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8e07c86e 1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
8e07c86e 8
dc45a647 9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
8e07c86e 10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 17 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7beaa944 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 24
7beaa944 25For information on what's new in this release, see the
26pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 28
1ec51d55 29=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 33read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
34by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
35
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
37 C<code> literal code
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
39
40You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
41proceeding.
c3edaffb 42
eed2e782 43If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
46
203c3eec 47If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
50
bfb7748a 51=head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
693762b4 52
bfb7748a 53Starting with Perl 5.004_50 there were many deep and far-reaching changes
54to the language internals. If you have dynamically loaded extensions
55that you built under perl 5.003 or 5.004, you can continue to use them
56with 5.004, but you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions
57to use them 5.005. See the discussions below on
58L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
59L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> for more details.
693762b4 60
61The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
62
63In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
64changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
65pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
66
aa689395 67=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 68
dc45a647 69The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
70complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
1ec51d55 71actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
dc45a647 72directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 73value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 74
aa689395 75=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 76
edb1cbcb 77If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
78with the command
79
dc45a647 80 make distclean
81
82or
83
edb1cbcb 84 make realclean
c3edaffb 85
dc45a647 86The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
87your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
88
89The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
90files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
91change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
92you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
93not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
8e07c86e 94
95 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 96
e57fd563 97If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
98version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
99the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
100includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
101name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
102Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
103probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
104Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
105numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
106
107Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
bfb7748a 108(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486, i586, or i686.
109If you pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
e57fd563 110
111In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
112Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 113
dc45a647 114If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
115particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
116same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
117L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
118
aa689395 119=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 120
121Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
122things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
1ec51d55 123you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
a3cb178b 124is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
203c3eec 125and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 126
127After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 128*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 129
fb73857a 130Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
131get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
132Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
133
134To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
8e07c86e 135
136 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
137
138This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
139compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
140
4633a7c4 141If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
142with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
143
8e07c86e 144By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
145/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
146the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
147using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
148e.g.
149
25f94b33 150 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 151
152If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
153are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
154then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 155/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 156
84902520 157NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
158your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
159infinite recursion.
160
a3cb178b 161It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
dd64f1c3 162easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
163/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
164careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
165vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
166put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 167into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
168obvious and convenient place.
169
aa689395 170By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 171your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531 172statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
173you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 174
203c3eec 175If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
176output, you can run
177
178 sh Configure -des
179
180For my Solaris system, I usually use
181
182 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
183
46bb10fb 184=head2 GNU-style configure
185
1ec51d55 186If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 187use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 188
693762b4 189 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 190
dc45a647 191The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 192options. Try
193
693762b4 194 ./configure.gnu --help
46bb10fb 195
196for a listing.
197
aa689395 198Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb 199
dc45a647 200(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 201that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 202
24b3df7f 203=head2 Extensions
204
edb1cbcb 205By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
206to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
207only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
693762b4 208B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
209Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
210is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
211set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
212the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
213built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 214useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 215
1ec51d55 216You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
217documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
218ext/ subdirectory.
219
56c6f531 220Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
221DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
222version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
223
24b3df7f 224In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
225to turn off each extension:
226
693762b4 227 B (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 228 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 229 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 230 Fcntl (Always included by default)
231 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 232 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 233 NDBM_File i_ndbm
234 ODBM_File i_dbm
235 POSIX useposix
236 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 237 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 238 Socket d_socket
693762b4 239 Threads usethreads
240 attrs (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 241
242Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
243
244 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
245
246Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
247library.
248
249Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 250the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 251
693762b4 252Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
253DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
254this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
1ec51d55 255
dc45a647 256If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
257adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
258for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
259you.
260
24b3df7f 261Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
262remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
263executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
264well build all the ones that will work on your system.
265
8e07c86e 266=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
267
4633a7c4 268Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
269dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
270Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
271automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1ec51d55 272are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
4633a7c4 273how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 274
1ec51d55 275Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
8e07c86e 276directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
1ec51d55 277include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 278Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
279normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
1ec51d55 280include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 281Configure. See the examples below.
