Update Module::Load to 0.12 (Was Re: Module::Load 0.12 wanna be
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f1300be0 1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
8e07c86e 5=head1 NAME
6
7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
ce80d64e 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
ce80d64e 15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
ce80d64e 21The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e 25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
8e07c86e 29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
cc65bb49 31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
ff52061e 33If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively, by
34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
ff52061e 39These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 40
8d74ce1c 41If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 42L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 43
7beaa944 44For information on what's new in this release, see the
fdd3cf50 45pod/perl5100delta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
7beaa944 46changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 47
1ec51d55 48=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 49
c3edaffb 50This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
51structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 52read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
53by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
54
55 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
56 C<code> literal code
57 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 58 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 59
c42e3e15 60Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 61you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 62proceeding.
c3edaffb 63
ce80d64e 64In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
65your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
66instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
dd3196cd 67system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
68for even more information.
c42e3e15 69
ce80d64e 70For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
71L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
72directory.
d56c5707 73
ce80d64e 74=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 75
ce80d64e 76=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 77
fdd3cf50 78Please see pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of the changes and
ce80d64e 79potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
80the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
fdd3cf50 81to pod/perl5100delta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 82
fdd3cf50 83B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
1b1c1ae2 84
cc65bb49 85If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b 86using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
87those extensions.
1b1c1ae2 88
89Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 90without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
91L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
693762b4 92
93The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
94
ce80d64e 95On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
96in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
fdd3cf50 97pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 98installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
99list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
100way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 101
aa689395 102=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 103
104Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
105things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268 106you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
107almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
108since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
109the same function.
110
ce80d64e 111At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 112defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 113
114After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 115*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 116
dd3196cd 117The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
118files.
119
ce80d64e 120=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 121
ce80d64e 122Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 123
ce80d64e 124 Configure -h
d6baa268 125
ce80d64e 126to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 127Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
128
d6baa268 129=over 4
130
08854360 131=item C compiler
d6baa268 132
08854360 133To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
134system, you should run
8e07c86e 135
136 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
137
08854360 138This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
8e07c86e 139compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
140
d6baa268 141=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 142
8e07c86e 143By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 144/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
145and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
146further details.)
147
148You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 149directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 150line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 151
25f94b33 152 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 153
d6baa268 154If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
155directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
156prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
157/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec 158for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
159or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 160
8d74ce1c 161NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
162as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
163attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 164
d6baa268 165=item /usr/bin/perl
166
167It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
168find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 169/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 170careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec 171vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
172on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
173configured may be found with
174
175 perl -V:config_args
176
177(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e 178spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
179at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 180
ce80d64e 181By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
182version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 183
7d56c962 184 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 185
7d56c962 186or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 187
ce80d64e 188In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
189(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 190into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
191obvious and convenient place.
192
71c4561b 193=item Building a development release
04d420f9 194
ce80d64e 195For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
196use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
197because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
198Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
199sanity check.
d6baa268 200
201=back
8e07c86e 202
203c3eec 203If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
204output, you can run
205
206 sh Configure -des
207
dd3196cd 208=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 209
ce80d64e 210For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
211be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
212have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
213after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
214For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
215invocations:
46bb10fb 216
08854360 217 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 218
5247441a 219To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
dd3196cd 220Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
221variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
222But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 223
ce80d64e 224For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 225
ce80d64e 226 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 227
ce80d64e 228=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 229
ce80d64e 230There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
231system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
232Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
233some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 234
ce80d64e 235=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 236
ce80d64e 237On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
238enable this, run
4633a7c4 239
ce80d64e 240 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 241
ce80d64e 242The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 243
47f9f84c 244Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
245model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
246called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
247thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
248(5005threads) has been removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 249
ce80d64e 250The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
47f9f84c 251'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
252ithreads model.
d6baa268 253
ce80d64e 254When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
255the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
256This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
257fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
258PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
259way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 260C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 261
08854360 262=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 263
ce80d64e 264Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2652 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
266support is on by default.
d6baa268 267
ce80d64e 268This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
269seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
270using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
271be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
272parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 273will happen.
d6baa268 274
ce80d64e 275There's also one known limitation with the current large files
276implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
277section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
278like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 279
71c4561b 280If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
281
282 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
283
08854360 284=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 285
08854360 286If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
287them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 288you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 289
ce80d64e 290There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
291using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
292-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
293the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 294
ce80d64e 295The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
29664-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
297longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
298your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
299does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
300might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
301you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 302
ce80d64e 303The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
304integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
305create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
306resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
307have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
308aware.
