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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)
3e3baf6d 17 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7beaa944 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 24
7beaa944 25For information on what's new in this release, see the
26pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 28
1ec51d55 29=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 33read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
34by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
35
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
37 C<code> literal code
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
39
40You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
41proceeding.
c3edaffb 42
eed2e782 43If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
46
203c3eec 47If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
50
693762b4 51=head1 NOTE: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
52
53For Perl 5.004 it was possible to be binary compatible with 5.003.
54Starting from Perl 5.004_50 this is no longer possible because there were
55many deep and far-reaching changes to the language internals.
56
57If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under perl
585.003 or 5.004 and the so-called 'bincompat3' mode (the default mode)
59and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.005, you may need to
60reinstall the extensions. If you wish to continue to support both 5.004
61and 5.005 on your system, you will have to move the 5.004 extensions
62over to the 5.004 architecture-dependent library. See the discussion
63below on L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.">
64
65The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
66
67In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
68changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
69pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
70
aa689395 71=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 72
1ec51d55 73The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space. The
74complete tree after completing make takes roughly 15 MB, though the
75actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
76directories need something on the order of 7 MB, though again that
77value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 78
aa689395 79=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 80
edb1cbcb 81If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
82with the command
83
84 make realclean
c3edaffb 85
8e07c86e 86The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
87you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
88systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
1ec51d55 89experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably not
8e07c86e 90re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
91
92 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 93
e57fd563 94If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
95version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
96the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
97includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
98name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
99Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
100probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
101Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
102numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
103
104Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
1ec51d55 105(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
106pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
e57fd563 107
108In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
109Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 110
aa689395 111=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 112
113Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
1ec51d55 115you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
203c3eec 116is almost always ok. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
117and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 118
119After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 120*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 121
fb73857a 122Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
123get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
124Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
125
126To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
8e07c86e 127
128 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
129
130This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
131compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
132
4633a7c4 133If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
134with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
135
8e07c86e 136By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
137/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
138the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
139using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
140e.g.
141
25f94b33 142 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 143
144If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
145are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
146then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 147/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 148
84902520 149NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
150your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
151infinite recursion.
152
aa689395 153By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 154your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531 155statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
156you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 157
203c3eec 158If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
159output, you can run
160
161 sh Configure -des
162
163For my Solaris system, I usually use
164
165 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
166
46bb10fb 167=head2 GNU-style configure
168
1ec51d55 169If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
170use the supplied configure command, e.g.
46bb10fb 171
693762b4 172 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 173
1ec51d55 174The configure script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 175options. Try
176
693762b4 177 ./configure.gnu --help
46bb10fb 178
179for a listing.
180
aa689395 181Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb 182
693762b4 183(The file is called configugre.gnu to avoid problems on systems
184that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 185
24b3df7f 186=head2 Extensions
187
edb1cbcb 188By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
189to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
190only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
693762b4 191B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
192Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
193is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
194set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
195the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
196built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 197useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 198
1ec51d55 199You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
200documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
201ext/ subdirectory.
202
56c6f531 203Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
204DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
205version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
206
24b3df7f 207In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
208to turn off each extension:
209
693762b4 210 B (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 211 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 212 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 213 Fcntl (Always included by default)
214 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 215 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 216 NDBM_File i_ndbm
217 ODBM_File i_dbm
218 POSIX useposix
219 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 220 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 221 Socket d_socket
693762b4 222 Threads usethreads
223 attrs (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 224
225Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
226
227 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
228
229Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
230library.
231
232Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 233the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 234
693762b4 235Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
236DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
237this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
1ec51d55 238
24b3df7f 239Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
240remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
241executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
242well build all the ones that will work on your system.
243
8e07c86e 244=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
245
4633a7c4 246Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
247dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
248Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
249automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1ec51d55 250are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
4633a7c4 251how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 252
1ec51d55 253Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
8e07c86e 254directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
1ec51d55 255include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 256Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
257normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
1ec51d55 258include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 259Configure. See the examples below.
260
261=head2 Examples
262
263=over 4
264
aa689395 265=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e 266
267Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1ec51d55 268GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
269installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
270/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
8e07c86e 271necessary steps out automatically.
272
273Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1ec51d55 274your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
8e07c86e 275
276When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1ec51d55 277-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 278
279If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
280linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1ec51d55 281-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 282
283Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
284defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
285messages, then you can just run
286
287 sh Configure -des
288
289and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
290
291This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
292(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
293
294=item gdbm in /usr/you
295
296Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
297but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1ec51d55 298have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
299still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
300an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
8e07c86e 301Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1ec51d55 302/usr/you/lib to the list.
