The documentation for prototype() sounds a bit better like that.
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
f1300be0 1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
8e07c86e 5=head1 NAME
6
7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
8
40dd8381 9=head1 Reporting Problems
10
11Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
12to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
13information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
14more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
15carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
16on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
17you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
18message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
19get advice.
20
21The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
22completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
23C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
24C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
25run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
26directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
27
28If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
29B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
30an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
31
ce80d64e 32If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
40dd8381 33(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
ce80d64e 34description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
40dd8381 35- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
36
37Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
38reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
39written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
40the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
41not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
42
ce80d64e 43Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
44config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
45necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
46session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
40dd8381 47messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
48appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
49attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
50read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
51subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
52
53If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
54report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
55http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
56
8e07c86e 57=head1 SYNOPSIS
58
ce80d64e 59First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
60didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
61http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 62subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
ce80d64e 63odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
64development releases. Development releases should not be used in
65production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
66tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
67worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 68
ce80d64e 69The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
70the defaults are:
8e07c86e 71
dc45a647 72 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 73 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e 74 make
75 make test
76 make install
36477c24 77
8e07c86e 78Each of these is explained in further detail below.
79
cc65bb49 80The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
81platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
ce80d64e 82If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively and use
491517e0 83
84 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
85 sh Configure
86 make
87 make test
88 make install
89
ce80d64e 90 # You may also wish to add these:
91 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
92 (installhtml --help)
08854360 93 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
adbebc0b 94
ce80d64e 95or you can use some of the Configure options described below.
7f678428 96
8d74ce1c 97If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40dd8381 98L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 99
7beaa944 100For information on what's new in this release, see the
fdd3cf50 101pod/perl5100delta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
7beaa944 102changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 103
1ec51d55 104=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 105
c3edaffb 106This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
107structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 108read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
109by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
110
111 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
112 C<code> literal code
113 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 114 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 115
c42e3e15 116Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 117you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 118proceeding.
c3edaffb 119
ce80d64e 120In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
121your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
122instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
123system (in the hints/ directory) you should also read that hint file
124for even more information. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or
125the svr5.sh hint file.)
c42e3e15 126
ce80d64e 127For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
128L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
129directory.
d56c5707 130
ce80d64e 131=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 132
ce80d64e 133=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 134
fdd3cf50 135Please see pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of the changes and
ce80d64e 136potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
137the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
fdd3cf50 138to pod/perl5100delta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 139
fdd3cf50 140B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
1b1c1ae2 141
cc65bb49 142If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b 143using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
144those extensions.
1b1c1ae2 145
146Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
147without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
148L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 149L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
693762b4 150
151The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
152
ce80d64e 153On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
154in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
fdd3cf50 155pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 156installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
157list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
158way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 159
aa689395 160=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 161
edb1cbcb 162If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
163with the command
164
dc45a647 165 make distclean
166
167or
168
edb1cbcb 169 make realclean
c3edaffb 170
dc45a647 171The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
172your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
173
174The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
175files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
176change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
177you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 178not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 179
d6baa268 180 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 181
e57fd563 182If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
183version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
184the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
185includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
186name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
be8498a1 187Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Similarly, if you used
188a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will probably
189want to adjust them as well.
e57fd563 190
d6baa268 191Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
be8498a1 192Linux distributions use i386, but Configure uses the output of the arch
193command, which might be i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled
194binary, or compile extensions on different systems, they might not all
195agree on the architecture name.
e57fd563 196
197In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
198Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 199
d6baa268 200If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
201installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
202using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
203settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
204also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
205
206 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 207
aa689395 208=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 209
210Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
211things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268 212you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
213almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
214since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
215the same function.
216
ce80d64e 217At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 218defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 219
220After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 221*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 222
ce80d64e 223=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 224
ce80d64e 225Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 226
ce80d64e 227 Configure -h
d6baa268 228
ce80d64e 229to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 230Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
231
d6baa268 232=over 4
233
08854360 234=item C compiler
d6baa268 235
08854360 236To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
237system, you should run
8e07c86e 238
239 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
240
08854360 241This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
8e07c86e 242compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
243
d6baa268 244=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 245
8e07c86e 246By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 247/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
248and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
249further details.)
250
251You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 252directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 253line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 254
25f94b33 255 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 256
d6baa268 257If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
258directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
259prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
260/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec 261for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
262or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 263
8d74ce1c 264NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
265as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
266attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 267
d6baa268 268=item /usr/bin/perl
269
270It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
271find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 272/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 273careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec 274vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
275on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
276configured may be found with
277
278 perl -V:config_args
279
280(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e 281spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
282at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 283
ce80d64e 284By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
285version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 286
7d56c962 287 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 288
7d56c962 289or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 290
ce80d64e 291In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
292(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 293into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
294obvious and convenient place.
