Quoted-printable is evil.
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
8e07c86e 1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
3ce0d271 7First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
16dc217a 9<URL:http://www.cpan.org/src/>.
3ce0d271 10
c42e3e15 11The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12with all the defaults are:
8e07c86e 13
dc45a647 14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 15 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e 16 make
17 make test
18 make install
36477c24 19
aa689395 20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 22 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 24
25Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26
cc65bb49 27B<NOTE>: starting from the release 5.6.0, Perl uses a version
fe23a901 28scheme where even-numbered subreleases (like 5.6 and 5.8) are stable
b88cc0eb 29maintenance releases and odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7) are
30unstable development releases. Development releases should not be
31used in production environments. Fixes and new features are first
32carefully tested in development releases and only if they prove
33themselves to be worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance
34releases.
35
cc65bb49 36The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
37platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
38If that's not okay with you, use
491517e0 39
40 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
41 sh Configure
42 make
43 make test
44 make install
45
adbebc0b 46For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on L<"Porting
47information"> below.
48
49If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
cc65bb49 50similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
51and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
adbebc0b 52by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
7f678428 53
8d74ce1c 54If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
55L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
56
7beaa944 57For information on what's new in this release, see the
58pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
59changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 60
1ec51d55 61=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 62
c3edaffb 63This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
64structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 65read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
66by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
67
68 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
69 C<code> literal code
70 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
71
c42e3e15 72Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
73you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
1ec51d55 74proceeding.
c3edaffb 75
eed2e782 76If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
77the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
c35d5681 78provide additional or different instructions for building Perl. There
79are also README files for several flavors of Unix systems, such as
80Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX; if you have one of those systems, you should
81also read the README file specific to that system.
eed2e782 82
203c3eec 83If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
84should also read that hint file for specific information for your
2ab493b8 85system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or the svr5.sh hint file.)
cc65bb49 86Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
203c3eec 87
c42e3e15 88=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
89
905.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
64fa5b0b 91global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build rather old
92extensions that have not been updated for the current naming convention
c42e3e15 93with:
94
95 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
d56c5707 96
c42e3e15 97Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
98building perl itself with:
99
100 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
101
5cda700b 102pod/perl56delta.pod contains more details about this.
c42e3e15 103
64fa5b0b 104=head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
105Perl prior to 5.8.0.
1b1c1ae2 106
cc65bb49 107If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b 108using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
109those extensions.
1b1c1ae2 110
111Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
112without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
113L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 114L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
693762b4 115
116The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
117
1b1c1ae2 118On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
693762b4 119changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
5cda700b 120pod/perldelta.pod (and the earlier pod/perl5Xdelta.pod) for a description of
c42e3e15 121what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
d6baa268 122file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
123Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
124currently installed modules.
693762b4 125
5effff0b 126=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
127
16dc217a 128Most C compilers are now ANSI-compliant. However, a few current
129computers are delivered with an older C compiler expressly for
130rebuilding the system kernel, or for some other historical reason.
131Alternatively, you may have an old machine which was shipped before
132ANSI compliance became widespread. Such compilers are not suitable
133for building Perl.
134
135If you find that your default C compiler is not ANSI-capable, but you
136know that an ANSI-capable compiler is installed on your system, you
137can tell F<Configure> to use the correct compiler by means of the
138C<-Dcc=> command-line option -- see L<"gcc">.
139
cc65bb49 140If do not have an ANSI-capable compiler there are a couple of avenues
141open to you:
16dc217a 142
143=over 4
144
145=item *
146
147You may try obtaining GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide,
148listed at <URL:http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html>. If, rather than
149building gcc from source code, you locate a binary version configured
150for your platform, be sure that it is compiled for the version of the
151operating system that you are using.
152
153=item *
154
155You may purchase a commercial ANSI C compiler from your system
156supplier or elsewhere. (Or your organization may already have
157licensed such software -- ask your colleagues to find out how to
158access it.) If there is a README file for your system in the Perl
159distribution (for example, F<README.hpux>), it may contain advice on
160suitable compilers.
161
16dc217a 162=back
163
df41b452 164Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
165does not work with some C++ compilers.
166
aa689395 167=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 168
8756f06c 169The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 50 MB of disk space.
170After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 171total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
8756f06c 172directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 173value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 174
aa689395 175=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 176
edb1cbcb 177If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
178with the command
179
dc45a647 180 make distclean
181
182or
183
edb1cbcb 184 make realclean
c3edaffb 185
dc45a647 186The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
187your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
188
189The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
190files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
191change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
192you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 193not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 194
d6baa268 195 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 196
e57fd563 197If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
198version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
199the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
200includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
201name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
202Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
5cda700b 203probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't.
e57fd563 204Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
205numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
206
d6baa268 207Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
208Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
209it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
210might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
211compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
212the architecture name.
e57fd563 213
214In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
215Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 216
d6baa268 217If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
218installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
219using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
220settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
221also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
222
223 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 224
aa689395 225=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 226
227Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
228things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268 229you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
230almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
231since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
232the same function.
233
234At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
235defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 236
237After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 238*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 239
1b1c1ae2 240=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
241
242For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
cc65bb49 243also has several convenient options which are described below.
1b1c1ae2 244However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
245you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
246run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
247a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
248
249 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
250
251For more help on Configure switches, run:
252
253 sh Configure -h
254
844fc9f4 255=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
256
257Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
258where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
259read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
cc65bb49 260architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
261links) by
5cda700b 262
844fc9f4 263 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
264 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
265 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
266
267This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
268pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
269unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
270
271 make all test
272
273and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
274
d6baa268 275=head2 Common Configure options
276
fb73857a 277Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
278get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
279Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
280
d6baa268 281=over 4
282
283=item gcc
284
285To compile with gcc you should run
8e07c86e 286
287 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
288
289This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
290compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
291
d6baa268 292=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 293
8e07c86e 294By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 295/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
296and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
297further details.)
