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
152e.g.
153
25f94b33 154 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 155
156If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
157are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
158then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 159/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 160
84902520 161NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
162your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
163infinite recursion.
164
a3cb178b 165It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
dd64f1c3 166easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
167/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
168careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
169vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
170put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 171into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
172obvious and convenient place.
173
aa689395 174By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 175your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531 176statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
177you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 178
203c3eec 179If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
180output, you can run
181
182 sh Configure -des
183
184For my Solaris system, I usually use
185
186 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
187
46bb10fb 188=head2 GNU-style configure
189
1ec51d55 190If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 191use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 192
693762b4 193 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 194
dc45a647 195The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 196options. Try
197
693762b4 198 ./configure.gnu --help
46bb10fb 199
200for a listing.
201
aa689395 202Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb 203
dc45a647 204(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 205that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 206
24b3df7f 207=head2 Extensions
208
edb1cbcb 209By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
210to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
211only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
693762b4 212B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
213Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
214is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
215set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
216the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
217built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 218useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 219
1ec51d55 220You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
221documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
222ext/ subdirectory.
223
56c6f531 224Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
225DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
226version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
227
24b3df7f 228In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
229to turn off each extension:
230
693762b4 231 B (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 232 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 233 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 234 Fcntl (Always included by default)
235 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 236 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 237 NDBM_File i_ndbm
238 ODBM_File i_dbm
239 POSIX useposix
240 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 241 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 242 Socket d_socket
693762b4 243 Threads usethreads
244 attrs (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 245
246Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
247
248 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
249
250Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
251library.
252
253Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 254the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 255
693762b4 256Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
257DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
258this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
1ec51d55 259
dc45a647 260If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
261adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
262for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
263you.
264
24b3df7f 265Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
266remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
267executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
268well build all the ones that will work on your system.
269
8e07c86e 270=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
271
4633a7c4 272Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
273dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
274Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
275automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1ec51d55 276are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
4633a7c4 277how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 278
1ec51d55 279Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
8e07c86e 280directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
1ec51d55 281include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 282Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
283normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
1ec51d55 284include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 285Configure. See the examples below.
286
287=head2 Examples
288
289=over 4
290
aa689395 291=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e 292
293Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1ec51d55 294GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
295installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
296/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
8e07c86e 297necessary steps out automatically.
298
299Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1ec51d55 300your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
8e07c86e 301
302When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1ec51d55 303-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 304
305If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
306linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1ec51d55 307-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 308
309Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
310defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
311messages, then you can just run
312
313 sh Configure -des
314
315and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
316
317This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
318(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
319
320=item gdbm in /usr/you
321
322Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
323but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1ec51d55 324have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
325still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
326an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
8e07c86e 327Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1ec51d55 328/usr/you/lib to the list.
8e07c86e 329
330It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
331line):
332
333 sh Configure -des \
334 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
335 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
336
1ec51d55 337locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
338Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
8e07c86e 339
1ec51d55 340loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
341Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
342you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
343/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
8e07c86e 344
345 sh Configure -des \
346 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
347 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
348
349=back
350
aa689395 351=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 352
353The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
354appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
355installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
356
7beaa944 357I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
358everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
359process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
360will use the defaults from then on.
1ec51d55 361
4633a7c4 362By default, Configure uses the following directories for
363library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
364by Configure)
365
46bb10fb 366 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 367 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 368 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
369 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
4633a7c4 370
371and the following directories for manual pages:
372
373 /usr/local/man/man1
374 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
375
376(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
377/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
fb73857a 378instead.)
379
380The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
4633a7c4 381they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
382and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
383systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
fb73857a 384page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
385change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
1ec51d55 386
387Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
388/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
389
390 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
391
392Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
393
394 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
4633a7c4 395
396If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 397directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
398-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 399
46bb10fb 400 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 401 /opt/perl/lib
402 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
403 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
404
405 /opt/perl/man/man1
406 /opt/perl/man/man3
407
408The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
409above.
410
411The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
412intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
693762b4 413will automatically look in these directories.
4633a7c4 414
46bb10fb 415In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
4633a7c4 416a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
417stored in a version-specific directory, such as
693762b4 418/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/.
4633a7c4 419
420Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
421Configure.