295
ce80d64e 296=item Building a development release.
04d420f9 297
ce80d64e 298For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
299use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
300because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
301Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
302sanity check.
d6baa268 303
304=back
8e07c86e 305
203c3eec 306If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
307output, you can run
308
309 sh Configure -des
310
ce80d64e 311For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
203c3eec 312
313 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
314
ce80d64e 315=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 316
ce80d64e 317For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
318be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
319have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
320after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
321For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
322invocations:
46bb10fb 323
08854360 324 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 325
5247441a 326To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
327Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (that will define a config.sh
328variable, but without taking any action based upon it). When passed to the
329compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
330
ce80d64e 331For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 332
ce80d64e 333 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 334
ce80d64e 335=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 336
ce80d64e 337There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
338system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
339Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
340some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 341
ce80d64e 342=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 343
ce80d64e 344On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
345enable this, run
4633a7c4 346
ce80d64e 347 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 348
ce80d64e 349Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
350line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
cc65bb49 351
ce80d64e 352The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 353
47f9f84c 354Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
355model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
356called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
357thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
358(5005threads) has been removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 359
ce80d64e 360The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
47f9f84c 361'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
362ithreads model.
d6baa268 363
ce80d64e 364When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
365the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
366This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
367fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
368PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
369way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 370C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 371
08854360 372=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 373
ce80d64e 374Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
3752 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
376support is on by default.
d6baa268 377
ce80d64e 378This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
379seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
380using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
381be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
382parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 383will happen.
d6baa268 384
ce80d64e 385There's also one known limitation with the current large files
386implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
387section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
388like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 389
08854360 390=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 391
08854360 392If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
393them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 394you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 395
ce80d64e 396There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
397using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
398-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
399the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 400
ce80d64e 401The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
40264-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
403longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
404your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
405does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
406might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
407you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 408
ce80d64e 409The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
410integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
411create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
412resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
413have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
414aware.
d6baa268 415
08854360 416Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 417
ce80d64e 418=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 419
ce80d64e 420In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
421range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
422(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
423this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 424
ce80d64e 425=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 426
ce80d64e 427You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
428and the long double support.
b367e8b0 429
ce80d64e 430=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1 431
432In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
433Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 434enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1 435a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
436and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
437
86358043 438In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
439create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
440the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
441in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
442data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
443certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
444
445In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
446elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
447basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
448then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
449adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
450existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
451specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
452data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
453randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
454is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
455
456One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
457vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
458variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
459is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 460example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043 461which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
462variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
463the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 464
3debabd9 465B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043 466ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
4675. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 468be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 469randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 470between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
86358043 471hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
472recommended.
504f80c1 473
ce80d64e 474=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5 475
476Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
477TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
478access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
479Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
480
ce80d64e 481=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 482
483By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
484your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
485statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
486you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
487
ce80d64e 488=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 489
490Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
491linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 492extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 493
08854360 494On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 495replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 496several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
497different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 498you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 499can share the same library.
500
501The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 502penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 503mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 504and upgrades.
505
506In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 507test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 508Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
509results.
510
511The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 512libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 513libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 514based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
515version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
516isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
517
c3edaffb 518You can elect to build a shared libperl by
519
ce80d64e 520 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
521
522To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
523library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
524NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
525for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
526the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
527be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
528library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
529variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
530
531 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
532
533However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
534shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
535something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
536./perl:
537
08854360 538 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
539
ce80d64e 540or
08854360 541
ce80d64e 542 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
543
544then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
545You can do this with
546
547 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
548
549for Bourne-style shells, or
550
551 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
552
553for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
554unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
555again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
556
557You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
558messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
559for example:
08854360 560
561 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
ce80d64e 562
563There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
564want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
565with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
08854360 566install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
567try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
ce80d64e 568the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
569ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
570libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
571that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
572in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
573equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
574with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
575LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
576Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
577_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
578
579In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
580with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
581previous build.
582
583A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
584architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
585You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
586point to your new architecture-dependent library.
587
575e1338 588=head3 Environment access
589
590Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
591is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
592leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
593to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
594whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
595but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
596embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 597by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
575e1338 598use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
599C<perl_construct()> call.