d6baa268 309
08854360 310Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 311
ce80d64e 312=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 313
ce80d64e 314In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
315range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
316(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
317this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 318
ce80d64e 319=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 320
ce80d64e 321You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
322and the long double support.
b367e8b0 323
ce80d64e 324=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1 325
326In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
327Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 328enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1 329a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
330and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
331
86358043 332In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
333create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
334the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
335in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
336data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
337certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
338
339In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
340elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
341basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
342then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
343adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
344existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
345specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
346data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
347randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
348is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
349
350One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
351vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
352variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
353is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 354example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043 355which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
356variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
357the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 358
3debabd9 359B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043 360ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3615. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 362be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 363randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 364between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
86358043 365hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
366recommended.
504f80c1 367
ce80d64e 368=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5 369
370Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
371TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
372access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
71c4561b 373Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
374You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
375L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 376
ce80d64e 377=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 378
71c4561b 379By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
380If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
d6baa268 381statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
382you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
383
ce80d64e 384=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 385
386Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
387linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 388extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 389
08854360 390On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 391replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 392several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
393different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 394you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 395can share the same library.
396
397The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 398penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 399mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 400and upgrades.
401
402In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 403test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 404Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
405results.
406
407The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 408libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 409libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 410based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
411version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
412isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
413
c3edaffb 414You can elect to build a shared libperl by
415
ce80d64e 416 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
417
418To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
419library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
420NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
421for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
422the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
423be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
424library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
425variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
426
427 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
428
429However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
430shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
431something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
432./perl:
433
08854360 434 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
435
ce80d64e 436or
08854360 437
ce80d64e 438 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
439
440then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
441You can do this with
442
443 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
444
445for Bourne-style shells, or
446
447 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
448
449for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
450unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
451again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
452
453You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
454messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
455for example:
08854360 456
457 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
ce80d64e 458
459There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
460want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
461with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
08854360 462install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
463try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
ce80d64e 464the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
465ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
466libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
467that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
468in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
469equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
470with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
471LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
472Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
473_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
474
475In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
476with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
477previous build.
478
479A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
480architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
481You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
482point to your new architecture-dependent library.
483
575e1338 484=head3 Environment access
485
486Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
487is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
488leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
489to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
490whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
491but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
492embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 493by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
575e1338 494use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
495C<perl_construct()> call.
496
ce80d64e 497=head2 Installation Directories
498
499The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
be8498a1 500appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
501questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
502slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
503you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
504from then on. Alternatively, you can
ce80d64e 505
506 grep '^install' config.sh
507
508after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
509
510The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
511people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
512distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
513need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
514you can safely skip the next section.
515
516The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
517
518=over 4
519
520=item Directories for the perl distribution
521
08854360 522By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.10.0.
ce80d64e 523$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
08854360 5245.10.0 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
ce80d64e 525determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
526variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
527
528 Configure variable Default value
529 $prefixexp /usr/local
530 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
531 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
532 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
533 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
534 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
535 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
536 $html1direxp (none)
537 $html3direxp (none)
538
539$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
540directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
541file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
542variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
543
544Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
545/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
546instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
547directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
548the common style is shown here.
549
550=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
551
552After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
553CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
554be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
555
556 Configure variable Default value
557 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
558 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
559 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
560 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
561 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
562 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
563 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
564 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
565 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
566
567By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
568modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
569
570=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
571
572Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
573distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
574for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
575
576 Configure variable Default value
577 $vendorprefixexp (none)
578 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
579 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
580 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
581 $vendorlibexp
582 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
583 $vendorarchexp
584 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
585 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
586 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
587 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
588 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
589
590These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
591a vendor might choose the following settings:
592
593 $prefix /usr
594 $siteprefix /usr/local
595 $vendorprefix /usr
596
597This would have the effect of setting the following:
598
599 $binexp /usr/bin
600 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
601 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
602 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
603 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
604 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
605
606 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
607 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
608 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
609 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
610 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
611 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
612
613 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
614 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
615 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
616 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
617 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
618 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
619
620Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
621/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
622the /usr/local hierarchy.