422
aa689395 423=head2 Changing the installation directory
424
425Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
426associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
427will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
428sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 429However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
aa689395 430packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
431use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
432This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
433an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
434
0dcb58f4 435Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
436can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
437/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
438process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
439run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
aa689395 440
441 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
442 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
443 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
444 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
445 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
446 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
447 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
448 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
449 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
450 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
451 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
452
453Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
454
455 sh Configure -des
456 make
457 make test
458 make install
459
693762b4 460Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
461extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
462follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
463that problem.
464
aa689395 465=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
466
467If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
468convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
469installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
470
471 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
472 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
473 sh Configure -des
474 make
475 make test
476 make install
477 cd /tmp/perl5
fb73857a 478 # Edit lib/<archname>/<version>/Config.pm to change all the
479 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
480 # really be installed.
aa689395 481 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
482 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
483 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
484 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
485
dc45a647 486=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
693762b4 487
488After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
489answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
490person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
491system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
492to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
493hint file for your system.
494
dc45a647 495Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
496answers, you should
497
498 rm -f Policy.sh
499
500to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
501
502Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
503
aa689395 504=head2 Configure-time Options
505
506There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
507system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
508Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
509some of the main things you can change.
510
693762b4 511=head2 Threads
aa689395 512
693762b4 513On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
514enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
f7542a9d 515
693762b4 516 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 517
693762b4 518Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
519line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
520
521The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 522
46bb10fb 523=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
524
525Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 526stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
46bb10fb 527mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
528the default and is the only supported mechanism.
529
530This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
531line with
532
533 sh Configure -Duseperlio
534
535or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
536
537If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
538(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
539tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
540everywhere.
541
542=over 4
543
544=item 1.
545
1ec51d55 546AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 547cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb 548currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
549Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
550extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
551configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
552
553This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
554A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
555it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
556
557You select this option by
558
559 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
560
561If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
562that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
563Configure.
564
1ec51d55 565Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
566to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
33e6ee5f 567Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
568and SunOS 4.
569
570You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
571script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
572portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
573
574 #!/bin/sh
575 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
576 #include <stdio.h>
577 main() { printf("42\n"); }
578 EOCP
579 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
580 val=`./try`
581 if test X$val = X42; then
582 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
583 else
584 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
585 fi
586
587If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
588and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
589your platform.)
590
591There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
592problem.
593
46bb10fb 594=item 2.
595
596Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
597abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
598extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
599abstraction.
600
601This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
602
aa689395 603You select this option via:
46bb10fb 604
605 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
606
607If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
608detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
609
610=back
611
aa689395 612=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 613
614Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
615linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
616extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
617such as -lm.
618
9d67150a 619On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
620replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 621several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
622different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 623you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 624can share the same library.
625
626The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 627penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 628mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 629and upgrades.
630
631In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 632test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 633Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
634results.
635
636The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 637libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 638libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 639based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
640version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
641isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
642
643For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
644for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
645
646You can elect to build a shared libperl by
647
648 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
649
650To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 651LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 652this with
653
654 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
655
656for Bourne-style shells, or
657
658 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
659
660for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
661Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
662LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
663
9d67150a 664There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
665want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
666with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 667install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
668try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 669the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
670ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 671libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 672that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 673in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
674equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 675with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 676override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 677to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 678
679The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
680directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 681version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
9d67150a 682variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
683installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
684
55479bb6 685=head2 Malloc Issues
686
687Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
688perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
689the malloc function on your system.
690
691The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
692but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
693762b4 693malloc() function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
55479bb6 694
695For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
696the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
697with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
698(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
699if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
700third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
701your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
702malloc flags discussed below.)
703
704To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
705
706 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
707
708or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
709
aa689395 710=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 711
55479bb6 712If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
1ec51d55 713more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
55479bb6 714to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
1ec51d55 715more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
55479bb6 716In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
c3edaffb 717
aa689395 718=over 4
719
84902520 720=item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
2ae324a7 721
84902520 722If PERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
2ae324a7 723fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
1ec51d55 724variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
aa689395 725
726=item -DPACK_MALLOC
727
1ec51d55 728If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 729algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
730allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
aa689395 731
1ec51d55 732The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
55479bb6 733about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
734additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
735to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
aa689395 736
737=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
738
1ec51d55 739If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 740algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
741(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
742special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
743manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
744might be wise to define this macro.
aa689395 745
55479bb6 746The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
747require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
aa689395 748negligible.