600
ce80d64e 601=head2 Installation Directories
602
603The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
be8498a1 604appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
605questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
606slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
607you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
608from then on. Alternatively, you can
ce80d64e 609
610 grep '^install' config.sh
611
612after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
613
614The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
615people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
616distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
617need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
618you can safely skip the next section.
619
620The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
621
622=over 4
623
624=item Directories for the perl distribution
625
08854360 626By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.10.0.
ce80d64e 627$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
08854360 6285.10.0 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
ce80d64e 629determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
630variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
631
632 Configure variable Default value
633 $prefixexp /usr/local
634 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
635 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
636 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
637 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
638 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
639 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
640 $html1direxp (none)
641 $html3direxp (none)
642
643$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
644directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
645file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
646variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
647
648Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
649/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
650instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
651directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
652the common style is shown here.
653
654=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
655
656After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
657CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
658be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
659
660 Configure variable Default value
661 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
662 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
663 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
664 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
665 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
666 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
667 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
668 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
669 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
670
671By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
672modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
673
674=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
675
676Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
677distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
678for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
679
680 Configure variable Default value
681 $vendorprefixexp (none)
682 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
683 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
684 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
685 $vendorlibexp
686 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
687 $vendorarchexp
688 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
689 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
690 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
691 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
692 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
693
694These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
695a vendor might choose the following settings:
696
697 $prefix /usr
698 $siteprefix /usr/local
699 $vendorprefix /usr
700
701This would have the effect of setting the following:
702
703 $binexp /usr/bin
704 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
705 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
706 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
707 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
708 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
709
710 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
711 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
712 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
713 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
714 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
715 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
716
717 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
718 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
719 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
720 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
721 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
722 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
723
724Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
725/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
726the /usr/local hierarchy.
727
728The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
729version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
730However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
731installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
732See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
733on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
734
735Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
736example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
737are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
738site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
739network. One way to do that would be something like
740
741 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
742
743=item otherlibdirs
744
745As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
746variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
747directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
748Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
749version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
750
751For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
752installation, perhaps in a strange place:
753
754 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
755
756=item APPLLIB_EXP
757
758There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
759that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
760separated list of directories, like this
761
762 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
763
764The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
765ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
766modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
767touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
768version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
769present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
770directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
771run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
772
20ef40cf 773=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
774
775Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
776
36de116d 777 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 778
36de116d 779Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
20ef40cf 780When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
781anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
782entries to @INC.
783
ce80d64e 784=item Man Pages
785
be8498a1 786By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
787are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
788want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
ce80d64e 789
790 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
791
ce80d64e 792=item HTML pages
793
794Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
795HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
796add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
797variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
798documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
799eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
800
801=back
802
803Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
804to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
805architectures.
806
807Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
808directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
809filesystem.
c3edaffb 810
ce80d64e 811Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
812development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
813discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 814
ce80d64e 815If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
816library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
817suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 818
ce80d64e 819Thus, for example, if you Configure with
820-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 821
ce80d64e 822 Configure variable Default value
823 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
824 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
825 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
826 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 827
ce80d64e 828=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 829
ce80d64e 830Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
831associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
832will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
833sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
834However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
835packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
836wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
837management software to move perl to its final destination. This
838section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 839
be8498a1 840To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
841command line:
c3edaffb 842
ce80d64e 843 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 844
ce80d64e 845(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 846
ce80d64e 847Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
848modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
849follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
850that problem.
c3edaffb 851
ce80d64e 852=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 853
ce80d64e 854If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
855to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
856multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
857archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
858using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
859automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
860simply do:
830717a7 861
ce80d64e 862 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
863 make
864 make test
865 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
866 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
867 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 868
ce80d64e 869=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 870
ce80d64e 871After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
872answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
873person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
874system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
875to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
a0a8d9d3 876hint file for your system. This will work even if Policy.sh was
877generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 878different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3 879you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
880example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
881as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 882
ce80d64e 883Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
884answers, you should
c3edaffb 885
ce80d64e 886 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 887
ce80d64e 888to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 889
ce80d64e 890Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 891
ce80d64e 892If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
893to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
894platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 895
ce80d64e 896=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 897
ce80d64e 898Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
899installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
900and these will be used by the perl being built.