298
299You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
300directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
301line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 302
25f94b33 303 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 304
d6baa268 305If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
306directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
307prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
308/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec 309for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
310or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 311
8d74ce1c 312NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
313as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
314attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 315
d6baa268 316=item /usr/bin/perl
317
318It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
319find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 320/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 321careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec 322vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
323on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
324configured may be found with
325
326 perl -V:config_args
327
328(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
329spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look
330carefully at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 331
7d56c962 332By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to
333the current version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 334
7d56c962 335 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 336
7d56c962 337or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
338(Note that before perl 5.8.1, the default behavior was to create
339or overwrite /usr/bin/perl even if it already existed.)
d6baa268 340
341In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
dd64f1c3 342put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 343into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
344obvious and convenient place.
345
d6baa268 346=item Overriding an old config.sh
04d420f9 347
d6baa268 348If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
349with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
350
351=back
8e07c86e 352
203c3eec 353If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
354output, you can run
355
356 sh Configure -des
357
cc65bb49 358Note: for development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9, as opposed
fe23a901 359to maintenance releases which have even subreleases, like 5.6 and 5.8)
b88cc0eb 360if you want to use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel
361to Configure, because the default answer to the question "do you really
362want to Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel
363skips that sanity check.
364
365For example for my Solaris system, I usually use
203c3eec 366
367 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
368
46bb10fb 369=head2 GNU-style configure
370
1ec51d55 371If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 372use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 373
693762b4 374 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 375
dc45a647 376The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 377options. Try
378
693762b4 379 ./configure.gnu --help
46bb10fb 380
381for a listing.
382
dc45a647 383(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 384that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 385
cc65bb49 386See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
387
aa689395 388=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 389
390The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
391appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
392installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
cc65bb49 393Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
4633a7c4 394
7beaa944 395I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
396everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
d6baa268 397process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
cc65bb49 398the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
399
400 grep '^install' config.sh
401
402after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
d6baa268 403
404The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
405people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
406distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
407need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
408you can safely skip the next section.
409
410The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
411
412=over 4
413
414=item Directories for the perl distribution
415
fe23a901 416By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.8.0.
d6baa268 417$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
fe23a901 4185.8.0 or 5.8.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
d6baa268 419determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
420variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
421
422 Configure variable Default value
423 $prefix /usr/local
424 $bin $prefix/bin
425 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
426 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
427 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
428 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
429 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
430 $html1dir (none)
431 $html3dir (none)
432
433Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
434/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
435instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
436directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
437the common style is shown here.
438
439=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
440
441After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
442CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
c42e3e15 443be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
d6baa268 444
445 Configure variable Default value
446 $siteprefix $prefix
447 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
49c10eea 448 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
273cf8d1 449 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
450 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
66e2fe92 451 $siteman1dir $siteprefix/man/man1
452 $siteman3dir $siteprefix/man/man3
453 $sitehtml1dir (none)
454 $sitehtml3dir (none)
d6baa268 455
456By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
273cf8d1 457modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
d6baa268 458
459=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
460
461Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
462distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
463for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
464
465 Configure variable Default value
466 $vendorprefix (none)
467 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
468 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
49c10eea 469 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
273cf8d1 470 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
471 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
66e2fe92 472 $vendorman1dir $vendorprefix/man/man1
473 $vendorman3dir $vendorprefix/man/man3
474 $vendorhtml1dir (none)
475 $vendorhtml3dir (none)
d6baa268 476
477These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
478a vendor might choose the following settings:
479
345c69e9 480 $prefix /usr
481 $siteprefix /usr/local
482 $vendorprefix /usr
d6baa268 483
484This would have the effect of setting the following:
485
486 $bin /usr/bin
487 $scriptdir /usr/bin
488 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
489 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
490 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
491 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
492
493 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
49c10eea 494 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
273cf8d1 495 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
496 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
66e2fe92 497 $siteman1dir /usr/local/man/man1
498 $siteman3dir /usr/local/man/man3
d6baa268 499
49c10eea 500 $vendorbin /usr/bin
501 $vendorscript /usr/bin
273cf8d1 502 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
503 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
66e2fe92 504 $vendorman1dir /usr/man/man1
505 $vendorman3dir /usr/man/man3
d6baa268 506
507Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
508/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
273cf8d1 509the /usr/local hierarchy.
510
511The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
512version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
513However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
514installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
515See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
516on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
d6baa268 517
518Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
519example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
520are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
521site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
522network. One way to do that would be something like
523
524 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
525
526=item otherlibdirs
527
528As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
529variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
3b777bb4 530directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
531Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
532version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
d6baa268 533
fe23a901 534For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
535installation, perhaps in a strange place:
536
537 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
538
a61357a9 539=item APPLLIB_EXP
540
541There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
542that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
543separated list of directories, like this
544
545 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
546
547The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
548ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
549modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
550touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
551version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
552present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
553directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
554run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
555
d6baa268 556=item Man Pages
1ec51d55 557
d6baa268 558In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
559pages in a version-specific directory, such as
560/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
561after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
562without resetting MANPATH.
4633a7c4 563
d6baa268 564You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
4633a7c4 565
fe23a901 566 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/man/man3
8d74ce1c 567
d6baa268 568Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
569
570 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
571
572Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
573Configure.
