[differences between cumulative patch application and perl5.003_28]
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
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8e07c86e 1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
8e07c86e 8
9 rm -f config.sh
10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
17 (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7f678428 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
aa689395 23L<"Porting Information"> below.
7f678428 24
c3edaffb 25=head1 DESCRIPTION
26
edb1cbcb 27You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
28proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
29by B<NOTE>.
30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
33read it as is with any pager or editor.
34
eed2e782 35If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
36the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
37provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
38
aa689395 39=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 40
c3edaffb 41The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
42The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
4315 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
44system-dependent. The installation directories need something
45on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 46
aa689395 47=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 48
edb1cbcb 49If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
50with the command
51
52 make realclean
c3edaffb 53
8e07c86e 54The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
55you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
56systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
57experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
58re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
59
60 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 61
e57fd563 62If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
63version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
64the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
65includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
66name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
67Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
68probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
69Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
70numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
71
72Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
73call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
74precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
75
76In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
77Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 78
aa689395 79=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 80
81Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
82things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
83you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
84is almost always ok.
85
86After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
87F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
88
89Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
90to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
91
92 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
93
94This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
95compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
96
4633a7c4 97If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
98with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
99
8e07c86e 100If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
101output, you can run
102
103 sh Configure -des
104
105By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
106/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
107the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
108using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
109e.g.
110
25f94b33 111 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 112
113If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
114are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
115then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 116/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 117
aa689395 118By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 119your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531 120statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
121you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 122
46bb10fb 123=head2 GNU-style configure
124
125If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
126use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
127
128 CC=gcc ./configure
129
aa689395 130The B<configure> script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 131options. Try
132
133 ./configure --help
134
135for a listing.
136
aa689395 137Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb 138
139For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
140"configure", Perl includes a copy of B<configure> named
141B<configure.gnu>.
142
24b3df7f 143=head2 Extensions
144
edb1cbcb 145By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
146to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
147only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
5f05dabc 148DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
149not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
150by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
151Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
152Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
153by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 154useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 155
56c6f531 156Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
157DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
158version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
159
24b3df7f 160In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
161to turn off each extension:
162
163 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 164 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 165 Fcntl (Always included by default)
166 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 167 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 168 NDBM_File i_ndbm
169 ODBM_File i_dbm
170 POSIX useposix
171 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 172 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 173 Socket d_socket
174
175Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
176
177 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
178
179Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
180library.
181
182Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 183the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 184
185Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
186remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
187executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
188well build all the ones that will work on your system.
189
8e07c86e 190=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
191
4633a7c4 192Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
193dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
194Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
195automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
196are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
197how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 198
199I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
200directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
201include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
202Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
203normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
204include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
205Configure. See the examples below.
206
207=head2 Examples
208
209=over 4
210
aa689395 211=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e 212
213Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
214GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
215installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
216F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
217necessary steps out automatically.
218
219Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
220your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
221
222When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
223C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
224
225If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
226linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
227C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
228
229Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
230defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
231messages, then you can just run
232
233 sh Configure -des
234
235and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
236
237This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
238(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
239
240=item gdbm in /usr/you
241
242Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
243but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
244have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
245still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
246an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
247Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
248F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
249
250It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
251line):
252
253 sh Configure -des \
254 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
255 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
256
257C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
258Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
259
260C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
261Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
262you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
263F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
264
265 sh Configure -des \
266 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
267 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
268
269=back
270
aa689395 271=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 272
273The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
274appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
275installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
276
277By default, Configure uses the following directories for
278library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
279by Configure)
280
46bb10fb 281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 282 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
4633a7c4 285
286and the following directories for manual pages:
287
288 /usr/local/man/man1
289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
290
291(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
292/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
293instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
294they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
295and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
296systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
297page, rather than the B<less> program.
298
299If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 300directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
301-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 302
46bb10fb 303 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 304 /opt/perl/lib
305 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
306 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
307
308 /opt/perl/man/man1
309 /opt/perl/man/man3
310
311The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
312above.
313
314The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
315intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
316will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
317just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
318
46bb10fb 319In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
4633a7c4 320a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
321stored in a version-specific directory, such as
46bb10fb 322/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
a6006777 323files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
324not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
325the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
326can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
4633a7c4 327
328Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
329Configure.