282
283=head2 Examples
284
285=over 4
286
aa689395 287=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e 288
289Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1ec51d55 290GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
291installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
292/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
8e07c86e 293necessary steps out automatically.
294
295Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1ec51d55 296your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
8e07c86e 297
298When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1ec51d55 299-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 300
301If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
302linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1ec51d55 303-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 304
305Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
306defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
307messages, then you can just run
308
309 sh Configure -des
310
311and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
312
313This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
314(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
315
316=item gdbm in /usr/you
317
318Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
3a6175e1 319but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1ec51d55 320have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
321still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
322an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
8e07c86e 323Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1ec51d55 324/usr/you/lib to the list.
8e07c86e 325
326It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
327line):
328
329 sh Configure -des \
330 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
331 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
332
1ec51d55 333locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
334Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
8e07c86e 335
1ec51d55 336loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
337Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
338you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
339/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
8e07c86e 340
341 sh Configure -des \
342 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
343 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
344
345=back
346
aa689395 347=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 348
349The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
350appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
351installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
352
7beaa944 353I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
354everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
355process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
356will use the defaults from then on.
1ec51d55 357
3a6175e1 358By default, Configure will use the following directories for library files
359for 5.005 (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined by Configure).
4633a7c4 360
3a6175e1 361 Configure variable Default value
362 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
363 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
364 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
365 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
4633a7c4 366
3a6175e1 367Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
368to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
369architectures.
4633a7c4 370
3a6175e1 371By default, Configure will use the following directories for manual pages:
372
373 Configure variable Default value
374 $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
375 $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
4633a7c4 376
377(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
378/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
fb73857a 379instead.)
380
381The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
4633a7c4 382they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
383and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
384systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
fb73857a 385page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
386change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
1ec51d55 387
388Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
389/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
390
391 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
392
393Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
394
395 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
4633a7c4 396
397If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 398directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
bfb7748a 399-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults for 5.005 are
4633a7c4 400
3a6175e1 401 Configure variable Default value
402 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005/archname
403 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005
404 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005/archname
405 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005
4633a7c4 406
3a6175e1 407 $man1dir /opt/perl/man/man1
408 $man3dir /opt/perl/man/man3
4633a7c4 409
410The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
411above.
412
3a6175e1 413The directories under site_perl are empty, but are intended to be used
bfb7748a 414for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl will automatically
415look in these directories.
4633a7c4 416
bfb7748a 417In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.005 after
4633a7c4 418a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
419stored in a version-specific directory, such as
bfb7748a 420/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.005/.
421
422Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
423development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
424discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
4633a7c4 425
426Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
427Configure.
428
aa689395 429=head2 Changing the installation directory
430
431Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
432associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
433will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
434sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 435However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
aa689395 436packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
437use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
438This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
439an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
440
0dcb58f4 441Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
442can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
443/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
444process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
445run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
aa689395 446
447 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
448 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
449 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
450 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
451 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
452 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
453 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
454 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
455 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
456 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
457 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
458
459Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
460
461 sh Configure -des
462 make
463 make test
464 make install
465
693762b4 466Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
467extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
468follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
469that problem.
470
aa689395 471=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
472
473If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
474convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
475installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
476
477 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
478 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
479 sh Configure -des
480 make
481 make test
482 make install
483 cd /tmp/perl5
bfb7748a 484 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm to change all the
fb73857a 485 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
486 # really be installed.
bfb7748a 487 # Edit any of the scripts in $scriptdir to have the correct
488 # #!/wherever/perl line.
aa689395 489 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
490 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
491 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
492 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
493
dc45a647 494=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
693762b4 495
496After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
497answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
498person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
499system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
500to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
501hint file for your system.
502
dc45a647 503Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
504answers, you should
505
506 rm -f Policy.sh
507
508to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
509
510Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
511
aa689395 512=head2 Configure-time Options
513
514There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
515system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
516Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
517some of the main things you can change.
518
693762b4 519=head2 Threads
aa689395 520
693762b4 521On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
522enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
f7542a9d 523
693762b4 524 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 525
693762b4 526Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
527line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
528
529The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 530
46bb10fb 531=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
532
533Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 534stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
46bb10fb 535mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
536the default and is the only supported mechanism.