8e07c86e 303
304It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
305line):
306
307 sh Configure -des \
308 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
309 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
310
1ec51d55 311locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
312Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
8e07c86e 313
1ec51d55 314loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
315Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
316you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
317/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
8e07c86e 318
319 sh Configure -des \
320 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
321 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
322
323=back
324
aa689395 325=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 326
327The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
328appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
329installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
330
7beaa944 331I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
332everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
333process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
334will use the defaults from then on.
1ec51d55 335
4633a7c4 336By default, Configure uses the following directories for
337library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
338by Configure)
339
46bb10fb 340 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 341 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 342 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
343 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
4633a7c4 344
345and the following directories for manual pages:
346
347 /usr/local/man/man1
348 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
349
350(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
351/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
fb73857a 352instead.)
353
354The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
4633a7c4 355they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
356and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
357systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
fb73857a 358page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
359change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
1ec51d55 360
361Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
362/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
363
364 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
365
366Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
367
368 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
4633a7c4 369
370If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 371directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
372-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 373
46bb10fb 374 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 375 /opt/perl/lib
376 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
377 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
378
379 /opt/perl/man/man1
380 /opt/perl/man/man3
381
382The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
383above.
384
385The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
386intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
693762b4 387will automatically look in these directories.
4633a7c4 388
46bb10fb 389In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
4633a7c4 390a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
391stored in a version-specific directory, such as
693762b4 392/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/.
4633a7c4 393
394Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
395Configure.
396
aa689395 397=head2 Changing the installation directory
398
399Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
400associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
401will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
402sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 403However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
aa689395 404packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
405use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
406This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
407an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
408
0dcb58f4 409Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
410can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
411/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
412process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
413run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
aa689395 414
415 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
416 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
417 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
418 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
419 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
420 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
421 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
422 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
423 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
424 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
425 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
426
427Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
428
429 sh Configure -des
430 make
431 make test
432 make install
433
693762b4 434Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
435extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
436follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
437that problem.
438
aa689395 439=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
440
441If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
442convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
443installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
444
445 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
446 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
447 sh Configure -des
448 make
449 make test
450 make install
451 cd /tmp/perl5
fb73857a 452 # Edit lib/<archname>/<version>/Config.pm to change all the
453 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
454 # really be installed.
aa689395 455 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
456 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
457 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
458 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
459
693762b4 460=head2 Site-wide "Policy" settings
461
462After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
463answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
464person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
465system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
466to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
467hint file for your system.
468
aa689395 469=head2 Configure-time Options
470
471There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
472system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
473Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
474some of the main things you can change.
475
693762b4 476=head2 Threads
aa689395 477
693762b4 478On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
479enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
f7542a9d 480
693762b4 481 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 482
693762b4 483Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
484line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
485
486The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 487
46bb10fb 488=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
489
490Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 491stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
46bb10fb 492mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
493the default and is the only supported mechanism.
494
495This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
496line with
497
498 sh Configure -Duseperlio
499
500or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
501
502If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
503(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
504tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
505everywhere.
506
507=over 4
508
509=item 1.
510
1ec51d55 511AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 512cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb 513currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
514Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
515extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
516configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
517
518This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
519A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
520it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
521
522You select this option by
523
524 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
525
526If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
527that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
528Configure.
529
1ec51d55 530Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
531to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
33e6ee5f 532Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
533and SunOS 4.
534
535You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
536script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
537portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
538
539 #!/bin/sh
540 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
541 #include <stdio.h>
542 main() { printf("42\n"); }
543 EOCP
544 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
545 val=`./try`
546 if test X$val = X42; then
547 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
548 else
549 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
550 fi
551
552If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
553and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
554your platform.)
555
556There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
557problem.
558
46bb10fb 559=item 2.
560
561Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
562abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
563extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
564abstraction.
565
566This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
567
aa689395 568You select this option via:
46bb10fb 569
570 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
571
572If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
573detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
574
575=back
576
aa689395 577=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 578
579Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
580linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
581extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
582such as -lm.
583
9d67150a 584On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
585replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 586several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
587different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 588you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 589can share the same library.
590
591The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 592penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 593mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 594and upgrades.
595
596In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 597test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 598Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
599results.
600
601The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 602libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 603libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 604based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
605version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
606isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
607
608For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
609for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
610
611You can elect to build a shared libperl by
612
613 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
614
615To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 616LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 617this with
618
619 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
620
621for Bourne-style shells, or
622
623 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
624
625for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
626Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
627LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
628
9d67150a 629There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
630want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
631with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 632install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
633try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 634the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
635ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 636libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 637that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 638in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
639equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 640with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 641override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 642to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 643
644The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
645directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 646version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
9d67150a 647variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
648installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
649
55479bb6 650=head2 Malloc Issues
651
652Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
653perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
654the malloc function on your system.