901See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 902
ce80d64e 903To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
904modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 905
ce80d64e 906 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 907
ce80d64e 908When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
909$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 910
ce80d64e 911=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 912
ce80d64e 913Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
914where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
915read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
916architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
917links) by
06c896bb 918
ce80d64e 919 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
920 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
921 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 922
ce80d64e 923This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
924pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
925unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 926
ce80d64e 927 make
06c896bb 928
ce80d64e 929as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 930
3bf462b8 931=head2 Building a debugging perl
932
933You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 934B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae 935you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
936(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
937system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
938
08854360 939 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
940
941or
942
eaf812ae 943 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
944
945For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
946for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
947to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
948
949=over 4
950
951=item -DEBUGGING=old
952
953Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
3bf462b8 954
955 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
956
203c3eec 957This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
958to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
959executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
d6baa268 960cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
961your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
962variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
963internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
964if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
965old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
966ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
967L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
203c3eec 968
969You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
970it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 971
eaf812ae 972=item -DDEBUGGING
973
974=item -DEBUGGING
975
976=item -DEBUGGING=both
977
978Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
979
980=item -DEBUGGING=-g
981
982Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
983
984=item -DEBUGGING=none
985
986Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
987
988=back
989
3bf462b8 990If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 991versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 992
8d74ce1c 993=head2 Extensions
994
80c1f5de 995Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
996in the ext/ subdirectory.
997
8d74ce1c 998By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
999to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1000only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1001Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
ce80d64e 1002is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1003set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1004
c42e3e15 1005If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1006running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1007extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1008it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1009has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1010extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1011convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1012you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1013dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1014
a522f097 1015If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1016is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1017
c42e3e15 1018You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
8d74ce1c 1019documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1020ext/ subdirectory.
1021
1022Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1023DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
ce80d64e 1024version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
1025
1026To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1027-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1028a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
1029C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1030the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1031extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1032certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1033examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1034these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c 1035
1036Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1037the extensions you want.
1038
1039Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1040DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1041this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1042releases of version 2.
1043
1044If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1045adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1046for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1047you.
1048
80c1f5de 1049Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
8d74ce1c 1050remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1051executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1052well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1053
1054=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1055
1056Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1057dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1058Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1059automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1060are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1061how to obtain the libraries.
1062
d6baa268 1063If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1064searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1065appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 1066your database libraries are not in a directory normally
d6baa268 1067searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1068the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1069See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1070
ce80d64e 1071=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c 1072
1073=over 4
1074
1075=item gdbm in /usr/local
1076
1077Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1078GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c 1079installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1080/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1081necessary steps out automatically.
1082
1083Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1084your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1085
1086When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1087-L/usr/local/lib.
1088
1089If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1090linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1091-L/usr/local/lib.
1092
d6baa268 1093Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1094you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1095/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1096
1097=item gdbm in /usr/you
1098
1099Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1100but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1101have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1102still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1103an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1104Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1105/usr/you/lib to the list.
1106
1107It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1108line):
1109
d6baa268 1110 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1111 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1112 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1113
1114locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1115Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1116
1117loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1118Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1119you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1120/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1121
d6baa268 1122 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1123 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1124 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1125
1126=back
1127
bb636fa4 1128=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1129
ce80d64e 1130A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1131compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
bb636fa4 1132following instructions.
1133
1134Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1135DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1136links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1137for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
bb636fa4 1138--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1139additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1140--prefix=/usr):
1141
1142 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1143 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1144 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1145 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1146 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
bb636fa4 1147 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1148
1149Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1150for ODBM/NDBM):
1151
1152 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1153 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1154
1155ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1156using DB 3.1.17:
1157
1158 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1159 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1160
ce80d64e 1161=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1162
1163If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
1164with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
1165
1166=head2 GNU-style configure
1167
1168If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1169use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1170
1171 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1172
1173The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1174options. Try
1175
1176 ./configure.gnu --help
1177
1178for a listing.
1179
1180(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1181that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1182
1183See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1184
1185=head2 Malloc Issues
1186
1187Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1188so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1189the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1190version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1191perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1192than your system malloc.
1193
1194However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1195experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1196that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1197(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1198
1199=over 4
1200
1201=item Using the system malloc
1202
1203To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1204
1205 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1206
1207or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1208
1209=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1210
1211NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1212run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1213
1214Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1215Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1216These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1217
1218If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1219will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1220sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1221been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1222
1223Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1224from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1225does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1226versions.
1227
1228=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1229
1230This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1231Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1232using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1233
1234 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1235
1236to enable this option.
1237
1238=back
1239
8e07c86e 1240=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1241
8d74ce1c 1242If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
40dd8381 1243If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 1244
8e07c86e 1245=over 4
1246
25f94b33 1247=item Running Configure Interactively
1248
1249If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1250Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1251guesses.
1252
1253All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1254have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1255flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 1256will use the defaults from then on.
1257
1258If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1259config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1260instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1261
aa689395 1262=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1263
a0a8d9d3 1264Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1265
1266=over 4
1267
1268=item o
1269
1270The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1271library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1272and so on.