537
538This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
539line with
540
541 sh Configure -Duseperlio
542
543or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
544
545If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
546(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
547tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
548everywhere.
549
550=over 4
551
552=item 1.
553
1ec51d55 554AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 555cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb 556currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
557Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
558extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
559configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
560
561This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
bfb7748a 562A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
46bb10fb 563
564You select this option by
565
566 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
567
568If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
569that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
570Configure.
571
1ec51d55 572Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
573to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
33e6ee5f 574Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
575and SunOS 4.
576
577You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
578script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
579portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
580
581 #!/bin/sh
582 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
583 #include <stdio.h>
584 main() { printf("42\n"); }
585 EOCP
586 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
587 val=`./try`
588 if test X$val = X42; then
589 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
590 else
591 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
592 fi
593
594If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
bfb7748a 595and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
33e6ee5f 596
597There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
598problem.
599
46bb10fb 600=item 2.
601
602Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
603abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
604extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
605abstraction.
606
607This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
608
aa689395 609You select this option via:
46bb10fb 610
611 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
612
613If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
614detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
615
616=back
617
aa689395 618=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 619
620Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
621linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
622extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
623such as -lm.
624
9d67150a 625On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
626replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 627several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
628different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 629you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 630can share the same library.
631
632The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 633penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 634mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 635and upgrades.
636
637In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 638test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 639Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
640results.
641
642The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 643libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 644libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 645based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
646version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
647isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
648
649For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
650for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
651
652You can elect to build a shared libperl by
653
654 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
655
656To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 657LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 658this with
659
660 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
661
662for Bourne-style shells, or
663
664 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
665
666for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
667Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
668LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
669
9d67150a 670There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
671want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
672with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 673install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
674try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 675the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
676ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 677libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 678that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 679in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
680equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 681with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 682override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 683to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 684
685The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
686directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 687version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
9d67150a 688variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
689installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
690
55479bb6 691=head2 Malloc Issues
692
693Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
694perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
695the malloc function on your system.
696
bfb7748a 697The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast but
698somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's malloc
699function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal. However,
700as of 5.004_68, perl's malloc has been optimized for the typical
701requests from perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and
702use less memory.
55479bb6 703
704For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
705the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
706with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
707(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
708if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
709third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
87c6202a 710your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags
711discussed below.)
55479bb6 712
713To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
714
715 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
716
717or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
718
aa689395 719=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 720
87c6202a 721If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or more of the following
808270a4 722items to your ccflags config.sh variable to change its behavior. You can
87c6202a 723find out more about these and other flags by reading the commentary near
bfb7748a 724the top of the malloc.c source. The defaults should be fine for
725nearly everyone.
c3edaffb 726
aa689395 727=over 4
728
87c6202a 729=item -DNO_FANCY_MALLOC
2ae324a7 730
bfb7748a 731Undefined by default. Defining it returns malloc to the version used
732in Perl 5.004.
aa689395 733
87c6202a 734=item -DPLAIN_MALLOC
aa689395 735
87c6202a 736Undefined by default. Defining it in addition to NO_FANCY_MALLOC returns
bfb7748a 737malloc to the version used in Perl version 5.000.
aa689395 738
739=back
740
3bf462b8 741=head2 Building a debugging perl
742
743You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 744B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8 745you probably want to do
746
747 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
748
203c3eec 749This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
750to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
751executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
a3cb178b 752cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
203c3eec 753system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
1ec51d55 754config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
203c3eec 755state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
1ec51d55 756default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
757reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
3fe9a6f1 758optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
203c3eec 759as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
760
761You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
762it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 763
764If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
765versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
766
aa689395 767=head2 Other Compiler Flags
768
769For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
770you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
1ec51d55 771by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
aa689395 772config.sh.
773
774For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
775perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
776following:
777
778 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
779
203c3eec 780or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
781at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
782me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
783different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
784
785You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
786doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
787shouldn't do that, but some might.)
c3edaffb 788
8e07c86e 789=head2 What if it doesn't work?