623
624The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
625version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
626However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
627installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
628See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
629on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
630
631Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
632example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
633are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
634site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
635network. One way to do that would be something like
636
637 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
638
639=item otherlibdirs
640
641As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
642variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
643directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
644Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
645version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
646
647For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
648installation, perhaps in a strange place:
649
650 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
651
652=item APPLLIB_EXP
653
654There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
655that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
656separated list of directories, like this
657
658 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
659
660The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
661ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
662modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
663touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
664version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
665present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
666directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
667run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
668
20ef40cf 669=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
670
671Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
672
36de116d 673 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 674
36de116d 675Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
20ef40cf 676When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
677anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
678entries to @INC.
679
ce80d64e 680=item Man Pages
681
be8498a1 682By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
683are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
684want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
ce80d64e 685
686 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
687
ce80d64e 688=item HTML pages
689
690Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
691HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
692add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
693variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
694documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
695eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
696
697=back
698
699Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
700to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
701architectures.
702
703Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
704directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
705filesystem.
c3edaffb 706
ce80d64e 707Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
708development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
709discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 710
ce80d64e 711If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
712library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
713suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 714
ce80d64e 715Thus, for example, if you Configure with
716-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 717
ce80d64e 718 Configure variable Default value
719 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
720 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
721 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
722 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 723
ce80d64e 724=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 725
ce80d64e 726Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
727associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
728will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
729sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
730However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
731packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
732wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
733management software to move perl to its final destination. This
734section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 735
be8498a1 736To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
737command line:
c3edaffb 738
ce80d64e 739 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 740
ce80d64e 741(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 742
ce80d64e 743Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
744modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
745follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
746that problem.
c3edaffb 747
ce80d64e 748=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 749
ce80d64e 750If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
751to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
752multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
753archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
754using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
755automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
756simply do:
830717a7 757
ce80d64e 758 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
759 make
760 make test
761 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
762 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
763 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 764
ce80d64e 765=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 766
ce80d64e 767After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
768answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
769person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
770system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
771to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
a0a8d9d3 772hint file for your system. This will work even if Policy.sh was
773generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 774different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3 775you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
776example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
777as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 778
ce80d64e 779Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
780answers, you should
c3edaffb 781
ce80d64e 782 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 783
ce80d64e 784to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 785
ce80d64e 786Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 787
ce80d64e 788If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
789to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
790platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 791
ce80d64e 792=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 793
ce80d64e 794Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
795installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
796and these will be used by the perl being built.
797See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 798
ce80d64e 799To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
800modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 801
ce80d64e 802 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 803
ce80d64e 804When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
805$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 806
ce80d64e 807=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 808
ce80d64e 809Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
810where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
811read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
812architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
813links) by
06c896bb 814
ce80d64e 815 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
816 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
817 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 818
ce80d64e 819This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
820pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
821unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 822
ce80d64e 823 make
06c896bb 824
ce80d64e 825as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 826
3bf462b8 827=head2 Building a debugging perl
828
829You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 830B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae 831you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
832(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
833system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
834
08854360 835 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
836
837or
838
eaf812ae 839 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
840
841For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
842for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
843to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
844
845=over 4
846
847=item -DEBUGGING=old
848
849Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
3bf462b8 850
851 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
852
203c3eec 853This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
854to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
855executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
d6baa268 856cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
857your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
858variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
859internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
860if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
861old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
862ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
863L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
203c3eec 864
865You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
866it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 867
eaf812ae 868=item -DDEBUGGING
869
870=item -DEBUGGING
871
872=item -DEBUGGING=both
873
874Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
875
876=item -DEBUGGING=-g
877
878Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
879
880=item -DEBUGGING=none
881
882Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
883
884=back
885
3bf462b8 886If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 887versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 888
8d74ce1c 889=head2 Extensions
890
80c1f5de 891Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
892in the ext/ subdirectory.
893
8d74ce1c 894By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
895to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
896only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 897Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
ce80d64e 898is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
899set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 900
c42e3e15 901If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
902running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
903extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
904it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
905has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
906extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
907convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
908you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
909dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
910
a522f097 911If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
912is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
913
c42e3e15 914You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
8d74ce1c 915documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
916ext/ subdirectory.
917
918Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
919DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
ce80d64e 920version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
921
922To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
923-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
924a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
925C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
926the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
927extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
928certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
929examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
930these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c 931
932Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
933the extensions you want.
934
935Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
936DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
937this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
938releases of version 2.
939
dd3196cd 940If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
8d74ce1c 941adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
942for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
943you.
944
80c1f5de 945Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
8d74ce1c 946remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
947executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
948well build all the ones that will work on your system.
949
950=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
951
952Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
953dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
954Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
955automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
956are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
957how to obtain the libraries.