1273
1274=item o
1275
1276The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1277although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1278resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1279
1280=item o
1281
1282How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1283speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1284implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1285often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1286
1287=back
1288
1289The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1290in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1291will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1292not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e 1293
1294Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617 1295If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1296for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1297More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3 1298file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1299
1300Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1301Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1302
edb1cbcb 1303=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1304
82c11e95 1305If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1306different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1307always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1308on your system.
edb1cbcb 1309
1310For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1311and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1312Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a 1313Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1314issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1315
1316 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1317 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1318 Keep the previous value? [y]
1319
1ec51d55 1320In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1321should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1322the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1323
8e07c86e 1324=item Changing Compilers
1325
1326If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1327probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 1328rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1329with the options you want to use.
1330
1ec51d55 1331This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1332gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1333
c3edaffb 1334=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1335
1ec51d55 1336If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1337them to all the .SH files by running
1338
1339 sh Configure -S
1340
1341You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1342
1343 make depend
1344 make
8e07c86e 1345
48370efc 1346=item config.over and config.arch
1347
1348You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1349Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1350before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1351however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1352This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1353
1354There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1355config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1356architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1357hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e 1358
1359=item config.h
1360
1ec51d55 1361Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1362Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1363The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1364
1ec51d55 1365If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1366though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 1367lost.
1368
1369=item cflags
1370
1371If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1372line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1373optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1374toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1375can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1376lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1377
f5b3b617 1378To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1379see the file hints/README.hints.
1380
1381To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1382$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55 1383
1384 sh Configure -S
1385 make depend
8e07c86e 1386
aa689395 1387=item No sh
8e07c86e 1388
c42e3e15 1389If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1390Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1391system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e 1392You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1393mechanism.
1394
d6baa268 1395=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1396
1397In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1398
1399Build a threading Perl? [n]
1400Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1401
1402This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1403(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1404"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1405to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1406being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1407'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1408(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1409
1410=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1411
1412If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1413that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1414HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1415fail
1416
1417Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1418Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1419sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1420
1421and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1422libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1423
c3edaffb 1424=item Porting information
1425
e6f03d26 1426Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 1427corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1428including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1429subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1430
7f678428 1431Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1432http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1433various other operating systems.
1434
ce80d64e 1435If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1436section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1437in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1438Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1439
8e07c86e 1440=back
1441
ce80d64e 1442=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5 1443
1444You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1445CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1446command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1447
d3df0cfd 1448 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5 1449
1450or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1451then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1452The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097 1453This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1454extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1455extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5 1456
1457Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1458modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1459or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1460do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1461
1462Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1463dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1464For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5 1465headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1466process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1467
ce80d64e 1468=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1469
ce80d64e 1470suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1471nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21 1472
1473 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1474 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1475 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1476 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1477 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1478 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1479 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1480 features of the kernel.
1481
1482Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1483of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1484software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1485should be considered deprecated.
08854360 1486
ce80d64e 1487Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
08854360 1488privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1489
8e07c86e 1490=head1 make depend
1491
bfb7748a 1492This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1493The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1494the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1495makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a 1496(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1497Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 1498
1499Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1500explicitly above.
1501
1502=head1 make
1503
1504This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1505
8d410bc4 1506=head2 Expected errors
1507
1508These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1509
1510 ...
1511 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1512 ...
1513 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1514
8d74ce1c 1515=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1516
8e07c86e 1517If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1518If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1519the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
40dd8381 1520then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8e07c86e 1521
1522=over 4
1523
1ec51d55 1524=item hints
8e07c86e 1525
1526If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1527for further tips and information.
1528
1ec51d55 1529=item extensions
8e07c86e 1530
1ec51d55 1531If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1532during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1533
3a6175e1 1534 make minitest
c3edaffb 1535
1536to test your version of miniperl.
1537
e57fd563 1538=item locale
1539
bfb7748a 1540If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1541them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1542running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1543See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1544whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a 1545The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1546
1547 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1548 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1549 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1550 LANG = (unset)
1551 are supported and installed on your system.
1552 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1553
1554at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1555
7f678428 1556=item varargs
c3edaffb 1557
1558If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a 1559correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1560gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1561in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a 1562correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1563your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1564See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1565
bfb7748a 1566=item util.c
c3edaffb 1567
1568If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1569numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1570
bfb7748a 1571 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1572 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1573 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1574
1575it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1576previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1577
1ec51d55 1578=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1579
1580If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1581the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1582Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1583fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1584of your local set-up.