574
575=item HTML pages
576
cc65bb49 577Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
578HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
579add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
580variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
581documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
582eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
8d74ce1c 583
d6baa268 584=back
8d74ce1c 585
3a6175e1 586Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
587to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
588architectures.
4633a7c4 589
8d74ce1c 590Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
591directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
592filesystem.
593
594Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
595development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
596discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
597
598If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
d6baa268 599library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
600suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
8d74ce1c 601
d6baa268 602Thus, for example, if you Configure with
fe23a901 603-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.8.0 are
3a6175e1 604
d6baa268 605 Configure variable Default value
fe23a901 606 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.8.0
607 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.8.0/$archname
608 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.0
609 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
4633a7c4 610
aa689395 611=head2 Changing the installation directory
612
613Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
614associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
615will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
616sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 617However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
d6baa268 618packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
619wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
620management software to move perl to its final destination. This
621section describes how to do that.
aa689395 622
0dcb58f4 623Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
d6baa268 624could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
625/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
626following command line:
627
628 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
629
630(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
aa689395 631
693762b4 632Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
d6baa268 633modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
693762b4 634follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
635that problem.
636
aa689395 637=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
638
639If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
640convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
d6c1b5d3 641installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
642create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
643Here's one way to do that:
aa689395 644
d6baa268 645 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
aa689395 646 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
d6baa268 647 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
aa689395 648 make
649 make test
d6c1b5d3 650 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
aa689395 651 cd /tmp/perl5
d6c1b5d3 652 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
fb73857a 653 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
d6c1b5d3 654 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
655 # everywhere in those files.)
656 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
bfb7748a 657 # #!/wherever/perl line.
aa689395 658 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
659 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
d6c1b5d3 660 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
aa689395 661 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
662
5c8863fa 663Alternatively, the DESTDIR variable is honored during C<make install>.
664The DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths
665(and there is no need to edit anything). With DESTDIR, the above
666example can we written as:
5a9231b0 667
668 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
669 make
670 make test
671 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
672 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
673 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
674
dc45a647 675=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
693762b4 676
677After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
678answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
679person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
680system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
681to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
682hint file for your system.
683
dc45a647 684Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
685answers, you should
686
687 rm -f Policy.sh
688
689to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
690
691Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
692
8d74ce1c 693If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
694to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
695platform-specific hints files.
696
aa689395 697=head2 Configure-time Options
698
699There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
700system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
701Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
702some of the main things you can change.
703
693762b4 704=head2 Threads
aa689395 705
cc65bb49 706On some platforms, perl can be compiled with
707support for threads. To enable this, run
f7542a9d 708
693762b4 709 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 710
693762b4 711Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
712line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
713
714The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 715
6d5328bc 716Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
717model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module
718since 5.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads),
719with one interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data.
aaacdc8b 720
6d5328bc 721The 5.005 version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and
722unmaintained.
723
724By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
aaacdc8b 725
cc65bb49 726(You need to also use the PerlIO layer, explained later, if you decide
b29b105d 727to use ithreads, to guarantee the good interworking of threads and I/O.)
728
cc65bb49 729However, if you wish, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
aaacdc8b 730
6d5328bc 731 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
732
733If you decide to use ithreads, the 'threads' module allows their use,
734and the 'Thread' module offers an interface to both 5005threads and
735ithreads (whichever has been configured).
aaacdc8b 736
af685957 737When building threaded for certain library calls like the getgr*() and
738the getpw*() there is a dynamically sized result buffer: the buffer
739starts small but Perl will keep growing the buffer until the result fits.
740To get a fixed upper limit you will have to recompile Perl with
741PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want.
742One way to do this is to run Configure with
743C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
744
766b63c4 745=head2 Large file support.
746
5cda700b 747Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
766b63c4 7482 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
749support is on by default.
750
751This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
5cda700b 752seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
753using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
766b63c4 754be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
755parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
756will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
757Apache extension mod_perl.
758
759There's also one known limitation with the current large files
760implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
761section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer
762formats like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
763
9d5a2765 764=head2 64 bit support.
765
766b63c4 766If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them
767with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>, you can build a
768perl that uses 64 bits.
9d5a2765 769
770There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
771using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
772-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
773the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
774
775The C<use64bitint> does only as much as is required to get 64-bit
776integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long longs")
777while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because your
778pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint> does
779not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it might,
780but it doesn't have to): the C<use64bitint> means that you will be
781able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.
782
783The C<use64bitall> goes all the way by attempting to switch also
784integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
785create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
786resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
787have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
788aware.
789
790Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
791nor -Duse64bitall.
792
793 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
794 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
795 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
796 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
797
798=head2 Long doubles
799
800In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
801range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
802(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
803this support (if it is available).
804
805=head2 "more bits"
806
807You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
808and the long double support.
809
46bb10fb 810=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
811
365d6a78 812Executive summary: in Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
dd2bab0f 813as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
814
815In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
816mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
365d6a78 817introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
818until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
819and the only supported mechanism.
46bb10fb 820
365d6a78 821Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
6d5328bc 822abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
823instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
824implementations.
46bb10fb 825
365d6a78 826This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
827are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
828line with
46bb10fb 829
6d5328bc 830 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 831
6d5328bc 832or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 833
6d5328bc 834With the PerlIO abstraction layer, there is another possibility for
835the underlying IO calls, AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance
836to stdio.h in many cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline"
837modules ("Native" PerlIO has them too). Sfio currently only builds on
838a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports. Because the data
839structures are completely different from stdio, perl extension modules
840or external libraries may not work. This configuration exists to
841allow these issues to be worked on.