958
d6baa268 959If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
960searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
961appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 962your database libraries are not in a directory normally
d6baa268 963searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
964the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
965See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 966
ce80d64e 967=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c 968
969=over 4
970
971=item gdbm in /usr/local
972
973Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 974GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c 975installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
976/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
977necessary steps out automatically.
978
979Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
980your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
981
982When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
983-L/usr/local/lib.
984
985If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
986linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
987-L/usr/local/lib.
988
d6baa268 989Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
990you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
991/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 992
993=item gdbm in /usr/you
994
995Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
996but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
997have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
998still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
999an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1000Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1001/usr/you/lib to the list.
1002
1003It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1004line):
1005
d6baa268 1006 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1007 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1008 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1009
1010locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1011Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1012
1013loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1014Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1015you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1016/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1017
d6baa268 1018 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1019 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1020 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1021
1022=back
1023
bb636fa4 1024=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1025
ce80d64e 1026A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1027compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
bb636fa4 1028following instructions.
1029
1030Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1031DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1032links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1033for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
bb636fa4 1034--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1035additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1036--prefix=/usr):
1037
1038 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1039 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1040 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1041 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1042 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
bb636fa4 1043 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1044
1045Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1046for ODBM/NDBM):
1047
1048 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1049 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1050
1051ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1052using DB 3.1.17:
1053
1054 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1055 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1056
ce80d64e 1057=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1058
dd3196cd 1059If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1060Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1061need to use B<Configure -O>.
ce80d64e 1062
1063=head2 GNU-style configure
1064
1065If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1066use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1067
1068 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1069
1070The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1071options. Try
1072
1073 ./configure.gnu --help
1074
1075for a listing.
1076
1077(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1078that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1079
1080See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1081
1082=head2 Malloc Issues
1083
1084Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1085so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1086the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1087version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1088perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1089than your system malloc.
1090
1091However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1092experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1093that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1094(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1095
1096=over 4
1097
1098=item Using the system malloc
1099
1100To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1101
1102 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1103
1104or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1105
1106=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1107
1108NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1109run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1110
1111Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1112Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1113These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1114
1115If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1116will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1117sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1118been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1119
1120Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1121from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1122does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1123versions.
1124
1125=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1126
1127This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1128Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1129using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1130
1131 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1132
1133to enable this option.
1134
1135=back
1136
8e07c86e 1137=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1138
8d74ce1c 1139If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1140If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1141
8e07c86e 1142=over 4
1143
25f94b33 1144=item Running Configure Interactively
1145
1146If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1147Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1148guesses.
1149
1150All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1151have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1152flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 1153will use the defaults from then on.
1154
1155If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1156config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1157instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1158
aa689395 1159=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1160
a0a8d9d3 1161Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1162
1163=over 4
1164
1165=item o
1166
1167The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1168library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1169and so on.
1170
1171=item o
1172
1173The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1174although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1175resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1176
1177=item o
1178
1179How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1180speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1181implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1182often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1183
1184=back
1185
1186The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1187in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1188will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1189not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e 1190
1191Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617 1192If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1193for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1194More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3 1195file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1196
1197Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1198Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1199
edb1cbcb 1200=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1201
82c11e95 1202If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1203different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1204always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1205on your system.
edb1cbcb 1206
1207For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1208and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1209Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a 1210Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1211issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1212
1213 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1214 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1215 Keep the previous value? [y]
1216
1ec51d55 1217In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1218should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1219the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1220
8e07c86e 1221=item Changing Compilers
1222
1223If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1224probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1225rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1226
c3edaffb 1227=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1228
1ec51d55 1229If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1230them to all the .SH files by running
1231
1232 sh Configure -S
1233
1234You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1235
1236 make depend
1237 make
8e07c86e 1238
48370efc 1239=item config.over and config.arch
1240
1241You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1242Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1243before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1244however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1245This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1246
1247There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1248config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1249architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1250hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e 1251
1252=item config.h
1253
1ec51d55 1254Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1255Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1256The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1257
1ec51d55 1258If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1259though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 1260lost.
1261
1262=item cflags
1263
1264If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1265line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1266optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1267toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1268can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1269lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1270
f5b3b617 1271To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1272see the file hints/README.hints.
1273
1274To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1275$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55 1276
1277 sh Configure -S
1278 make depend
8e07c86e 1279
aa689395 1280=item No sh
8e07c86e 1281
c42e3e15 1282If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1283Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1284system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e 1285You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1286mechanism.