1585
aa689395 1586=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1587
1588If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1589try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1590with
1591
1592 sh Configure -Uusenm
1593
1594or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1595If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1596config.sh.
1597
bfb7748a 1598=item umask not found
1599
1600If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1601is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1602Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1603this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1604try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1605
7f678428 1606=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1607
1608If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1609problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1610version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1611(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1612d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1613
1614 d_vprintf='define'
1615
1616If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a 1617on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1618the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1619
3fe9a6f1 1620=item do_aspawn
1621
1622If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1623problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a 1624fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1625on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1626
84902520 1627=item __inet_* errors
1628
1629If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1630referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1631installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1632these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1633in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721 1634newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1635If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1636with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1637test process to avoid the problem.
1638
1639=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1640
1641On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1642reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1643but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1644other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1645header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1646another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1647Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721 1648header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1649normally /usr/include).
84902520 1650
d6baa268 1651=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1652
1653This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1654gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1655changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1656rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1657update your gcc installation.
1658
aa689395 1659=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1660
9d67150a 1661If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1662optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1663
1664 optimize='-O'
1665
bfb7748a 1666to
9d67150a 1667
1668 optimize=' '
1669
1670then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1671with B<make depend; make>.
1672
4bbc1586 1673=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1674
4bbc1586 1675If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1676undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1677should look something like
1678
1679 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1680
1681The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1682need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1683will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1684need to start all over again. Run
1685
1686 make distclean
1687
1688and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1689what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1690Configure.
1691
1692If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1693L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1694
1695If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1696need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1697that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1698you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1699look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1700
1ec51d55 1701=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1702
1ec51d55 1703Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1704toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1705allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1706each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1707makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1708specific rule.
1709
7f678428 1710=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1711
c3edaffb 1712SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1713that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1714
f3d9a6ba 1715=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1716
1717If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1718the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1719then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1720Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1721systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1722For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1723unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1724they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1725reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1726process is continuing.
7f678428 1727
1728On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1729message
1730
f3d9a6ba 1731 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1732
1733then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1734the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1735extension without the -lgdbm library.
1736
1737It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1738this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1739quite that tightly coordinated.
1740
aa689395 1741=item sh: ar: not found
1742
1743This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1744was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1745make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1746is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1747directory.
1748
1749=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1750
1751Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1752with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1753bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1754
6087ac44 1755=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1756
11906ba0 1757If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44 1758V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1759also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1760to include the System V semaphores.
1761
11906ba0 1762=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621 1763
1764Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1765both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1766ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1767with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1768system.
1769
d6baa268 1770=item GNU binutils
1771
1772If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1773tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1774with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1775may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1776under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1777to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1778vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1779Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1780
16dc217a 1781=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1782
1783The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1784make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1785archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1786C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1787archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1788incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1789official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1790that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1791archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1792
16dc217a 1793=item invalid token: ##
1794
ce80d64e 1795You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1796need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1797file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1798options.
16dc217a 1799
1ec51d55 1800=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1801
1802Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1803
1804Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1805
1806NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1807
9ede5bc8 1808UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1809
11906ba0 1810FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1811configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1812you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1813
d6baa268 1814HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1815Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1816tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1817break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1818(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1819
6c8d78fb 1820Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1821installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1822and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1823the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1824view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1825to avoid the BIND.
1826
8e07c86e 1827=back
1828
58a21a9b 1829=head2 Cross-compilation
1830
e7a3c61b 1831Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1832rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1833June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1834the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1835while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1836platforms.
1837
1838What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1839cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1840up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1841(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1842awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1843version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1844cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1845
1846See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1847the particular platforms:
1848
1849=over 4
1850
1851=item WinCE/PocketPC
1852
75472953 1853README.ce
e7a3c61b 1854
1855=item Open Zaurus
1856
1857Cross/README
1858
1859=item EPOC
1860
1861README.epoc
1862
1863=item Symbian
1864
1865README.symbian
1866
1867=item OS/400
1868
1869README.os400
1870
1871=back
1872
1873Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1874modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1875cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1876platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1877L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1878of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1879
1880For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1881C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1882directory>.
1883
1884About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1885work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1886building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1887building the perl executable because that would require building
1888extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1889extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1890cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1891
1892The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1893at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1894both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1895cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1896target system.