655
656The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
657but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
693762b4 658malloc() function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
55479bb6 659
660For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
661the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
662with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
663(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
664if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
665third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
666your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
667malloc flags discussed below.)
668
669To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
670
671 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
672
673or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
674
aa689395 675=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 676
55479bb6 677If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
1ec51d55 678more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
55479bb6 679to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
1ec51d55 680more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
55479bb6 681In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
c3edaffb 682
aa689395 683=over 4
684
84902520 685=item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
2ae324a7 686
84902520 687If PERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
2ae324a7 688fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
1ec51d55 689variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
aa689395 690
691=item -DPACK_MALLOC
692
1ec51d55 693If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 694algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
695allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
aa689395 696
1ec51d55 697The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
55479bb6 698about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
699additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
700to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
aa689395 701
702=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
703
1ec51d55 704If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 705algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
706(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
707special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
708manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
709might be wise to define this macro.
aa689395 710
55479bb6 711The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
712require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
aa689395 713negligible.
714
715=back
716
3bf462b8 717=head2 Building a debugging perl
718
719You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 720B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8 721you probably want to do
722
723 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
724
203c3eec 725This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
726to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
727executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
728cc -g2. Check you man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
729system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
1ec51d55 730config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
203c3eec 731state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
1ec51d55 732default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
733reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
3fe9a6f1 734optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
203c3eec 735as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
736
737You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
738it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 739
740If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
741versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
742
aa689395 743=head2 Other Compiler Flags
744
745For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
746you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
1ec51d55 747by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
aa689395 748config.sh.
749
750For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
751perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
752following:
753
754 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
755
203c3eec 756or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
757at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
758me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
759different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
760
761You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
762doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
763shouldn't do that, but some might.)
c3edaffb 764
8e07c86e 765=head2 What if it doesn't work?
766
767=over 4
768
25f94b33 769=item Running Configure Interactively
770
771If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
772Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
773guesses.
774
775All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 776have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 777flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 778will use the defaults from then on.
779
780If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
781config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
782instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
783
aa689395 784=item Hint files
8e07c86e 785
786The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
787in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
788will offer to use that hint file.
789
790Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
791If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
1ec51d55 792file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
8e07c86e 793extensive example.
794
edb1cbcb 795=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
796
797Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
7984.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
799standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
800will see a message:
801
802 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
803 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
804 Keep the recommended value? [y]
805
806You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
807relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
808overriding it.
809
810If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
811used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
812to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
813system.
814
815For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
816and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
817Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
818Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
819
820 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
821 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
822 Keep the previous value? [y]
823
1ec51d55 824In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 825should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 826the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
827
8e07c86e 828=item Changing Compilers
829
830If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 831probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 832rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
833with the options you want to use.
834
1ec51d55 835This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
836gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 837
c3edaffb 838=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 839
1ec51d55 840If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
841them to all the .SH files by running
842
843 sh Configure -S
844
845You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 846
847 make depend
848 make
8e07c86e 849
850=item config.over
851
852You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
853guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
854is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 855does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 856L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e 857
858=item config.h
859
1ec51d55 860Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
861Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
862The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 863
1ec51d55 864If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
865though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 866lost.
867
868=item cflags
869
870If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 871line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
872optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
873toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
874can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
875lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 876
1ec51d55 877To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
878and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
879and then re-run
880
881 sh Configure -S
882 make depend
8e07c86e 883
aa689395 884=item No sh
8e07c86e 885
dfe9444c 886If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
887to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
8e07c86e 888You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
889mechanism.
890
c3edaffb 891=item Porting information
892
2ae324a7 893Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 894corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
895including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c3edaffb 896subdirectory.
897
7f678428 898Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 899http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 900various other operating systems.
901
8e07c86e 902=back
903
904=head1 make depend
905
906This will look for all the includes.
1ec51d55 907The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
908Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
909makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
910makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
911makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
c3edaffb 912a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
913if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 914
915Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
916explicitly above.
917
918=head1 make
919
920This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
921
922If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 923If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
924the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
925send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
926perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 927See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 928
929=over 4
930
1ec51d55 931=item hints
8e07c86e 932
933If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
934for further tips and information.
935
1ec51d55 936=item extensions
8e07c86e 937
1ec51d55 938If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 939during the building of extensions, you should run
940
941 make minitest
942
943to test your version of miniperl.