1287
c3edaffb 1288=item Porting information
1289
e6f03d26 1290Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 1291corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1292including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1293subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1294
7f678428 1295Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1296http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1297various other operating systems.
1298
ce80d64e 1299If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1300section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1301in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1302Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1303
8e07c86e 1304=back
1305
ce80d64e 1306=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5 1307
1308You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1309CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1310command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1311
d3df0cfd 1312 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5 1313
1314or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1315then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1316The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097 1317This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1318extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1319extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5 1320
1321Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1322modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1323or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1324do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1325
1326Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1327dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1328For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5 1329headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1330process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1331
ce80d64e 1332=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1333
ce80d64e 1334suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1335nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21 1336
1337 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1338 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1339 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1340 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1341 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1342 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1343 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1344 features of the kernel.
1345
1346Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1347of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1348software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1349should be considered deprecated.
08854360 1350
ce80d64e 1351Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
08854360 1352privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1353
8e07c86e 1354=head1 make depend
1355
bfb7748a 1356This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1357The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1358the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1359makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a 1360(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1361Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 1362
1363Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1364explicitly above.
1365
1366=head1 make
1367
1368This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1369
8d410bc4 1370=head2 Expected errors
1371
1372These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1373
1374 ...
1375 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1376 ...
1377 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1378
8d74ce1c 1379=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1380
8e07c86e 1381If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1382If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1383the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1384then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 1385
1386=over 4
1387
1ec51d55 1388=item hints
8e07c86e 1389
1390If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1391for further tips and information.
1392
1ec51d55 1393=item extensions
8e07c86e 1394
1ec51d55 1395If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1396during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1397
3a6175e1 1398 make minitest
c3edaffb 1399
1400to test your version of miniperl.
1401
e57fd563 1402=item locale
1403
bfb7748a 1404If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1405them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1406running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1407See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1408whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a 1409The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1410
1411 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1412 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1413 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1414 LANG = (unset)
1415 are supported and installed on your system.
1416 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1417
1418at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1419
7f678428 1420=item varargs
c3edaffb 1421
1422If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a 1423correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1424gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1425in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a 1426correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1427your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1428See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1429
bfb7748a 1430=item util.c
c3edaffb 1431
1432If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1433numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1434
bfb7748a 1435 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1436 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1437 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1438
1439it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1440previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1441
1ec51d55 1442=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1443
1444If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1445the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1446Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1447fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1448of your local set-up.
1449
aa689395 1450=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1451
1452If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1453try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1454with
1455
1456 sh Configure -Uusenm
1457
1458or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1459If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1460config.sh.
1461
bfb7748a 1462=item umask not found
1463
1464If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1465is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1466Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1467this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1468try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1469
7f678428 1470=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1471
1472If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1473problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1474version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1475(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1476d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1477
1478 d_vprintf='define'
1479
1480If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a 1481on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1482the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1483
3fe9a6f1 1484=item do_aspawn
1485
1486If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1487problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a 1488fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1489on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1490
84902520 1491=item __inet_* errors
1492
1493If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1494referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1495installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1496these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1497in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721 1498newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1499If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1500with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1501test process to avoid the problem.
1502
1503=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1504
1505On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1506reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1507but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1508other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1509header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1510another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1511Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721 1512header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1513normally /usr/include).
84902520 1514
d6baa268 1515=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1516
1517This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1518gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1519changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1520rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1521update your gcc installation.
1522
aa689395 1523=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1524
9d67150a 1525If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1526optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1527
1528 optimize='-O'
1529
bfb7748a 1530to
9d67150a 1531
1532 optimize=' '
1533
1534then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1535with B<make depend; make>.
1536
4bbc1586 1537=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1538
4bbc1586 1539If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1540undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1541should look something like
1542
1543 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1544
1545The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1546need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1547will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1548need to start all over again. Run
1549
1550 make distclean
1551
1552and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1553what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1554Configure.
1555
1556If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1557L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1558
1559If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1560need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1561that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1562you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1563look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1564
1ec51d55 1565=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1566
1ec51d55 1567Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1568toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1569allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1570each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1571makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1572specific rule.
1573
7f678428 1574=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1575
c3edaffb 1576SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1577that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1578
f3d9a6ba 1579=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1580
1581If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1582the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1583then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1584Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1585systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1586For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1587unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1588they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1589reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1590process is continuing.
7f678428 1591
1592On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1593message
1594
f3d9a6ba 1595 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1596
1597then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1598the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1599extension without the -lgdbm library.