790
791=over 4
792
25f94b33 793=item Running Configure Interactively
794
795If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
796Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
797guesses.
798
799All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 800have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 801flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 802will use the defaults from then on.
803
804If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
805config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
806instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
807
aa689395 808=item Hint files
8e07c86e 809
810The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
811in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
812will offer to use that hint file.
813
814Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617 815If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
816for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
817More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
818file.
8e07c86e 819
edb1cbcb 820=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
821
822Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
8234.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
824standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
825will see a message:
826
827 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
828 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
829 Keep the recommended value? [y]
830
831You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
832relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
833overriding it.
834
835If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
836used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
837to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
838system.
839
840For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
841and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
842Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a 843Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
844issue a message:
edb1cbcb 845
846 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
847 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
848 Keep the previous value? [y]
849
1ec51d55 850In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 851should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 852the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
853
8e07c86e 854=item Changing Compilers
855
856If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 857probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 858rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
859with the options you want to use.
860
1ec51d55 861This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
862gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 863
c3edaffb 864=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 865
1ec51d55 866If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
867them to all the .SH files by running
868
869 sh Configure -S
870
871You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 872
873 make depend
874 make
8e07c86e 875
876=item config.over
877
878You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
879guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
880is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 881does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 882L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e 883
884=item config.h
885
1ec51d55 886Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
887Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
888The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 889
1ec51d55 890If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
891though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 892lost.
893
894=item cflags
895
896If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 897line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
898optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
899toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
900can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
901lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 902
f5b3b617 903To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
904see the file hints/README.hints.
905
906To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
907$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55 908
909 sh Configure -S
910 make depend
8e07c86e 911
aa689395 912=item No sh
8e07c86e 913
dfe9444c 914If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
915to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
8e07c86e 916You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
917mechanism.
918
c3edaffb 919=item Porting information
920
2ae324a7 921Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 922corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
923including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c3edaffb 924subdirectory.
925
7f678428 926Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 927http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 928various other operating systems.
929
8e07c86e 930=back
931
932=head1 make depend
933
bfb7748a 934This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
935The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
936the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
937makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
938(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
939Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 940
941Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
942explicitly above.
943
944=head1 make
945
946This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
947
948If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 949If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
950the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
951send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
952perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 953See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 954
955=over 4
956
1ec51d55 957=item hints
8e07c86e 958
959If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
960for further tips and information.
961
1ec51d55 962=item extensions
8e07c86e 963
1ec51d55 964If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 965during the building of extensions, you should run
966
3a6175e1 967 make minitest
c3edaffb 968
969to test your version of miniperl.
970
e57fd563 971=item locale
972
bfb7748a 973If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
974them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
975running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
976See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
977whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a 978The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
979
980 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
981 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
982 LC_ALL = "En_US",
983 LANG = (unset)
984 are supported and installed on your system.
985 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
986
987at Perl startup.
e57fd563 988
1ec51d55 989=item malloc duplicates
c3edaffb 990
dc45a647 991If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DEMBEDMYMALLOC
992to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 993
7f678428 994=item varargs
c3edaffb 995
996If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a 997correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
998gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
999in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1000correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1001your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1002See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1003
bfb7748a 1004=item util.c
c3edaffb 1005
1006If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1007numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1008
bfb7748a 1009 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1010 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1011 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1012
1013it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1014previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1015
9d67150a 1016=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 1017
1018If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1019Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 1020-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 1021$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
6877a1cf 1022and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1023Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 1024environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 1025your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1026the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1027
7beaa944 1028One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1029invoke Configure with
1030
1031 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1032
1033for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1034instead.
1035
84902520 1036Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1037include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1038config.sh.
1039
9d67150a 1040=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1041
1042If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1043it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1044L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1045
1ec51d55 1046=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1047
1048If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1049the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1050Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1051fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1052of your local set-up.
1053
1054=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1055
1056The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1057that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1058which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1059
aa689395 1060The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1061actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1062failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1063"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1064functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1065
aa689395 1066=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1067
1068If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1069try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1070with
1071
1072 sh Configure -Uusenm
1073
1074or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1075If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1076config.sh.