749
750=back
751
3bf462b8 752=head2 Building a debugging perl
753
754You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 755B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8 756you probably want to do
757
758 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
759
203c3eec 760This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
761to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
762executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
a3cb178b 763cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
203c3eec 764system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
1ec51d55 765config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
203c3eec 766state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
1ec51d55 767default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
768reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
3fe9a6f1 769optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
203c3eec 770as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
771
772You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
773it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 774
775If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
776versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
777
aa689395 778=head2 Other Compiler Flags
779
780For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
781you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
1ec51d55 782by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
aa689395 783config.sh.
784
785For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
786perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
787following:
788
789 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
790
203c3eec 791or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
792at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
793me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
794different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
795
796You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
797doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
798shouldn't do that, but some might.)
c3edaffb 799
8e07c86e 800=head2 What if it doesn't work?
801
802=over 4
803
25f94b33 804=item Running Configure Interactively
805
806If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
807Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
808guesses.
809
810All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 811have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 812flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 813will use the defaults from then on.
814
815If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
816config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
817instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
818
aa689395 819=item Hint files
8e07c86e 820
821The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
822in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
823will offer to use that hint file.
824
825Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
826If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
1ec51d55 827file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
8e07c86e 828extensive example.
829
edb1cbcb 830=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
831
832Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
8334.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
834standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
835will see a message:
836
837 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
838 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
839 Keep the recommended value? [y]
840
841You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
842relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
843overriding it.
844
845If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
846used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
847to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
848system.
849
850For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
851and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
852Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
853Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
854
855 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
856 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
857 Keep the previous value? [y]
858
1ec51d55 859In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 860should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 861the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
862
8e07c86e 863=item Changing Compilers
864
865If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 866probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 867rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
868with the options you want to use.
869
1ec51d55 870This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
871gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 872
c3edaffb 873=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 874
1ec51d55 875If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
876them to all the .SH files by running
877
878 sh Configure -S
879
880You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 881
882 make depend
883 make
8e07c86e 884
885=item config.over
886
887You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
888guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
889is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 890does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 891L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e 892
893=item config.h
894
1ec51d55 895Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
896Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
897The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 898
1ec51d55 899If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
900though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 901lost.
902
903=item cflags
904
905If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 906line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
907optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
908toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
909can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
910lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 911
1ec51d55 912To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
913and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
914and then re-run
915
916 sh Configure -S
917 make depend
8e07c86e 918
aa689395 919=item No sh
8e07c86e 920
dfe9444c 921If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
922to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
8e07c86e 923You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
924mechanism.
925
c3edaffb 926=item Porting information
927
2ae324a7 928Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 929corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
930including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c3edaffb 931subdirectory.
932
7f678428 933Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 934http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 935various other operating systems.
936
8e07c86e 937=back
938
939=head1 make depend
940
941This will look for all the includes.
1ec51d55 942The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
943Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
944makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
945makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
946makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
c3edaffb 947a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
948if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 949
950Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
951explicitly above.
952
953=head1 make
954
955This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
956
957If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 958If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
959the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
960send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
961perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 962See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 963
964=over 4
965
1ec51d55 966=item hints
8e07c86e 967
968If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
969for further tips and information.
970
1ec51d55 971=item extensions
8e07c86e 972
1ec51d55 973If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 974during the building of extensions, you should run
975
976 make minitest
977
978to test your version of miniperl.
979
e57fd563 980=item locale
981
982If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
983unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
984while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
3e6e419a 985locale. See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales
986and the whole L<Locale problems> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
987The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
988
989 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
990 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
991 LC_ALL = "En_US",
992 LANG = (unset)
993 are supported and installed on your system.
994 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
995
996at Perl startup.
e57fd563 997
1ec51d55 998=item malloc duplicates
c3edaffb 999
dc45a647 1000If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DEMBEDMYMALLOC
1001to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 1002
7f678428 1003=item varargs
c3edaffb 1004
1005If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1006correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
1007and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
1008running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 1009forget to propagate your changes (see
1010L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1011See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1012
1ec51d55 1013=item croak
c3edaffb 1014
1015If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1016numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
1017
1018 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
1019 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1020 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
1021
1022it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1023previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1024
9d67150a 1025=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 1026
1027If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1028Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 1029-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 1030$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
6877a1cf 1031and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1032Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 1033environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 1034your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1035the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1036
7beaa944 1037One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1038invoke Configure with
1039
1040 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1041
1042for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1043instead.
1044
84902520 1045Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1046include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1047config.sh.
1048
9d67150a 1049=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1050
1051If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1052it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1053L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1054
1ec51d55 1055=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1056
1057If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1058the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1059Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1060fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1061of your local set-up.