1600
1601It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1602this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1603quite that tightly coordinated.
1604
aa689395 1605=item sh: ar: not found
1606
1607This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1608was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1609make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1610is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1611directory.
1612
1613=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1614
1615Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1616with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1617bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1618
6087ac44 1619=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1620
11906ba0 1621If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44 1622V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1623also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1624to include the System V semaphores.
1625
11906ba0 1626=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621 1627
1628Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1629both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1630ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1631with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1632system.
1633
d6baa268 1634=item GNU binutils
1635
1636If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1637tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1638with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1639may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1640under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1641to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1642vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1643Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1644
16dc217a 1645=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1646
1647The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1648make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1649archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1650C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1651archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1652incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1653official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1654that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1655archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1656
16dc217a 1657=item invalid token: ##
1658
ce80d64e 1659You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1660need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1661file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1662options.
16dc217a 1663
1ec51d55 1664=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1665
1666Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1667
1668Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1669
1670NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1671
9ede5bc8 1672UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1673
11906ba0 1674FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1675configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1676you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1677
6c8d78fb 1678Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1679installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1680and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1681the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1682view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1683to avoid the BIND.
1684
8e07c86e 1685=back
1686
58a21a9b 1687=head2 Cross-compilation
1688
e7a3c61b 1689Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1690rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1691June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1692the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1693while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1694platforms.
1695
1696What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1697cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1698up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1699(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1700awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1701version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1702cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1703
1704See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1705the particular platforms:
1706
1707=over 4
1708
1709=item WinCE/PocketPC
1710
75472953 1711README.ce
e7a3c61b 1712
1713=item Open Zaurus
1714
1715Cross/README
1716
1717=item EPOC
1718
1719README.epoc
1720
1721=item Symbian
1722
1723README.symbian
1724
1725=item OS/400
1726
1727README.os400
1728
1729=back
1730
1731Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1732modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1733cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1734platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1735L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1736of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1737
1738For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1739C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1740directory>.
1741
1742About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1743work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1744building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1745building the perl executable because that would require building
1746extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1747extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1748cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1749
1750The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1751at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1752both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1753cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1754target system.
1755
1756To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1757has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b 1758
1759 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1760
1761This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652 1762symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1763for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b 1764
1765During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1766into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1767cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1768target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1769transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1770the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1771methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1772F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1773
1774To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1775the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1776happens), supply Configure with
1777
1778 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1779
1780The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa 1781must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1782You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b 1783
1784 -Dtargetuser=luser
1785
1786but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1787
93bc48fa 1788Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1789which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1790This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1791In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1792environment:
58a21a9b 1793
1794 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1795 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1796 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1797 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1798 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1799
1800If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1801compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1802C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa 1803(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1804as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1805will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1806in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b 1807
1808In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1809choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1810for example:
1811
1812 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1813
1814Putting it all together:
1815
1816 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 1817 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1818 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b 1819 -Dtargetuser=root \
1820 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1821 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1822 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1823 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1824 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1825 -D...
1826
e7a3c61b 1827or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa 1828
1829 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1830 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1831 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1832 -D...
1833
e7a3c61b 1834Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1835F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1836
1837 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1838 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1839 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1840 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1841 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1842 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1843
8e07c86e 1844=head1 make test
1845
d6baa268 1846This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1847'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1848wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1849
84902520 1850Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1851opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1852a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1853
c4f23d77 1854=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1855
1ec51d55 1856If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1857by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1858bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1859
1860 ./perl op/groups.t
1861
aa689395 1862Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1863individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1864
1865 ./perl harness
1866
fb73857a 1867(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831 1868complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
1869need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
1870PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
1871right Perl library path:
1872
1873 setenv PERL_CORE 1
1874 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
1875 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 1876
5cda700b 1877(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 1878You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831 1879comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1880shared library path if you get errors like:
1881
1882 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1883
1884See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1885
c4f23d77 1886=over 4
1887
1888=item locale
1889
1ec51d55 1890Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1891may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1892B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1893one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1894LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1895are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1896
1897If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1898
1899 setenv LC_ALL C
1900
1901(for C shell) or
1902
1903 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1904
1ec51d55 1905for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1906make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1907is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1908shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 1909things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1910open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1911external program.
eed2e782 1912
0740bb5b 1913=item Timing problems
1914
c29923ff 1915Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1916sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f 1917If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1918these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1919with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1920and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
1921F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
1922F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1923
c4f23d77 1924=item Out of memory
1925
1926On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1927of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296 1928For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1929test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77 1930
1931Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1932
1933 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1934
1935to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1936test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1937tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1938and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1939
4f76e5ba 1940=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1941
1942First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1943real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1944
1945Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1946directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1947systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1948run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1949test').