46bb10fb 842
843This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
1b9c9cf5 844The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
46bb10fb 845
846You select this option by
847
848 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
849
850If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
851that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
852Configure.
853
d6baa268 854Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
855detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
856this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
857Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
858_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
859your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
33e6ee5f 860
504f80c1 861=head2 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
862
863In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
864Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 865enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1 866a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
867and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
868
869In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder
870to create such degenerate hashes.
871
e267033d 872Because of this feature the keys(), values(), and each() functions may
873return the hash elements in different order between different runs of
874Perl even with the same data. One can still revert to the old
4546b9e6 875repeatable order by setting the environment variable PERL_HASH_SEED,
e267033d 876see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option is to add
877-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for example by
878using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HAS_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in which case
879one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable to
880enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to the compilation
881flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 882
3debabd9 883B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
504f80c1 884ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of
3debabd9 885Perl 5. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and
886continues to be, affected by the insertion order.
504f80c1 887
888Note that because of this randomisation for example the Data::Dumper
889results will be different between different runs of Perl since
890Data::Dumper by default dumps hashes "unordered". The use of the
3debabd9 891Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is recommended.
504f80c1 892
1b9c9cf5 893=head2 SOCKS
894
895Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
896TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
897access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
898Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
899
d6baa268 900=head2 Dynamic Loading
901
902By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
903your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
904statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
905you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
906
10c7e831 907=head2 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 908
909Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
910linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
911extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
912such as -lm.
913
9d67150a 914On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
915replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 916several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
917different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 918you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 919can share the same library.
920
921The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 922penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 923mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 924and upgrades.
925
926In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 927test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 928Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
929results.
930
931The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 932libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 933libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 934based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
935version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
936isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
937
938For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
939for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
940
941You can elect to build a shared libperl by
942
943 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
944
2bf2710f 945To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
946library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
78be1e1a 947NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
948for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
2bf2710f 949the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
d6baa268 950be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
10c7e831 951library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
952variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
953
954 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
2bf2710f 955
956However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
957shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
958something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
959./perl:
960
961 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
962or
963 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
964
965then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
966You can do this with
c3edaffb 967
968 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
969
970for Bourne-style shells, or
971
972 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
973
2bf2710f 974for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
10c7e831 975unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
5cda700b 976again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
2bf2710f 977
978You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
979messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
980for example:
98118126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
c3edaffb 982
9d67150a 983There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
984want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
985with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
cc65bb49 986install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
987try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 988the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
989ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
cc65bb49 990libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
9d67150a 991that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 992in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
993equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
1ff4263c 994with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
995LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
996Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
997_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 998
830717a7 999In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
1000with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
1001previous build.
1002
1003A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
1004architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
1005You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
1006point to your new architecture-dependent library.
9d67150a 1007
55479bb6 1008=head2 Malloc Issues
1009
d6baa268 1010Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1011so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1012the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1013version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1014perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1015than your system malloc.
55479bb6 1016
d6baa268 1017However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1018experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1019that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1020(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
c3edaffb 1021
aa689395 1022=over 4
1023
d6baa268 1024=item Using the system malloc
2ae324a7 1025
d6baa268 1026To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
aa689395 1027
d6baa268 1028 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
aa689395 1029
d6baa268 1030or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
aa689395 1031
86058a2d 1032=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1033
d953f698 1034NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1035run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
b2a6d19e 1036
5cda700b 1037Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1038Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1039These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
d6baa268 1040
5cda700b 1041If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1042will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1043sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1044been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
86058a2d 1045
d6baa268 1046Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1047from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1048does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1049versions.
86058a2d 1050
06c896bb 1051=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1052
1053This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1054Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1055using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1056
8267c262 1057 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
06c896bb 1058
1059to enable this option.
1060
aa689395 1061=back
1062
3bf462b8 1063=head2 Building a debugging perl
1064
1065You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 1066B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8 1067you probably want to do
1068
1069 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1070
203c3eec 1071This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1072to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1073executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
d6baa268 1074cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1075your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1076variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1077internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1078if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1079old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1080ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1081L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
203c3eec 1082
1083You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1084it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 1085
1086If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 1087versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1088
8d74ce1c 1089=head2 Extensions
1090
80c1f5de 1091Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1092in the ext/ subdirectory.
1093
8d74ce1c 1094By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1095to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1096only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1097Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
1098is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1099set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
80c1f5de 1100the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1101
c42e3e15 1102If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1103running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1104extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1105it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1106has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1107extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1108convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1109you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1110dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1111
a522f097 1112If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1113is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1114
c42e3e15 1115You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
8d74ce1c 1116documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1117ext/ subdirectory.
1118
1119Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1120DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
1121version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
1122
7a8675bc 1123To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use
1124the -Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both
1125accept a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed
1126in C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build,
1127while the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only
1128the listed extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution
1129since certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1130such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing these
1131options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
1132
1133Another, older way to turn off various extensions (which is still good
1134to know if you have to work with older Perl) exists. Here are the
1135Configure command-line variables you can set to turn off various
1136extensions. All others are included by default.
8d74ce1c 1137
8d74ce1c 1138 DB_File i_db
1139 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
8d74ce1c 1140 GDBM_File i_gdbm
8d74ce1c 1141 NDBM_File i_ndbm
1142 ODBM_File i_dbm
1143 POSIX useposix
8d74ce1c 1144 Opcode useopcode
1145 Socket d_socket
a2dab6bc 1146 Threads use5005threads
8d74ce1c 1147
1148Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
1149
1150 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
1151
1152Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
1153library.
1154
1155Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1156the extensions you want.