1897
1898To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1899has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b 1900
1901 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1902
1903This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652 1904symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1905for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b 1906
1907During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1908into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1909cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1910target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1911transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1912the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1913methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1914F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1915
1916To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1917the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1918happens), supply Configure with
1919
1920 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1921
1922The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa 1923must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1924You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b 1925
1926 -Dtargetuser=luser
1927
1928but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1929
93bc48fa 1930Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1931which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1932This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1933In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1934environment:
58a21a9b 1935
1936 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1937 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1938 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1939 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1940 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1941
1942If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1943compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1944C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa 1945(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1946as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1947will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1948in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b 1949
1950In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1951choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1952for example:
1953
1954 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1955
1956Putting it all together:
1957
1958 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 1959 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1960 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b 1961 -Dtargetuser=root \
1962 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1963 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1964 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1965 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1966 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1967 -D...
1968
e7a3c61b 1969or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa 1970
1971 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1972 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1973 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1974 -D...
1975
e7a3c61b 1976Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1977F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1978
1979 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1980 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1981 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1982 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1983 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1984 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1985
8e07c86e 1986=head1 make test
1987
d6baa268 1988This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1989'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1990wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1991
84902520 1992Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1993opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1994a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1995
c4f23d77 1996=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1997
1ec51d55 1998If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1999by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 2000bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 2001
2002 ./perl op/groups.t
2003
aa689395 2004Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 2005individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 2006
2007 ./perl harness
2008
fb73857a 2009(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831 2010complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
2011need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
2012PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
2013right Perl library path:
2014
2015 setenv PERL_CORE 1
2016 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
2017 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 2018
5cda700b 2019(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 2020You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831 2021comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2022shared library path if you get errors like:
2023
2024 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2025
2026See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2027
c4f23d77 2028=over 4
2029
2030=item locale
2031
1ec51d55 2032Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2033may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 2034B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 2035one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2036LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2037are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2038
2039If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2040
2041 setenv LC_ALL C
2042
2043(for C shell) or
2044
2045 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2046
1ec51d55 2047for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2048make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2049is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2050shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 2051things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2052open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2053external program.
eed2e782 2054
0740bb5b 2055=item Timing problems
2056
c29923ff 2057Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2058sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f 2059If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2060these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2061with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2062and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2063F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2064F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2065
c4f23d77 2066=item Out of memory
2067
2068On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2069of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296 2070For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2071test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77 2072
2073Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2074
2075 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2076
2077to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2078test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2079tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2080and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2081
4f76e5ba 2082=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2083
2084First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2085real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2086
2087Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2088directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2089systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2090run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2091test').
2092
2093The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2094
2095(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2096other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2097
2098This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2099unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2100are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2101
2102(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2103by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2104UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2105add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2106used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2107set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2108file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2109others.)
2110
2111This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2112permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2113also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2114is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2115should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2116supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2117used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
211811.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2119on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2120local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2121
b2b23189 2122(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2123any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2124directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba 2125(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2126building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2127module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1 2128
2129See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2130about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2131
c4f23d77 2132=back
2133
8e07c86e 2134=head1 make install
2135
2136This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2137Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2138to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2139pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e 2140are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2141in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2142
2143If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2144similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2145and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2146by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2147
dd64f1c3 2148=head2 Installing perl under different names
2149
2150If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2151when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2152indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2153
2154 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2155
beb13193 2156You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2157"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193 2158
2159 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2160
5cda700b 2161This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2162avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2163Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2164
ce80d64e 2165=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2166
2167You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2168the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2169
2170 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2171
2172DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2173the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2174
dd64f1c3 2175=head2 Installed files
2176
8e07c86e 2177If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2178anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2179
8e07c86e 2180 ./perl installperl -n
2181 ./perl installman -n
2182
1ec51d55 2183make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2184
d56c5707 2185 binaries
2186
8e07c86e 2187 perl,
be8498a1 2188 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2189 will be a link to perl.
2190 suidperl,
be8498a1 2191 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2192 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707 2193
2194 scripts
2195
8e07c86e 2196 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2197 read from stdin.
2198 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2199 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2200 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2201 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2202 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2203 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2204 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2205 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2206 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2207 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707 2208 pod2man,
2209 pod2text,
2210 pod2checker,
2211 pod2select,
2212 pod2usage
aa689395 2213 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2214 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2215
d56c5707 2216 library files
2217
2218 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2219 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707 2220
2221 documentation
2222
d6baa268 2223 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2224 module man
2225 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e 2226 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2227
d6baa268 2228Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2229in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2230
d56c5707 2231Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2232under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531 2233optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2234program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2235
d56c5707 2236Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2237installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2238perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2239disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2240To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2241
2242 Configure -Dversiononly
2243
2244or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2245you can just manually run
2246
2247 ./perl installperl -v
2248
2249and skip installman altogether.
2250See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2251approach.