944
e57fd563 945=item locale
946
947If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
948unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
949while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
3e6e419a 950locale. See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales
951and the whole L<Locale problems> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
952The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
953
954 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
955 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
956 LC_ALL = "En_US",
957 LANG = (unset)
958 are supported and installed on your system.
959 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
960
961at Perl startup.
e57fd563 962
1ec51d55 963=item malloc duplicates
c3edaffb 964
aa689395 965If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
966or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 967
7f678428 968=item varargs
c3edaffb 969
970If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
971correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
972and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
973running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 974forget to propagate your changes (see
975L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
976See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 977
1ec51d55 978=item croak
c3edaffb 979
980If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
981numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
982
983 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
984 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
985 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
986
987it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 988previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 989
9d67150a 990=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 991
992If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
993Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 994-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 995$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
6877a1cf 996and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
997Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 998environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 999your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1000the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1001
7beaa944 1002One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1003invoke Configure with
1004
1005 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1006
1007for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1008instead.
1009
84902520 1010Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1011include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1012config.sh.
1013
9d67150a 1014=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1015
1016If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1017it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1018L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1019
1ec51d55 1020=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1021
1022If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1023the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1024Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1025fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1026of your local set-up.
1027
1028=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1029
1030The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1031that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1032which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1033
aa689395 1034The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1035actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1036failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1037"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1038functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1039
aa689395 1040=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1041
1042If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1043try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1044with
1045
1046 sh Configure -Uusenm
1047
1048or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1049If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1050config.sh.
1051
7f678428 1052=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1053
1054If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1055problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1056version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1057(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1058d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1059
1060 d_vprintf='define'
1061
1062If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1063on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
1064re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
1065
3fe9a6f1 1066=item do_aspawn
1067
1068If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1069problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1070fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
1071on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
1072
84902520 1073=item __inet_* errors
1074
1075If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1076referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1077installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1078these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1079in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1080newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1081updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1082/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1083avoid the problem.
1084
aa689395 1085=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1086
9d67150a 1087If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1088optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1089
1090 optimize='-O'
1091
1092to something like
1093
1094 optimize=' '
1095
1096then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1097with B<make depend; make>.
1098
1ec51d55 1099=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1100
1ec51d55 1101If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
56c6f531 1102flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1103This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1104indigestion easily.
9d67150a 1105
1106=item Missing functions
1107
1108If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1109other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1110there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1111likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1112
1ec51d55 1113=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1114
1ec51d55 1115Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1116toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1117allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1118each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1119makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1120specific rule.
1121
7f678428 1122=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1123
c3edaffb 1124SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1125that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1126
f3d9a6ba 1127=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1128
1129If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1130the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1131then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1132Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1133systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1134For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1135unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1136they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1137reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1138process is continuing.
7f678428 1139
1140On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1141message
1142
f3d9a6ba 1143 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1144
1145then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1146the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1147extension without the -lgdbm library.
1148
1149It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1150this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1151quite that tightly coordinated.
1152
aa689395 1153=item sh: ar: not found
1154
1155This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1156was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1157make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1158is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1159directory.
1160
1161=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1162
1163Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1164with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1165bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1166
1ec51d55 1167=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1168
1169Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1170
1171Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1172
1173NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1174
1ec51d55 1175UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1176
1177If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1178
1179Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1180
8e07c86e 1181=back
1182
1183=head1 make test
1184
84902520 1185This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1186should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1187complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1188then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1189
84902520 1190Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1191opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1192a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1193
1ec51d55 1194If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1195by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1196bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1197
1198 ./perl op/groups.t
1199
aa689395 1200Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1201individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1202
1203 ./perl harness
1204
fb73857a 1205(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1206complicated constructs).
1207
fb73857a 1208You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1209comments that apply to your system.
1210
1ec51d55 1211Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1212may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1213B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1214one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1215LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1216are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1217
1218If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1219
1220 setenv LC_ALL C
1221
1222(for C shell) or
1223
1224 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1225
1ec51d55 1226for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1227make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1228is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1229shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 1230things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1231open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1232external program.
eed2e782 1233
8e07c86e 1234=head1 make install
1235
1236This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1237Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1238to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1239pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 1240are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1241ignore any messages about chown not working.
1242
1243If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1244anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1245
8e07c86e 1246 ./perl installperl -n
1247 ./perl installman -n
1248
1ec51d55 1249make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 1250
1251 perl,
1252 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1253 will be a link to perl.
1254 suidperl,
1255 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1256 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1257 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1258 read from stdin.
1259 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1260 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1261 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1262 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1263 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1264 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1265 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1266 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1267 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1268 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1269 pod2man, and
1270 pod2text
1271 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e 1272
1273 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1274 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1275 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1276 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1277 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1278 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1279 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1280
4633a7c4 1281Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1282$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
4633a7c4 1285where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1286will be used for installing extensions.