1157
1158Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1159DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1160this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1161releases of version 2.
1162
1163If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1164adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1165for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1166you.
1167
80c1f5de 1168Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
8d74ce1c 1169remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1170executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1171well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1172
1173=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1174
1175Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1176dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1177Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1178automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1179are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1180how to obtain the libraries.
1181
d6baa268 1182If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1183searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1184appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
1185your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
1186searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1187the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1188See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1189
1190=head2 Examples
1191
1192=over 4
1193
1194=item gdbm in /usr/local
1195
1196Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1197GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c 1198installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1199/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1200necessary steps out automatically.
1201
1202Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1203your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1204
1205When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1206-L/usr/local/lib.
1207
1208If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1209linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1210-L/usr/local/lib.
1211
d6baa268 1212Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1213you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1214/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1215
1216=item gdbm in /usr/you
1217
1218Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1219but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1220have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1221still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1222an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1223Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1224/usr/you/lib to the list.
1225
1226It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1227line):
1228
d6baa268 1229 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1230 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1231 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1232
1233locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1234Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1235
1236loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1237Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1238you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1239/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1240
d6baa268 1241 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1242 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1243 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1244
1245=back
1246
bb636fa4 1247=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1248
1249Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1250compile standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
1251following instructions.
1252
1253Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
1254DB1 compatibility code (needed for DB_File interface) and without
1255links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
1256for DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
1257--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1258additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1259--prefix=/usr):
1260
1261 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1262 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
1263 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
1264 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
1265 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
1266 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1267
1268Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1269for ODBM/NDBM):
1270
1271 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1272 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1273
1274ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1275using DB 3.1.17:
1276
1277 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1278 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1279
8e07c86e 1280=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1281
8d74ce1c 1282If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1283If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1284
8e07c86e 1285=over 4
1286
25f94b33 1287=item Running Configure Interactively
1288
1289If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1290Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1291guesses.
1292
1293All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1294have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1295flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 1296will use the defaults from then on.
1297
1298If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1299config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1300instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1301
aa689395 1302=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1303
1304The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1305in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1306will offer to use that hint file.
1307
1308Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617 1309If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1310for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1311More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1312file.
8e07c86e 1313
edb1cbcb 1314=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1315
1316Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
13174.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1318standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1319will see a message:
1320
1321 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1322 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1323 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1324
1325You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1326relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1327overriding it.
1328
1329If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1330used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1331to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1332system.
1333
1334For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1335and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1336Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a 1337Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1338issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1339
1340 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1341 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1342 Keep the previous value? [y]
1343
1ec51d55 1344In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1345should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1346the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1347
8e07c86e 1348=item Changing Compilers
1349
1350If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1351probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 1352rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1353with the options you want to use.
1354
1ec51d55 1355This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1356gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1357
c3edaffb 1358=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1359
1ec51d55 1360If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1361them to all the .SH files by running
1362
1363 sh Configure -S
1364
1365You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1366
1367 make depend
1368 make
8e07c86e 1369
48370efc 1370=item config.over and config.arch
1371
1372You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1373Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1374before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1375however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1376This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1377
1378There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1379config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1380architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1381hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e 1382
1383=item config.h
1384
1ec51d55 1385Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1386Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1387The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1388
1ec51d55 1389If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1390though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 1391lost.
1392
1393=item cflags
1394
1395If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1396line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1397optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1398toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1399can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1400lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1401
f5b3b617 1402To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1403see the file hints/README.hints.
1404
1405To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1406$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55 1407
1408 sh Configure -S
1409 make depend
8e07c86e 1410
aa689395 1411=item No sh
8e07c86e 1412
c42e3e15 1413If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1414Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1415system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e 1416You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1417mechanism.
1418
d6baa268 1419=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1420
1421In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1422
1423Build a threading Perl? [n]
1424Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1425
1426This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1427(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1428"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1429to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1430being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1431'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1432(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1433
1434=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1435
1436If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1437that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1438HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1439fail
1440
1441Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1442Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1443sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1444
1445and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1446libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1447
c3edaffb 1448=item Porting information
1449
e6f03d26 1450Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 1451corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1452including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c42e3e15 1453subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
c3edaffb 1454
7f678428 1455Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1456http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1457various other operating systems.
1458
491517e0 1459If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1460section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1461in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1462Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1463
8e07c86e 1464=back
1465
fadf0ef5 1466=head1 Adding extra modules to the build
1467
1468You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1469CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1470command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1471
1472 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1473
1474or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1475then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1476The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097 1477This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1478extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1479extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5 1480
1481Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1482modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1483or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1484do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1485
1486Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1487dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1488For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1489library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1490headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1491process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1492
03739d21 1493=head1 suidperl
1494
c80c8d62 1495suidperl is an optional component, which is built or installed by default.
03739d21 1496From perlfaq1:
1497
1498 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1499 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1500 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1501 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1502 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1503 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1504 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1505 features of the kernel.
1506
1507Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1508of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1509software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1510should be considered deprecated.
1511Instead use for example 'sudo': http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/
1512
8e07c86e 1513=head1 make depend
1514
bfb7748a 1515This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1516The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1517the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1518makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1519(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1520Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 1521
1522Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1523explicitly above.
1524
1525=head1 make
1526
1527This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1528
8d410bc4 1529=head2 Expected errors
1530
1531These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1532
1533 ...
1534 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1535 ...
1536 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1537
8d74ce1c 1538=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1539
8e07c86e 1540If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1541If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1542the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1543then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 1544
1545=over 4
1546
1ec51d55 1547=item hints
8e07c86e 1548
1549If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1550for further tips and information.