1077
bfb7748a 1078=item umask not found
1079
1080If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1081is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1082Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1083this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1084try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1085
7f678428 1086=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1087
1088If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1089problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1090version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1091(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1092d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1093
1094 d_vprintf='define'
1095
1096If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a 1097on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1098the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1099
3fe9a6f1 1100=item do_aspawn
1101
1102If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1103problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a 1104fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1105on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1106
84902520 1107=item __inet_* errors
1108
1109If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1110referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1111installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1112these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1113in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1114newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1115updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1116/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1117avoid the problem.
1118
aa689395 1119=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1120
9d67150a 1121If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1122optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1123
1124 optimize='-O'
1125
bfb7748a 1126to
9d67150a 1127
1128 optimize=' '
1129
1130then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1131with B<make depend; make>.
1132
1ec51d55 1133=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1134
1ec51d55 1135If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
56c6f531 1136flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1137This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1138indigestion easily.
9d67150a 1139
1140=item Missing functions
1141
1142If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1143other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1144there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
bfb7748a 1145likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1146you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
8e07c86e 1147
1ec51d55 1148=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1149
1ec51d55 1150Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1151toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1152allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1153each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1154makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1155specific rule.
1156
7f678428 1157=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1158
c3edaffb 1159SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1160that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1161
f3d9a6ba 1162=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1163
1164If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1165the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1166then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1167Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1168systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1169For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1170unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1171they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1172reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1173process is continuing.
7f678428 1174
1175On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1176message
1177
f3d9a6ba 1178 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1179
1180then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1181the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1182extension without the -lgdbm library.
1183
1184It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1185this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1186quite that tightly coordinated.
1187
aa689395 1188=item sh: ar: not found
1189
1190This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1191was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1192make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1193is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1194directory.
1195
1196=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1197
1198Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1199with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1200bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1201
1ec51d55 1202=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1203
1204Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1205
1206Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1207
1208NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1209
1ec51d55 1210UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1211
1212If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1213
1214Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1215
8e07c86e 1216=back
1217
1218=head1 make test
1219
84902520 1220This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1221should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1222complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1223then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1224
84902520 1225Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1226opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1227a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1228
c4f23d77 1229=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1230
1ec51d55 1231If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1232by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1233bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1234
1235 ./perl op/groups.t
1236
aa689395 1237Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1238individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1239
1240 ./perl harness
1241
fb73857a 1242(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1243complicated constructs).
1244
fb73857a 1245You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1246comments that apply to your system.
1247
c4f23d77 1248=over 4
1249
1250=item locale
1251
1ec51d55 1252Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1253may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1254B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1255one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1256LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1257are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1258
1259If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1260
1261 setenv LC_ALL C
1262
1263(for C shell) or
1264
1265 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1266
1ec51d55 1267for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1268make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1269is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1270shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 1271things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1272open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1273external program.
eed2e782 1274
c4f23d77 1275=item Out of memory
1276
1277On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1278of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1279Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1280fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1281will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1282same time.
1283
1284Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1285
1286 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1287
1288to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1289test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1290tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1291and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1292
c4f23d77 1293=back
1294
8e07c86e 1295=head1 make install
1296
1297This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1298Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1299to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1300pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 1301are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1302ignore any messages about chown not working.
1303
dd64f1c3 1304=head2 Installing perl under different names
1305
1306If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1307when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1308indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1309
1310 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1311
1312=head2 Installed files
1313
8e07c86e 1314If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1315anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1316
8e07c86e 1317 ./perl installperl -n
1318 ./perl installman -n
1319
1ec51d55 1320make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 1321
1322 perl,
1323 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1324 will be a link to perl.
1325 suidperl,
1326 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1327 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1328 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1329 read from stdin.
1330 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1331 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1332 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1333 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1334 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1335 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1336 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1337 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1338 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1339 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1340 pod2man, and
1341 pod2text
1342 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e 1343
1344 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1345 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1346 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1347 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1348 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1349 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1350 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1351
4633a7c4 1352Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1353$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
bfb7748a 1354
3a6175e1 1355 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
bfb7748a 1356 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1357
1358where archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
4633a7c4 1359will be used for installing extensions.