330
aa689395 331=head2 Changing the installation directory
332
333Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
334associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
335will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
336sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
337However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
338packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
339use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
340This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
341an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
342
343Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
344You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
345point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
346also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
347automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
348F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
349directory of your choice):
350
351 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
352 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
353 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
354 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
356 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
358 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
359 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
360 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
361 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
362
363Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
364
365 sh Configure -des
366 make
367 make test
368 make install
369
370=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
371
372If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
373convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
374installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
375
376 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
377 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
378 sh Configure -des
379 make
380 make test
381 make install
382 cd /tmp/perl5
383 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
384 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
385 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
386 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
387
388=head2 Configure-time Options
389
390There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
391system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
392Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
393some of the main things you can change.
394
395=head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
396
397If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
398perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
399need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
400
401Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
402been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
403may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
404collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
405installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
406re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
407(The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
408automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
409-DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
410
411Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
412been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
413complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
414Perl for such a site, then when B<Configure> asks if you want binary
415compatibility, answer "y".
416
417On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
418and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
419answer "n" when B<Configure> asks if you want binary compatibility.
420
421The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
422appropriate for almost everyone.
423
46bb10fb 424=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
425
426Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
427<stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
428mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
429the default and is the only supported mechanism.
430
431This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
432line with
433
434 sh Configure -Duseperlio
435
436or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
437
438If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
439(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
440tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
441everywhere.
442
443=over 4
444
445=item 1.
446
447AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
aa689395 448cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb 449currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
450Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
451extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
452configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
453
454This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
455A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
456it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
457
458You select this option by
459
460 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
461
462If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
463that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
464Configure.
465
466=item 2.
467
468Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
469abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
470extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
471abstraction.
472
473This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
474
aa689395 475You select this option via:
46bb10fb 476
477 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
478
479If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
480detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
481
482=back
483
aa689395 484=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 485
486Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
487linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
488extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
489such as -lm.
490
9d67150a 491On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
492replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 493several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
494different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 495you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 496can share the same library.
497
498The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 499penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 500mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 501and upgrades.
502
503In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 504test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 505Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
506results.
507
508The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 509libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 510libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 511based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
512version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
513isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
514
515For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
516for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
517
518You can elect to build a shared libperl by
519
520 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
521
522To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 523LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 524this with
525
526 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
527
528for Bourne-style shells, or
529
530 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
531
532for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
533Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
534LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
535
9d67150a 536There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
537want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
538with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 539install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
540try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 541the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
542ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 543libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 544that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 545in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
546equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
547with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
9d67150a 548
549The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
550directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
551version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
552variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
553installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
554
aa689395 555=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 556
aa689395 557If you are using Perl's malloc, you may define one or more of the
558following macros to change its behavior in potentially useful ways.
c3edaffb 559
aa689395 560=over 4
561
562=item -DEMERGENCY_SBRK
563
564If this macro is defined, running out of memory need not be a fatal
565error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
566variable C<$^M>. See L<"$^M">.
567
568=item -DPACK_MALLOC
569
570Perl memory allocation is by bucket with sizes close to powers of two.
571Because of these malloc overhead may be big, especially for data of
572size exactly a power of two. If C<PACK_MALLOC> is defined, perl uses
573a slightly different algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes
574long), which makes it possible to have overhead down to 1 byte for
575allocations which are powers of two (and appear quite often).
576
577Expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in C<alignbytes>) is
578about 20% for typical Perl usage. Expected slowdown due to additional
579malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent (hard to measure, because
580of the effect of saved memory on speed).
581
582=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
583
584Similarly to C<PACK_MALLOC>, this macro improves allocations of data
585with size close to a power of two; but this works for big allocations
586(starting with 16K by default). Such allocations are typical for big
587hashes and special-purpose scripts, especially image processing.
588
589On recent systems, the fact that perl requires 2M from system for 1M
590allocation will not affect speed of execution, since the tail of such
591a chunk is not going to be touched (and thus will not require real
592memory). However, it may result in a premature out-of-memory error.
593So if you will be manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to
594powers of two, it would be wise to define this macro.
595
596Expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
597require most memory in such 2**n chunks); expected slowdown is
598negligible.
599
600=back
601
602=head2 Other Compiler Flags
603
604For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
605you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
606by adding appropriate B<-D> directives to your ccflags variable in
607config.sh.