1551
1ec51d55 1552=item extensions
8e07c86e 1553
1ec51d55 1554If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 1555during the building of extensions, you should run
1556
3a6175e1 1557 make minitest
c3edaffb 1558
1559to test your version of miniperl.
1560
e57fd563 1561=item locale
1562
bfb7748a 1563If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1564them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1565running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1566See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1567whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a 1568The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1569
1570 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1571 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1572 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1573 LANG = (unset)
1574 are supported and installed on your system.
1575 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1576
1577at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1578
7f678428 1579=item varargs
c3edaffb 1580
1581If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a 1582correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1583gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1584in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1585correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1586your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1587See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1588
bfb7748a 1589=item util.c
c3edaffb 1590
1591If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1592numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1593
bfb7748a 1594 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1595 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1596 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1597
1598it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1599previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1600
1ec51d55 1601=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1602
1603If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1604the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1605Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1606fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1607of your local set-up.
1608
aa689395 1609=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1610
1611If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1612try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1613with
1614
1615 sh Configure -Uusenm
1616
1617or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1618If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1619config.sh.
1620
bfb7748a 1621=item umask not found
1622
1623If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1624is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1625Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1626this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1627try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1628
7f678428 1629=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1630
1631If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1632problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1633version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1634(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1635d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1636
1637 d_vprintf='define'
1638
1639If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a 1640on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1641the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1642
3fe9a6f1 1643=item do_aspawn
1644
1645If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1646problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a 1647fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1648on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1649
84902520 1650=item __inet_* errors
1651
1652If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1653referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1654installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1655these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1656in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721 1657newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1658If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1659with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1660test process to avoid the problem.
1661
1662=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1663
1664On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1665reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1666but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1667other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1668header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1669another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
1670Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
1671header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1672normally /usr/include).
84902520 1673
d6baa268 1674=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1675
1676This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1677gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1678changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1679rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1680update your gcc installation.
1681
aa689395 1682=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1683
9d67150a 1684If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1685optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1686
1687 optimize='-O'
1688
bfb7748a 1689to
9d67150a 1690
1691 optimize=' '
1692
1693then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1694with B<make depend; make>.
1695
9d67150a 1696=item Missing functions
1697
1698If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1699other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1700there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
bfb7748a 1701likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1702you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
8e07c86e 1703
1ec51d55 1704=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1705
1ec51d55 1706Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1707toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1708allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1709each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1710makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1711specific rule.
1712
7f678428 1713=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1714
c3edaffb 1715SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1716that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1717
f3d9a6ba 1718=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1719
1720If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1721the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1722then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1723Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1724systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1725For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1726unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1727they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1728reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1729process is continuing.
7f678428 1730
1731On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1732message
1733
f3d9a6ba 1734 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1735
1736then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1737the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1738extension without the -lgdbm library.
1739
1740It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1741this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1742quite that tightly coordinated.
1743
aa689395 1744=item sh: ar: not found
1745
1746This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1747was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1748make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1749is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1750directory.
1751
1752=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1753
1754Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1755with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1756bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1757
6087ac44 1758=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1759
11906ba0 1760If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44 1761V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1762also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1763to include the System V semaphores.
1764
11906ba0 1765=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621 1766
1767Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1768both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1769ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1770with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1771system.
1772
d6baa268 1773=item GNU binutils
1774
1775If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1776tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1777with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1778may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1779under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1780to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1781vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1782Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1783
16dc217a 1784=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1785
1786The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1787make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1788archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1789C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1790archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1791incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1792official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1793that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1794archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1795
16dc217a 1796=item invalid token: ##
1797
1798You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. See L<WARNING: This
a522f097 1799version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.>
16dc217a 1800
1ec51d55 1801=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1802
1803Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1804
1805Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1806
1807NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1808
9ede5bc8 1809UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1810
11906ba0 1811FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1812configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
220f3621 1813you will get a message telling what to do.
6087ac44 1814
d6baa268 1815HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1816Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1817tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1818break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1819(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1820
6c8d78fb 1821Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1822installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1823and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1824the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1825view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1826to avoid the BIND.
1827
8e07c86e 1828=back
1829
58a21a9b 1830=head2 Cross-compilation
1831
1832Starting from Perl 5.8 Perl has the beginnings of cross-compilation
1833support. What is known to work is running Configure in a
1834cross-compilation environment and building the miniperl executable.
65090350 1835What is known not to work is building the perl executable because
58a21a9b 1836that would require building extensions: Dynaloader statically and
1837File::Glob dynamically, for extensions one needs MakeMaker and
1838MakeMaker is not yet cross-compilation aware, and neither is
1839the main Makefile.
1840
93bc48fa 1841Since the functionality is so lacking, it must be considered
1842highly experimental. It is so experimental that it is not even
c80c8d62 1843mentioned during an interactive Configure session, a direct command
93bc48fa 1844line invocation (detailed shortly) is required to access the
1845functionality.
1846
58a21a9b 1847 NOTE: Perl is routinely built using cross-compilation
6a809565 1848 in the EPOC environment, in the WinCE, and in the OpenZaurus
1849 project, but all those use something slightly different setup
1850 than what described here. For the WinCE setup, read the
1851 wince/README.compile. For the OpenZaurus setup, read the
1852 Cross/README.
1853
1854The one environment where this cross-compilation setup has
1855successfully been used as of this writing is the Compaq iPAQ running
1856ARM Linux. The build host was Intel Linux, the networking setup was
1857PPP + SSH. The exact setup details are beyond the scope of this
1858document, see http://www.handhelds.org/ for more information.