2252
aa689395 2253=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2254
fdd3cf50 2255Perl 5.10 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2256In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2257
693762b4 2258In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 22595.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
693762b4 2260all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2261around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2262For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2263with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2264top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2265#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2266
be8498a1 2267Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2268used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2269(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2270
d6baa268 2271Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2272searched by 5.005_03 are
2273
2274 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2275 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2276 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2277 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2278
0a08c020 2279Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2280fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2281searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2282
0a08c020 2283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2285 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2286 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2287
2288 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2290 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2291
c42e3e15 2292Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2293of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2294directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2295to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2296suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020 2297present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2298/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2299but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2300
c42e3e15 2301The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23025.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2303
cc65bb49 2304Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2305with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901 2306Configure defaults) will be:
2307
2308 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2309 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2310 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2311 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2312
0a08c020 2313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2314
d6baa268 2315 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2316
d6baa268 2317 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2318
cc65bb49 2319Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2320modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2321
0a08c020 2322Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 23235.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
cc65bb49 2324extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2325of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2326newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2327compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2328installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
23295.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
23305.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2331install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
23325.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020 2333
2334This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2335to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2336versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4 2337
2338=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2339
1ec51d55 2340Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2341separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020 2342won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2343libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2344way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2345
9a664500 2346 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2347
9a664500 2348and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2349may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2350scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2351
693762b4 2352Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2353(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4 2354each major version.
2355
6877a1cf 2356If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2357seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2358subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2359yet.
2360
e655887d 2361=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2362
9a664500 2363B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
e655887d 2364and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2365(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
9a664500 2366used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23675.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d 2368installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2369above.)
c42e3e15 2370
2371See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2372incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2373perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2374
aa689395 2375=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2376
d6baa268 2377Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2378system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2379header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268 2380by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2381library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2382
d6baa268 2383Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2384of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2385hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2386For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2387structures.
aa689395 2388
fb73857a 2389=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2390
3e3baf6d 2391Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2392format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2393documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2394
d6baa268 2395Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2396html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2397
fb73857a 2398The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2399perl documentation:
aa689395 2400
3e3baf6d 2401 ./installhtml \
2402 --podroot=. \
2403 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2404 --recurse \
2405 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2406 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2407 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2408 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2409 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2410 --verbose
2411
2412See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2413many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2414see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2415resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2416(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2417
fb73857a 2418You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2419the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2420
aa689395 2421=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2422
2423Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2424available in TeX format. Type
2425
2426 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2427
8ebf57cf 2428=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2429
2430The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2431Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2432operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2433
c8214fdf 2434Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b 2435Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2436space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2437Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf 2438programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2439depends on what do you need to do.
2440
8ebf57cf 2441In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2442recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2443depends on what you need.
2444
2445Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2446
2447 use strict;
2448 use warnings;
2449 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2450 print("$f\n");
2451 }
2452
bfe08c74 2453in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf 2454
2455 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74 2456 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2457 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2458 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2459 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2460 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2461
2462Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2463size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2464
bfe08c74 2465 /usr/bin/perl
2466 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2481 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2482 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2483 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2484 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2485 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2486 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2487 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2488 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2489 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2490 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2491 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2492 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2493 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2494 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2495 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2496 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2497 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2498 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2499 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2500 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2501 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2502 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2503 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2504 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2505 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2506 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2507 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2508 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2509 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2510 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2511 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2512 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2513 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2514 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2515 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2516 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2517 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74 2518 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2519 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2520 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2521 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2522 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2523 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2524 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2525 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2526 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2527 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2528 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2529 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2530 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2531 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2532 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2533 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2534 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2535 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2536 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2537 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2538 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2539 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2540 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2541 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2542 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2543 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2544 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2545 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2546 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2547 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2548 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2549 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2550 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2551 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2552 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2553 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2554
e7a3c61b 2555A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2556need to run a Perl program is
2557
a0a8d9d3 2558 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b 2559
2560(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2561it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2562use something like the below
2563
2564 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2565
2566(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2567and 'ktrace'.)
2568
8e07c86e 2569=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2570
bfb7748a 2571Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2572is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2573build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a 2574can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2575sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2576
1ec51d55 2577Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a 2578along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2579running (either):
34a2a22e 2580
2581 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2582 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 2583
2584This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2585(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2586set-up.)
34a2a22e 2587
bfb7748a 2588Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2589the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2590the documentation.
34a2a22e 2591
8e07c86e 2592=head1 AUTHOR
2593
bfb7748a 2594Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2595heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2596feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2597
f5b3b617 2598If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2599L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2600
2601=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2602
2603This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2604the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2605If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268 2606a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2607and the contact information to match your distribution.