1062
1063=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1064
1065The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1066that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1067which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1068
aa689395 1069The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1070actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1071failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1072"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1073functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1074
aa689395 1075=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1076
1077If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1078try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1079with
1080
1081 sh Configure -Uusenm
1082
1083or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1084If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1085config.sh.
1086
7f678428 1087=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1088
1089If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1090problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1091version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1092(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1093d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1094
1095 d_vprintf='define'
1096
1097If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1098on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
1099re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
1100
3fe9a6f1 1101=item do_aspawn
1102
1103If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1104problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1105fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
1106on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
1107
84902520 1108=item __inet_* errors
1109
1110If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1111referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1112installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1113these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1114in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1115newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1116updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1117/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1118avoid the problem.
1119
aa689395 1120=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1121
9d67150a 1122If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1123optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1124
1125 optimize='-O'
1126
1127to something like
1128
1129 optimize=' '
1130
1131then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1132with B<make depend; make>.
1133
1ec51d55 1134=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1135
1ec51d55 1136If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
56c6f531 1137flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1138This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1139indigestion easily.
9d67150a 1140
1141=item Missing functions
1142
1143If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1144other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1145there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1146likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1147
1ec51d55 1148=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1149
1ec51d55 1150Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1151toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1152allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1153each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1154makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1155specific rule.
1156
7f678428 1157=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1158
c3edaffb 1159SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1160that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1161
f3d9a6ba 1162=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1163
1164If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1165the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1166then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1167Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1168systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1169For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1170unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1171they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1172reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1173process is continuing.
7f678428 1174
1175On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1176message
1177
f3d9a6ba 1178 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1179
1180then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1181the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1182extension without the -lgdbm library.
1183
1184It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1185this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1186quite that tightly coordinated.
1187
aa689395 1188=item sh: ar: not found
1189
1190This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1191was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1192make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1193is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1194directory.
1195
1196=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1197
1198Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1199with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1200bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1201
1ec51d55 1202=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1203
1204Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1205
1206Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1207
1208NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1209
1ec51d55 1210UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1211
1212If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1213
1214Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1215
8e07c86e 1216=back
1217
1218=head1 make test
1219
84902520 1220This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1221should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1222complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1223then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1224
84902520 1225Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1226opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1227a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1228
c4f23d77 1229=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1230
1ec51d55 1231If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1232by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1233bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1234
1235 ./perl op/groups.t
1236
aa689395 1237Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1238individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1239
1240 ./perl harness
1241
fb73857a 1242(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1243complicated constructs).
1244
fb73857a 1245You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1246comments that apply to your system.
1247
c4f23d77 1248=over 4
1249
1250=item locale
1251
1ec51d55 1252Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1253may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1254B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1255one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1256LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1257are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1258
1259If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1260
1261 setenv LC_ALL C
1262
1263(for C shell) or
1264
1265 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1266
1ec51d55 1267for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1268make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1269is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1270shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 1271things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1272open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1273external program.
eed2e782 1274
c4f23d77 1275=item Out of memory
1276
1277On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1278of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1279Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1280fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1281will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1282same time.
1283
1284Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1285
1286 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1287
1288to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1289test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1290tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1291and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1292
1293You may also be able to reduce perl's memory usage by using some of
1294the ideas described above in L<"Malloc Performance Flags">.
1295
1296=back
1297
8e07c86e 1298=head1 make install
1299
1300This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1301Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1302to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1303pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 1304are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1305ignore any messages about chown not working.
1306
dd64f1c3 1307=head2 Installing perl under different names
1308
1309If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1310when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1311indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1312
1313 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1314
1315=head2 Installed files
1316
8e07c86e 1317If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1318anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1319
8e07c86e 1320 ./perl installperl -n
1321 ./perl installman -n
1322
1ec51d55 1323make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 1324
1325 perl,
1326 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1327 will be a link to perl.
1328 suidperl,
1329 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1330 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1331 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1332 read from stdin.
1333 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1334 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1335 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1336 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1337 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1338 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1339 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1340 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1341 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1342 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1343 pod2man, and
1344 pod2text
1345 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e 1346
1347 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1348 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1349 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1350 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1351 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1352 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1353 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1354
4633a7c4 1355Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1356$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1357 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1358 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
4633a7c4 1359where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1360will be used for installing extensions.