58a21a9b 1859
1860To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch is
1861C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
1862
1863 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1864
1865This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1866symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
1867
1868During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1869into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1870cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1871target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1872transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1873the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1874methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1875F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1876
1877To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1878the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1879happens), supply Configure with
1880
1881 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1882
1883The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa 1884must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1885You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b 1886
1887 -Dtargetuser=luser
1888
1889but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1890
93bc48fa 1891Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1892which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1893This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1894In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1895environment:
58a21a9b 1896
1897 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1898 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1899 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1900 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1901 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1902
1903If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1904compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1905C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa 1906(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1907as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1908will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1909in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b 1910
1911In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1912choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1913for example:
1914
1915 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1916
1917Putting it all together:
1918
1919 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 1920 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1921 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b 1922 -Dtargetuser=root \
1923 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1924 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1925 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1926 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1927 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1928 -D...
1929
93bc48fa 1930or if you are happy with the defaults
1931
1932 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1933 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1934 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1935 -D...
1936
8e07c86e 1937=head1 make test
1938
d6baa268 1939This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1940'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1941wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1942
84902520 1943Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1944opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1945a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1946
c4f23d77 1947=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1948
1ec51d55 1949If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1950by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1951bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1952
1953 ./perl op/groups.t
1954
aa689395 1955Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1956individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1957
1958 ./perl harness
1959
fb73857a 1960(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831 1961complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
1962need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
1963PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
1964right Perl library path:
1965
1966 setenv PERL_CORE 1
1967 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
1968 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 1969
5cda700b 1970(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 1971You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831 1972comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1973shared library path if you get errors like:
1974
1975 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1976
1977See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1978
c4f23d77 1979=over 4
1980
1981=item locale
1982
1ec51d55 1983Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1984may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1985B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1986one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1987LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1988are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1989
1990If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1991
1992 setenv LC_ALL C
1993
1994(for C shell) or
1995
1996 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1997
1ec51d55 1998for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1999make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2000is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2001shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 2002things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2003open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2004external program.
eed2e782 2005
0740bb5b 2006=item Timing problems
2007
c29923ff 2008Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2009sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f 2010If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2011these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2012with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2013and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2014F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2015F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2016
c4f23d77 2017=item Out of memory
2018
2019On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2020of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296 2021For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2022test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77 2023
2024Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2025
2026 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2027
2028to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2029test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2030tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2031and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2032
4f76e5ba 2033=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2034
2035First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2036real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2037
2038Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2039directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2040systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2041run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2042test').
2043
2044The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2045
2046(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2047other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2048
2049This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2050unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2051are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2052
2053(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2054by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2055UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2056add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2057used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2058set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2059file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2060others.)
2061
2062This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2063permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2064also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2065is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2066should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2067supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2068used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
206911.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2070on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2071local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2072
b2b23189 2073(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2074any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2075directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba 2076(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2077building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2078module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1 2079
2080See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2081about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2082
c4f23d77 2083=back
2084
8e07c86e 2085=head1 make install
2086
2087This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2088Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2089to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2090pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 2091are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
2092ignore any messages about chown not working.
2093
dd64f1c3 2094=head2 Installing perl under different names
2095
2096If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2097when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2098indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2099
2100 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2101
beb13193 2102You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2103"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2104
2105 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2106
5cda700b 2107This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2108avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2109Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
beb13193 2110
dd64f1c3 2111=head2 Installed files
2112
8e07c86e 2113If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2114anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2115
8e07c86e 2116 ./perl installperl -n
2117 ./perl installman -n
2118
1ec51d55 2119make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2120
d56c5707 2121 binaries
2122
8e07c86e 2123 perl,
2124 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
2125 will be a link to perl.
2126 suidperl,
2127 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
2128 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707 2129
2130 scripts
2131
8e07c86e 2132 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2133 read from stdin.
2134 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2135 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2136 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2137 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2138 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2139 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2140 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2141 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2142 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2143 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707 2144 pod2man,
2145 pod2text,
2146 pod2checker,
2147 pod2select,
2148 pod2usage
aa689395 2149 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2150 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2151
d56c5707 2152 library files
2153
2154 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2155 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707 2156
2157 documentation
2158
d6baa268 2159 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2160 module man
2161 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e 2162 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2163
d6baa268 2164Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2165in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2166
d56c5707 2167Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2168under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531 2169optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2170program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2171
d56c5707 2172Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2173installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2174perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2175disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2176To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2177
2178 Configure -Dversiononly
2179
2180or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2181you can just manually run
2182
2183 ./perl installperl -v
2184
2185and skip installman altogether.
2186See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2187approach.
2188
aa689395 2189=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2190
14eee2f1 2191Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2192In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2193
693762b4 2194In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
21955.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
2196all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2197around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2198For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 2199with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2200top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
2201#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
2202
e655887d 2203Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to
2204use with a newer version of Perl (the Perl 5.6 to Perl 5.8 transition
2205being an exception). Here is how it is supposed to work. (These
2206examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2207
d6baa268 2208Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2209searched by 5.005_03 are
2210
2211 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2212 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2213 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2214 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2215
0a08c020 2216Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2217fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2218searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2219
0a08c020 2220 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2221 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2222 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2223 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2224
2225 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2226 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2227 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2228
c42e3e15 2229Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2230of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2231directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2232to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2233suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020 2234present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2235/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2236but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2237
c42e3e15 2238The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 22395.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2240
cc65bb49 2241Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2242with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901 2243Configure defaults) will be:
2244
2245 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2246 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2247 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2248 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2249
0a08c020 2250 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2251
d6baa268 2252 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2253
d6baa268 2254 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2255
cc65bb49 2256Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2257modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2258
0a08c020 2259Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 22605.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
cc65bb49 2261extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2262of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2263newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2264compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2265installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
22665.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
22675.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2268install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
22695.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020 2270
2271This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2272to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2273versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4 2274
2275=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2276
1ec51d55 2277Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2278separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020 2279won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2280libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2281way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2282
46bb10fb 2283 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 2284
46bb10fb 2285and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2286may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2287scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2288
693762b4 2289Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2290(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4 2291each major version.