1950
1951The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1952
1953(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1954other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1955
1956This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
1957unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
1958are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1959
1960(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1961by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
1962UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
1963add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
1964used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
1965set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
1966file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
1967others.)
1968
1969This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
1970permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
1971also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
1972is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
1973should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
1974supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
1975used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
197611.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
1977on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
1978local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 1979
b2b23189 1980(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
1981any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
1982directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba 1983(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
1984building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
1985module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1 1986
1987See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 1988about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 1989
c4f23d77 1990=back
1991
8e07c86e 1992=head1 make install
1993
1994This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1995Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1996to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1997pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e 1998are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
1999in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2000
2001If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2002similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2003and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2004by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2005
dd64f1c3 2006=head2 Installing perl under different names
2007
2008If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2009when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2010indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2011
2012 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2013
beb13193 2014You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2015"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193 2016
2017 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2018
5cda700b 2019This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2020avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2021Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2022
ce80d64e 2023=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2024
2025You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2026the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2027
2028 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2029
2030DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2031the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2032
dd64f1c3 2033=head2 Installed files
2034
8e07c86e 2035If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2036anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2037
8e07c86e 2038 ./perl installperl -n
2039 ./perl installman -n
2040
1ec51d55 2041make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2042
d56c5707 2043 binaries
2044
8e07c86e 2045 perl,
be8498a1 2046 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2047 will be a link to perl.
2048 suidperl,
be8498a1 2049 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2050 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707 2051
2052 scripts
2053
8e07c86e 2054 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2055 read from stdin.
2056 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2057 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2058 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2059 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2060 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2061 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2062 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2063 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2064 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2065 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707 2066 pod2man,
2067 pod2text,
2068 pod2checker,
2069 pod2select,
2070 pod2usage
aa689395 2071 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2072 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2073
d56c5707 2074 library files
2075
2076 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2077 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707 2078
2079 documentation
2080
d6baa268 2081 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2082 module man
2083 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e 2084 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2085
d6baa268 2086Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2087in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2088
d56c5707 2089Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2090under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531 2091optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2092program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2093
d56c5707 2094Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2095installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2096perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2097disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2098To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2099
2100 Configure -Dversiononly
2101
2102or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2103you can just manually run
2104
2105 ./perl installperl -v
2106
2107and skip installman altogether.
2108See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2109approach.
2110
ff52061e 2111=head1 Reporting Problems
2112
2113Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2114to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2115information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2116more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2117carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2118on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2119you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2120message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2121get advice.
2122
2123The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2124completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2125C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2126C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2127run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2128directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2129
2130If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2131B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2132an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2133
2134If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2135(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2136description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2137- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2138
2139Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2140reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2141written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
2142the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2143not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2144
2145Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2146config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2147necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2148session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2149messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2150appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
2151attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2152read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2153subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2154
2155If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2156report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2157http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2158
aa689395 2159=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2160
fdd3cf50 2161Perl 5.10 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2162In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2163
693762b4 2164In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 21655.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
693762b4 2166all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2167around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2168For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2169with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2170top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2171#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2172
be8498a1 2173Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2174used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2175(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2176
d6baa268 2177Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2178searched by 5.005_03 are
2179
2180 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2181 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2182 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2183 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2184
0a08c020 2185Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2186fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2187searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2188
0a08c020 2189 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2190 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2191 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2192 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2193
2194 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2195 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2196 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2197
c42e3e15 2198Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2199of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2200directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2201to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2202suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020 2203present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2204/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2205but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2206
c42e3e15 2207The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 22085.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2209
cc65bb49 2210Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2211with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901 2212Configure defaults) will be:
2213
2214 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2215 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2216 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2217 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2218
0a08c020 2219 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2220
d6baa268 2221 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2222
d6baa268 2223 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2224
cc65bb49 2225Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2226modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2227
0a08c020 2228Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 22295.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
cc65bb49 2230extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2231of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2232newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2233compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2234installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
22355.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
22365.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2237install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
22385.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020 2239
2240This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2241to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2242versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4 2243
2244=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2245
1ec51d55 2246Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2247separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020 2248won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2249libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2250way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2251
9a664500 2252 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2253
9a664500 2254and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2255may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2256scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2257
693762b4 2258Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2259(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4 2260each major version.