608
609For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
610perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
611following:
612
613 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
614
615or by adding C<-Drand=random> and C<-Dsrandom=srandom> to your ccflags
616at the appropriate Configure prompt. (You may also have to adjust
617Configure's guess for 'randbits' as well.)
c3edaffb 618
8e07c86e 619=head2 What if it doesn't work?
620
621=over 4
622
25f94b33 623=item Running Configure Interactively
624
625If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
626Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
627guesses.
628
629All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 630have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
631flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 632will use the defaults from then on.
633
634If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
635config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
636instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
637
aa689395 638=item Hint files
8e07c86e 639
640The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
641in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
642will offer to use that hint file.
643
644Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
645If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
646file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
647extensive example.
648
edb1cbcb 649=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
650
651Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
6524.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
653standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
654will see a message:
655
656 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
657 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
658 Keep the recommended value? [y]
659
660You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
661relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
662overriding it.
663
664If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
665used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
666to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
667system.
668
669For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
670and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
671Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
672Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
673
674 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
675 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
676 Keep the previous value? [y]
677
678In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 679should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 680the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
681
8e07c86e 682=item Changing Compilers
683
684If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
685probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
686rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
687with the options you want to use.
688
689This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
690B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
691
c3edaffb 692=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 693
56c6f531 694If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
9d67150a 695them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
696then have to rebuild by running
697
698 make depend
699 make
8e07c86e 700
701=item config.over
702
703You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
704guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
705is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 706does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 707L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e 708
709=item config.h
710
711Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
712F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
713The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
714
715If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
716though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
717lost.
718
719=item cflags
720
721If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
722line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
723optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
724F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
725can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
726lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
727
728To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
729and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
25f94b33 730and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
8e07c86e 731
aa689395 732=item No sh
8e07c86e 733
734If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
735config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
736You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
737mechanism.
738
c3edaffb 739=item Porting information
740
aa689395 741Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports are in the
742corresponding subdirectories. Additional information, including
c3edaffb 743a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
744subdirectory.
745
7f678428 746Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1bb2ced4 747L<"http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
7f678428 748various other operating systems.
749
8e07c86e 750=back
751
752=head1 make depend
753
754This will look for all the includes.
755The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
756F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
757F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
758F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
c3edaffb 759F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
760a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
761if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 762
763Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
764explicitly above.
765
766=head1 make
767
768This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
769
770If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 771If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
772the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
773send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
774perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 775See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 776
777=over 4
778
779=item *
780
781If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
782for further tips and information.
783
784=item *
785
c3edaffb 786If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
787during the building of extensions, you should run
788
789 make minitest
790
791to test your version of miniperl.
792
e57fd563 793=item locale
794
795If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
796unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
797while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
798locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
799
c3edaffb 800=item *
801
aa689395 802If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
803or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 804
7f678428 805=item varargs
c3edaffb 806
807If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
808correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
809and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
810running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 811forget to propagate your changes (see
812L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
813See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 814
815=item *
816
817If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
818numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
819
820 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
821 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
822 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
823
824it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 825previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 826
9d67150a 827=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 828
829If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
830Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
831B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
832$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
833and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
834environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
835your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
836the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
837
9d67150a 838=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
839
840If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 841it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
842L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 843
c3edaffb 844=item *
845
846If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 847the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
848Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 849fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
850of your local set-up.
851
852=item dlopen: stub interception failed
853
854The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
855that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
856which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
857
aa689395 858The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 859actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
860failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
861"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
862functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
863
aa689395 864=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 865
866If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
867try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
868with
869
870 sh Configure -Uusenm
871
872or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
873If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
874config.sh.
875
7f678428 876=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 877
878If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
879problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
880version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
881(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
882d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
883
884 d_vprintf='define'
885
886If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
887on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
888re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
889
aa689395 890=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 891
9d67150a 892If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 893optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 894
895 optimize='-O'
896
897to something like
898
899 optimize=' '
900
901then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
902with B<make depend; make>.
903
904=item *
905
56c6f531 906If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
907flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
908This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
909indigestion easily.
9d67150a 910
911=item Missing functions
912
913If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
914other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
915there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
916likely suspects.
8e07c86e 917
918=item *
919
920Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
921some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
922internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
923F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
924F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
925specific rule.
926
7f678428 927=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 928
c3edaffb 929SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
930that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 931
7f678428 932=item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
933
934If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
935the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
936then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
937Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 938systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 939For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
940unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
941they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
942reassure you that the process is continuing.