2292
6877a1cf 2293If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2294seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2295subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2296yet.
2297
e655887d 2298=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2299
e655887d 2300B<Perl 5.8.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, 5.005,
2301and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2302(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
2303used with 5.8.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23045.8.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 or 5.6.0
2305installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2306above.)
c42e3e15 2307
2308See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2309incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2310perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2311
8e07c86e 2312=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2313
2314You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2315
1ec51d55 2316By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2317they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 2318
2319In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2320perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 2321process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2322However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268 2323the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
2324whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
2325possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2326
aa689395 2327=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2328
d6baa268 2329Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2330system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2331header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268 2332by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2333library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2334
d6baa268 2335Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2336of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2337hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2338For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2339structures.
aa689395 2340
fb73857a 2341=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2342
3e3baf6d 2343Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2344format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2345documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2346
d6baa268 2347Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2348html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2349
fb73857a 2350The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2351perl documentation:
aa689395 2352
3e3baf6d 2353 ./installhtml \
2354 --podroot=. \
2355 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2356 --recurse \
2357 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2358 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2359 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2360 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2361 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2362 --verbose
2363
2364See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2365many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2366see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2367resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2368(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2369
fb73857a 2370You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2371the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2372
aa689395 2373=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2374
2375Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2376available in TeX format. Type
2377
2378 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2379
8ebf57cf 2380=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2381
2382The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2383Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2384operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2385
c8214fdf 2386Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b 2387Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2388space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2389Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf 2390programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2391depends on what do you need to do.
2392
8ebf57cf 2393In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2394recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2395depends on what you need.
2396
2397Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2398
2399 use strict;
2400 use warnings;
2401 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2402 print("$f\n");
2403 }
2404
2405in Solaris is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
2406
2407 ./bin/perl
2408 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2409 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2410 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2411 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2412 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2413 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/File/Glob/autosplit.ix
2414 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/Config.pm
2415 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/XSLoader.pm
2416 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/DynaLoader.pm
2417 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/CORE/libperl.so
2418 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/strict.pm
2419 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/warnings.pm
2420 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Carp.pm
2421 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Exporter.pm
2422 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/File/Glob.pm
2423 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/AutoLoader.pm
2424 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/vars.pm
2425 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/warnings/register.pm
2426 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2427 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2428
2429Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
2430size about 1.2MB in its i386 version:
2431
2432 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2433 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
2434 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
2435 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
2436 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
2437 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
2438 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/AutoLoader.pm
2439 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Carp.pm
2440 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2441 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Cwd.pm
2442 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Exporter.pm
2443 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2444 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/File/Spec.pm
2445 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2446 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/FileHandle.pm
2447 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2448 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2449 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2450 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2451 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2452 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/SelectSaver.pm
2453 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Symbol.pm
2454 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2455 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2456 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/attributes.pm
2457 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/GetOptions.al
2458 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/FindOption.al
2459 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/Configure.al
2460 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/config.al
2461 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/Croak.al
2462 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/autosplit.ix
2463 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/base.pm
2464 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/constant.pm
2465 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/fields.pm
2466 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/integer.pm
2467 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/lib.pm
2468 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/locale.pm
2469 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/overload.pm
2470 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/strict.pm
2471 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/vars.pm
2472 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/warnings.pm
2473 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/warnings/register.pm
2474 /usr/bin/perl
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Config.pm
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Data/Dumper.pm
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/DynaLoader.pm
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Errno.pm
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Fcntl.pm
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/File/Glob.pm
2481 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO.pm
2482 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/File.pm
2483 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Handle.pm
2484 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2485 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2486 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Select.pm
2487 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket.pm
2488 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/POSIX.pm
2489 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Socket.pm
2490 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/XSLoader.pm
2491 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2492 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2493 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2494 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2495 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2496 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2497 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2498 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2499 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2500 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2501 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2502 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2503 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/autosplit.ix
2504 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2505 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/IO/IO.bs
2506 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2507 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2508 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2509 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2510 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2511 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2512
aa689395 2513=head1 Reporting Problems
2514
bfb7748a 2515If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
2516helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
2517pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
7f2de2d2 2518to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.org with
bfb7748a 2519an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 2520
bfb7748a 2521Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
2522the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
2523comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
2524before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
f5b3b617 2525run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
aa689395 2526
694a7e45 2527Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
2528information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
2529Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
2530complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
d6baa268 2531commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
694a7e45 2532are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
2533usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
2534reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
2535will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
2536try to keep it brief but clear.
aa689395 2537
8e07c86e 2538=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2539
bfb7748a 2540Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2541is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2542build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a 2543can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2544sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2545
1ec51d55 2546Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a 2547along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2548running (either):
34a2a22e 2549
2550 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2551 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 2552
2553This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2554(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2555set-up.)
34a2a22e 2556
bfb7748a 2557Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2558the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2559the documentation.
34a2a22e 2560
8e07c86e 2561=head1 AUTHOR
2562
bfb7748a 2563Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2564heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2565feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2566
f5b3b617 2567If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2568L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2569
2570=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2571
2572This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2573the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2574If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268 2575a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2576and the contact information to match your distribution.