1287
56c6f531 1288Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1289under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1290optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1291program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1292
aa689395 1293=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1294
693762b4 1295WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1296tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1297
1298In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
12995.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1300all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1301around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1302For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1303with 5.004_04, simplly replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1304top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1305#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1306
1307(If you are upgrading from 5.002 or earlier, beware that some of the
1308standard library files have changed in incompatible ways, so you are
1309probably better off starting with a fresh installation.)
1310
1311The standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should be usable by
1312all versions of perl5 after 5.002. An exception is the diagnostics.pm
1313module. Since that module uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod
1314documentation file, the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script
1315will only identify and explain any warnings or errors that the most
1316recently-installed version of perl can generate. Usually, this is not
1317a problem.
1318
1319Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1320with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1321(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1322
1323The directories searched by version 5.004_05 will be
1324
1325 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00405
1326 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1327 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1328 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1329
1330while the directories searched by version 5.004_04 are
1331
1332 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1333 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1334 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1335 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1336
1337When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into
1338/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname (if it is architecture-specific.)
1339This directory is deliberately NOT version-specific so that both 5.004_04
1340and 5.004_05 can use the extension.
1341
1342However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to
1343use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
4633a7c4 1344those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
693762b4 1345/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404. Then use your newer version of
1346perl to rebuild and re-install the extension into site_perl. This way,
1347Perl 5.004_04 will find your files in the 5.00404 directory, and
1348newer versions of perl will find your newer extension in the site_perl
1349directory.
1350
1351=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1352
1ec51d55 1353Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d52d4e46 1354separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1355using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1356
46bb10fb 1357 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1358
46bb10fb 1359and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1360may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1361scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1362
693762b4 1363Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1364(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1365each major version.
1366
6877a1cf 1367If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1368seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1369subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1370yet.
1371
693762b4 1372=head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1373
1374Extensions compiled with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50 will need
1375to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later.
1376
1377If you wish to continue using those extensions under 5.004_04, for
1378example, then you need to move those extensions from their current
1379direcotries, which are something like
1380
1381 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1382 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1383
1384to the version-specific directory such as
1385
1386 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1387
1388as described above.
1389
1390Once you have moved the 5.00404 versions of the extensions out of the
1391way, you may recompile and reinstall with 5.005.
1392
8e07c86e 1393=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1394
1395You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1396
1ec51d55 1397By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1398they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 1399
1400In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1401perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 1402process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1403However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1ec51d55 1404the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
edb1cbcb 1405(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1406for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1407
aa689395 1408=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1409
1410Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1411the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1412header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
aa689395 1413by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1ec51d55 1414you specified to Configure; by default this is
1415/usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
1416(such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
1417building (for example, 5.004).
aa689395 1418
1ec51d55 1419Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
aa689395 1420conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1421to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1422correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1423certain structures.
1424
fb73857a 1425=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1426
3e3baf6d 1427Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1428format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1429documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1430
fb73857a 1431The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1432perl documentation:
aa689395 1433
3e3baf6d 1434 ./installhtml \
1435 --podroot=. \
1436 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1437 --recurse \
1438 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1439 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1440 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1441 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1442 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1443 --verbose
1444
1445See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1446many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1447see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1448resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1449(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1450
fb73857a 1451You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1452the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1453
aa689395 1454=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1455
1456Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1457available in TeX format. Type
1458
1459 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1460
1461=head1 Reporting Problems
1462
1463If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1464file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1465manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1466message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1467perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1468
1ec51d55 1469Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
aa689395 1470that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1ec51d55 1471perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
aa689395 1472but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1473
1ec51d55 1474You might also find helpful information in the Porting
aa689395 1475directory of the perl distribution.
1476
8e07c86e 1477=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1478
1479Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1480in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1481build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1ec51d55 1482can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
8e07c86e 1483is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1484
1ec51d55 1485Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1486along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
34a2a22e 1487and running (either):
1488
1489 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1490 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 1491
1492This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1493(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1494set-up.)
34a2a22e 1495
1496Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1497running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1498generate the documentation.
1499
8e07c86e 1500=head1 AUTHOR
1501
fb73857a 1502Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu ,
1503borrowing very heavily from the original README by Larry Wall,
1504with lots of helpful feedback and additions from the
1505perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1506
1507If you have problems or questions, please see L<"Reporting Problems">
1508above.
8e07c86e 1509
a5f75d66 1510=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1511
693762b4 1512$Id: INSTALL,v 1.31 1998/03/03 18:08:52 doughera Released $