2261
6877a1cf 2262If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2263seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2264subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2265yet.
2266
dd3196cd 2267=head2 Upgrading from 5.8.x or earlier
693762b4 2268
dd3196cd 2269B<Perl 5.10.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x and any earlier
2270Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2271(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
dd3196cd 2272used with 5.10.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
22735.10.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d 2274installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2275above.)
c42e3e15 2276
2277See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2278incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2279perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2280
aa689395 2281=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2282
d6baa268 2283Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2284system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2285header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268 2286by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2287library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2288
d6baa268 2289Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2290of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2291hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2292For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2293structures.
aa689395 2294
fb73857a 2295=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2296
3e3baf6d 2297Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2298format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2299documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2300
d6baa268 2301Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2302html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2303
fb73857a 2304The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2305perl documentation:
aa689395 2306
3e3baf6d 2307 ./installhtml \
2308 --podroot=. \
2309 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2310 --recurse \
2311 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2312 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2313 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2314 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2315 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2316 --verbose
2317
2318See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2319many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2320see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2321resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2322(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2323
fb73857a 2324You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2325the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2326
aa689395 2327=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2328
2329Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2330available in TeX format. Type
2331
2332 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2333
dd3196cd 2334=head1 Starting all over again
2335
2336If you wish to re-build perl from the same build directory, you should
2337clean it out with the command
2338
2339 make distclean
2340
2341or
2342
2343 make realclean
2344
2345The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2346your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2347
2348If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2349change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2350you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
2351not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it:
2352
2353 rm -f config.sh
2354
2355If you wish to re-use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
2356version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
2357the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
2358includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
2359name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
2360Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Similarly, if you used
2361a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will probably
2362want to adjust them as well.
2363
2364Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
2365Linux distributions use i386, but Configure uses the output of the arch
2366command, which might be i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled
2367binary, or compile extensions on different systems, they might not all
2368agree on the architecture name.
2369
2370In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
2371Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
2372
2373If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2374installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2375using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2376settings"> above. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
2377also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
2378
2379 rm -f Policy.sh
2380
8ebf57cf 2381=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2382
2383The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2384Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2385operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2386
c8214fdf 2387Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b 2388Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2389space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2390Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf 2391programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2392depends on what do you need to do.
2393
8ebf57cf 2394In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2395recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2396depends on what you need.
2397
2398Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2399
2400 use strict;
2401 use warnings;
2402 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2403 print("$f\n");
2404 }
2405
bfe08c74 2406in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf 2407
2408 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74 2409 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2410 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2411 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2412 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2413 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2414
2415Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2416size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2417
bfe08c74 2418 /usr/bin/perl
2419 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2420 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2421 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2422 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2423 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2424 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2425 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2426 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2427 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2428 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2429 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2430 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2431 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2432 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2433 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2434 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2435 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2436 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2437 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2438 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2439 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2440 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2441 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2442 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2443 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2444 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2445 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2446 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2447 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2448 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2449 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2450 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2451 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2452 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2453 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2454 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2455 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2456 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2457 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2458 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2459 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2460 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2461 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2462 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2463 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2464 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2465 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2466 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2467 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2468 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2469 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2470 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74 2471 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2472 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2473 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2474 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2475 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2476 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2477 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2478 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2479 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2480 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2481 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2482 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2483 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2484 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2485 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2486 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2487 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2488 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2489 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2490 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2491 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2492 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2493 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2494 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2495 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2496 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2497 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2498 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2499 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2500 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2501 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2502 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2503 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2504 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2505 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2506 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2507
e7a3c61b 2508A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2509need to run a Perl program is
2510
a0a8d9d3 2511 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b 2512
2513(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2514it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2515use something like the below
2516
2517 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2518
2519(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2520and 'ktrace'.)
2521
8e07c86e 2522=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2523
bfb7748a 2524Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2525is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2526build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a 2527can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2528sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2529
1ec51d55 2530Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a 2531along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2532running (either):
34a2a22e 2533
2534 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2535 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 2536
2537This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2538(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2539set-up.)
34a2a22e 2540
bfb7748a 2541Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2542the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2543the documentation.
34a2a22e 2544
8e07c86e 2545=head1 AUTHOR
2546
bfb7748a 2547Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2548heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2549feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2550
f5b3b617 2551If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2552L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2553
2554=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2555
2556This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2557the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2558If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268 2559a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2560and the contact information to match your distribution.