1360
56c6f531 1361Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1362under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1363optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1364program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1365
aa689395 1366=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1367
693762b4 1368WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1369tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1370
1371In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
13725.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1373all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1374around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1375For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 1376with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 1377top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1378#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1379
693762b4 1380Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1381with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1382(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1383
bfb7748a 1384The directories searched by version 5.005 will be
1385
1386 Configure variable Default value
1387 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
3a6175e1 1388 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
bfb7748a 1389 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
3a6175e1 1390 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
bfb7748a 1391
1392while the directories searched by version 5.005_01 will be
1393
1394 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501/archname
3a6175e1 1395 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501
bfb7748a 1396 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
3a6175e1 1397 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
bfb7748a 1398
1399When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1400$sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1401does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.005 and
14025.005_01 can use the extension. Only when a perl version changes to
1403break backwards compatibility will the default suggestions for the
1404$sitearch and $sitelib version numbers be increased.
1405
1406However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1407old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1408to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1409(The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1410extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1411is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1412to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
14135.005 will find your files in the 5.005 directory, and newer versions
1414of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1415(This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1416
1417Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your extensions
1418every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1419number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
693762b4 1420
1421=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1422
1ec51d55 1423Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d52d4e46 1424separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1425using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1426
46bb10fb 1427 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1428
46bb10fb 1429and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1430may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1431scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1432
693762b4 1433Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1434(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1435each major version.
1436
6877a1cf 1437If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1438seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1439subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1440yet.
1441
693762b4 1442=head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1443
bfb7748a 1444Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50
1445will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later. You will,
1446however, be able to continue using 5.004 even after you install 5.005.
1447The 5.004 binary will still be able to find the extensions built under
14485.004; the 5.005 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1449directories, and will not find them.
693762b4 1450
8e07c86e 1451=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1452
1453You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1454
1ec51d55 1455By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1456they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 1457
1458In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1459perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 1460process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1461However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1ec51d55 1462the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
edb1cbcb 1463(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1464for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1465
aa689395 1466=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1467
1468Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1469the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1470header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
bfb7748a 1471by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent library
1472($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 1473
1ec51d55 1474Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
aa689395 1475conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1476to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1477correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1478certain structures.
1479
fb73857a 1480=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1481
3e3baf6d 1482Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1483format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1484documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1485
fb73857a 1486The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1487perl documentation:
aa689395 1488
3e3baf6d 1489 ./installhtml \
1490 --podroot=. \
1491 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1492 --recurse \
1493 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1494 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1495 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1496 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1497 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1498 --verbose
1499
1500See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1501many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1502see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1503resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1504(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1505
fb73857a 1506You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1507the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1508
aa689395 1509=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1510
1511Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1512available in TeX format. Type
1513
1514 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1515
1516=head1 Reporting Problems
1517
bfb7748a 1518If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1519helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1520pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1521to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1522an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 1523
bfb7748a 1524Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1525the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1526comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1527before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
f5b3b617 1528run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
aa689395 1529
bfb7748a 1530You might also find helpful information in the Porting directory of the
1531perl distribution.
aa689395 1532
8e07c86e 1533=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1534
bfb7748a 1535Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1536is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 1537build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a 1538can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1539sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 1540
1ec51d55 1541Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a 1542along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1543running (either):
34a2a22e 1544
1545 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1546 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 1547
1548This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1549(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1550set-up.)
34a2a22e 1551
bfb7748a 1552Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1553the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1554the documentation.
34a2a22e 1555
8e07c86e 1556=head1 AUTHOR
1557
bfb7748a 1558Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1559heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1560feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 1561
f5b3b617 1562If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1563L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1564
1565=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1566
1567This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1568the same terms as perl itself.
1569
1570If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1571a larger package) please do modify these installation instructions and
1572the contact information to match your distribution.
8e07c86e 1573
a5f75d66 1574=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1575
3a6175e1 1576$Id: INSTALL,v 1.40 1998/07/06 14:49:02 doughera Released $