943
944On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
945message
946
947 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
948
949then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
950the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
951extension without the -lgdbm library.
952
953It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
954this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
955quite that tightly coordinated.
956
aa689395 957=item sh: ar: not found
958
959This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
960was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
961make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
962is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the F</usr/ccs/bin>
963directory.
964
965=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
966
967Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
968with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
969bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
970
8e07c86e 971=item *
972
973Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
974
975Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
976
977NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
978
aa689395 979UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 980
981If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
982
983Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
984
8e07c86e 985=back
986
987=head1 make test
988
989This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
990doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
aa689395 991file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
992tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
c3edaffb 993
994If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
aa689395 995F<./TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 996bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 997
998 ./perl op/groups.t
999
aa689395 1000Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1001individual subtests is to B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
1002
1003 ./perl harness
1004
1005(this assumes that I<most> tests succeed, since F<harness> uses
1006complicated constructs).
1007
c3edaffb 1008You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1009comments that apply to your system.
1010
aa689395 1011B<Note>: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1012may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
c3edaffb 1013C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
aa689395 1014one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
56c6f531 1015LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1016are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1017
1018If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1019
1020 setenv LC_ALL C
1021
1022(for C shell) or
1023
1024 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1025
1026for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
e57fd563 1027test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1028is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1029shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
aa689395 1030things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
e57fd563 1031C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1032external program.
eed2e782 1033
8e07c86e 1034=head1 make install
1035
1036This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1037B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
1038to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1039pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 1040are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1041ignore any messages about chown not working.
1042
1043If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1044anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1045
8e07c86e 1046 ./perl installperl -n
1047 ./perl installman -n
1048
1049B<make install> will install the following:
1050
1051 perl,
1052 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1053 will be a link to perl.
1054 suidperl,
1055 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1056 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1057 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1058 read from stdin.
1059 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1060 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1061 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1062 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1063 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1064 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1065 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1066 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1067 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1068 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1069 pod2man, and
1070 pod2text
1071 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e 1072
1073 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1074 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1075 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1076 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1077 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1078 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1079 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1080
4633a7c4 1081Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1082$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1083 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1084 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
4633a7c4 1085where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1086will be used for installing extensions.
1087
56c6f531 1088Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1089under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1090optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1091program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1092
aa689395 1093=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1094
eed2e782 1095You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
56c6f531 1096under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
eed2e782 1097starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
56c6f531 1098#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
a6006777 1099If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
eed2e782 1100need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1101since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1102in incompatible ways.
4633a7c4 1103
1104The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
46bb10fb 1105directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.004>) so that
aa689395 1106they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
4633a7c4 1107put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1108directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1109you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1110files.
1111
1112The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
c3edaffb 1113should be usable by all versions of perl5.
4633a7c4 1114
d52d4e46 1115Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
4633a7c4 1116version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1117to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1118those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
aa689395 1119F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003>. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
1120files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
4633a7c4 1121newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1122
d52d4e46 1123Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1124separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1125using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1126
46bb10fb 1127 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1128
46bb10fb 1129and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1130may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1131scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1132
8e07c86e 1133=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1134
1135You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1136
1137By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1138they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1139
1140In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1141F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1142process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1143However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1144the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
edb1cbcb 1145(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1146for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1147
aa689395 1148=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1149
1150Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1151the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1152header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1153by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1154you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1155F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1156(such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1157building (for example, C<5.004>).
1158
1159B<Note:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1160conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1161to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1162correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1163certain structures.
1164
1165=head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
1166
1167Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1168available in HTML format. Type
1169
1170 cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
1171
1172where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
1173
1174=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1175
1176Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1177available in TeX format. Type
1178
1179 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1180
1181=head1 Reporting Problems
1182
1183If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1184file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1185manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1186message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1187perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1188
1189Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
1190that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1191B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution,
1192but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1193
1194You might also find helpful information in the F<Porting>
1195directory of the perl distribution.
1196
8e07c86e 1197=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1198
1199Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1200in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1201build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1202can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1203is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1204
34a2a22e 1205Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
1206along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1207and running (either):
1208
1209 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1210 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 1211
1212This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1213(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1214set-up.)
34a2a22e 1215
1216Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1217running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1218generate the documentation.
1219
8e07c86e 1220=head1 AUTHOR
1221
1222Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1223from the original README by Larry Wall.
1224
a5f75d66 1225=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1226
aa689395 122718 February 1997