1361
56c6f531 1362Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1363under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1364optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1365program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1366
aa689395 1367=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1368
693762b4 1369WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1370tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1371
1372In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
13735.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1374all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1375around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1376For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 1377with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 1378top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1379#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1380
1381(If you are upgrading from 5.002 or earlier, beware that some of the
1382standard library files have changed in incompatible ways, so you are
1383probably better off starting with a fresh installation.)
1384
1385The standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should be usable by
1386all versions of perl5 after 5.002. An exception is the diagnostics.pm
1387module. Since that module uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod
1388documentation file, the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script
1389will only identify and explain any warnings or errors that the most
1390recently-installed version of perl can generate. Usually, this is not
1391a problem.
1392
1393Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1394with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1395(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1396
1397The directories searched by version 5.004_05 will be
1398
1399 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00405
1400 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1401 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1402 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1403
1404while the directories searched by version 5.004_04 are
1405
1406 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1407 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1408 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1409 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1410
1411When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into
1412/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname (if it is architecture-specific.)
1413This directory is deliberately NOT version-specific so that both 5.004_04
1414and 5.004_05 can use the extension.
1415
1416However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to
1417use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
4633a7c4 1418those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
693762b4 1419/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404. Then use your newer version of
1420perl to rebuild and re-install the extension into site_perl. This way,
1421Perl 5.004_04 will find your files in the 5.00404 directory, and
1422newer versions of perl will find your newer extension in the site_perl
1423directory.
1424
1425=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1426
1ec51d55 1427Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d52d4e46 1428separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1429using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1430
46bb10fb 1431 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1432
46bb10fb 1433and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1434may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1435scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1436
693762b4 1437Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1438(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1439each major version.
1440
6877a1cf 1441If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1442seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1443subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1444yet.
1445
693762b4 1446=head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1447
1448Extensions compiled with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50 will need
1449to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later.
1450
1451If you wish to continue using those extensions under 5.004_04, for
1452example, then you need to move those extensions from their current
dc45a647 1453directories, which are something like
693762b4 1454
1455 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1456 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1457
1458to the version-specific directory such as
1459
1460 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1461
1462as described above.
1463
1464Once you have moved the 5.00404 versions of the extensions out of the
1465way, you may recompile and reinstall with 5.005.
1466
8e07c86e 1467=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1468
1469You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1470
1ec51d55 1471By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1472they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 1473
1474In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1475perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 1476process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1477However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1ec51d55 1478the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
edb1cbcb 1479(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1480for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1481
aa689395 1482=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1483
1484Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1485the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1486header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
aa689395 1487by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1ec51d55 1488you specified to Configure; by default this is
1489/usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
1490(such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
1491building (for example, 5.004).
aa689395 1492
1ec51d55 1493Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
aa689395 1494conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1495to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1496correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1497certain structures.
1498
fb73857a 1499=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1500
3e3baf6d 1501Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1502format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1503documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1504
fb73857a 1505The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1506perl documentation:
aa689395 1507
3e3baf6d 1508 ./installhtml \
1509 --podroot=. \
1510 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1511 --recurse \
1512 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1513 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1514 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1515 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1516 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1517 --verbose
1518
1519See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1520many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1521see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1522resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1523(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1524
fb73857a 1525You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1526the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1527
aa689395 1528=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1529
1530Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1531available in TeX format. Type
1532
1533 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1534
1535=head1 Reporting Problems
1536
1537If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1538file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1539manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1540message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1541perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1542
1ec51d55 1543Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
aa689395 1544that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1ec51d55 1545perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
aa689395 1546but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1547
1ec51d55 1548You might also find helpful information in the Porting
aa689395 1549directory of the perl distribution.
1550
8e07c86e 1551=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1552
1553Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1554in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1555build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1ec51d55 1556can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
8e07c86e 1557is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1558
1ec51d55 1559Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1560along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
34a2a22e 1561and running (either):
1562
1563 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1564 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 1565
1566This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1567(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1568set-up.)
34a2a22e 1569
1570Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1571running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1572generate the documentation.
1573
8e07c86e 1574=head1 AUTHOR
1575
fb73857a 1576Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu ,
1577borrowing very heavily from the original README by Larry Wall,
1578with lots of helpful feedback and additions from the
1579perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1580
1581If you have problems or questions, please see L<"Reporting Problems">
1582above.
8e07c86e 1583
a5f75d66 1584=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1585
dd64f1c3 1586$Id: INSTALL,v 1.35 1998/05/18 19:06:26 doughera Released $