Upgrade Module::Load::Conditional to 0.14
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
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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
62subreleases (like 5.6.x and 5.8.x) are stable maintenance releases and
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)
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
101pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
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
ce80d64e 135Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
136potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
137the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
138to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 139
ce80d64e 140=head3 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
9a664500 141Perl prior to 5.9.0.
1b1c1ae2 142
cc65bb49 143If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b 144using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
145those extensions.
1b1c1ae2 146
147Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
148without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
149L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 150L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
693762b4 151
152The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
153
ce80d64e 154On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
155in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
156pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
157installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
158list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
159way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 160
ce80d64e 161=head2 Space Requirements
eed2e782 162
9a664500 163The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 60 MB of disk space.
8756f06c 164After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 165total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
8756f06c 166directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
9a664500 167value is system-dependent. A perl build with debug symbols and
168-DDEBUGGING will require something on the order of 10 MB extra.
8e07c86e 169
aa689395 170=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 171
edb1cbcb 172If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
173with the command
174
dc45a647 175 make distclean
176
177or
178
edb1cbcb 179 make realclean
c3edaffb 180
dc45a647 181The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
182your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
183
184The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
185files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
186change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
187you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 188not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 189
d6baa268 190 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 191
e57fd563 192If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
193version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
194the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
195includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
196name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
197Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
ce80d64e 198probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't. Similarly, if you
199used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will
200probably want to adjust them as well.
e57fd563 201
d6baa268 202Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
203Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
204it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
205might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
206compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
207the architecture name.
e57fd563 208
209In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
210Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 211
d6baa268 212If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
213installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
214using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
215settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
216also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
217
218 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 219
aa689395 220=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 221
222Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
223things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268 224you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
225almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
226since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
227the same function.
228
ce80d64e 229At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 230defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 231
232After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 233*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 234
ce80d64e 235=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 236
ce80d64e 237Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 238
ce80d64e 239 Configure -h
d6baa268 240
ce80d64e 241to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 242Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
243
d6baa268 244=over 4
245
246=item gcc
247
248To compile with gcc you should run
8e07c86e 249
250 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
251
252This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
253compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
254
d6baa268 255=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 256
8e07c86e 257By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 258/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
259and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
260further details.)
261
262You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 263directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 264line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 265
25f94b33 266 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 267
d6baa268 268If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
269directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
270prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
271/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec 272for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
273or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 274
8d74ce1c 275NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
276as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
277attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 278
d6baa268 279=item /usr/bin/perl
280
281It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
282find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 283/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 284careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec 285vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
286on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
287configured may be found with
288
289 perl -V:config_args
290
291(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e 292spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
293at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 294
ce80d64e 295By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
296version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 297
7d56c962 298 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 299
7d56c962 300or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 301
ce80d64e 302In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
303(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a 304into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
305obvious and convenient place.
306
ce80d64e 307=item Building a development release.
04d420f9 308
ce80d64e 309For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
310use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
311because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
312Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
313sanity check.
d6baa268 314
315=back
8e07c86e 316
203c3eec 317If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
318output, you can run
319
320 sh Configure -des
321
ce80d64e 322For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
203c3eec 323
324 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
325
ce80d64e 326=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 327
ce80d64e 328For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
329be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
330have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
331after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
332For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
333invocations:
46bb10fb 334
2db3864f 335 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
46bb10fb 336
5247441a 337To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
338Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (that will define a config.sh
339variable, but without taking any action based upon it). When passed to the
340compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
341
ce80d64e 342For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 343
ce80d64e 344 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 345
ce80d64e 346=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 347
ce80d64e 348There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
349system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
350Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
351some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 352
ce80d64e 353=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 354
ce80d64e 355On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
356enable this, run
4633a7c4 357
ce80d64e 358 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 359
ce80d64e 360Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
361line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
cc65bb49 362
ce80d64e 363The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 364
ce80d64e 365Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
366model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since
3675.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one
368interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The 5.005
369version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and unmaintained.
d6baa268 370
ce80d64e 371By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
d6baa268 372
ce80d64e 373However, if you insist, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
d6baa268 374
ce80d64e 375 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
d6baa268 376
ce80d64e 377The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
378'Thread' module offers an interface to either 5005threads or ithreads
379(whichever has been configured).
d6baa268 380
ce80d64e 381When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
382the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
383This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
384fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
385PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
386way to do this is to run Configure with
387C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
d6baa268 388
ce80d64e 389=head3 Large file support.
b367e8b0 390
ce80d64e 391Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
3922 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
393support is on by default.
d6baa268 394
ce80d64e 395This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
396seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
397using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
398be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
399parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
400will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
401Apache extension mod_perl.
d6baa268 402
ce80d64e 403There's also one known limitation with the current large files
404implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
405section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
406like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 407
ce80d64e 408=head3 64 bit support.
d6baa268 409
ce80d64e 410If your platform does not have run natively at 64 bits, but can
411simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
412you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 413
ce80d64e 414There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
415using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
416-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
417the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 418
ce80d64e 419The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
42064-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
421longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
422your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
423does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
424might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
425you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 426
ce80d64e 427The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
428integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
429create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
430resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
431have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
432aware.
d6baa268 433
ce80d64e 434Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
435nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 436
ce80d64e 437 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
438 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
439 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
440 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
d6baa268 441
ce80d64e 442=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 443
ce80d64e 444In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
445range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
446(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
447this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 448
ce80d64e 449=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 450
ce80d64e 451You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
452and the long double support.
b367e8b0 453
ce80d64e 454=head3 Selecting File IO mechanisms
d6baa268 455
ce80d64e 456Executive summary: as of Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
457as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
273cf8d1 458
ce80d64e 459In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
460mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
461introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
462until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
463and the only supported mechanism.
d6baa268 464
ce80d64e 465Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
466abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
467instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
468implementations.
46bb10fb 469
365d6a78 470This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
471are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
472line with
46bb10fb 473
6d5328bc 474 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 475
6d5328bc 476or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 477
ce80d64e 478=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1 479
480In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
481Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 482enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1 483a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
484and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
485
86358043 486In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
487create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
488the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
489in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
490data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
491certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
492
493In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
494elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
495basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
496then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
497adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
498existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
499specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
500data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
501randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
502is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
503
504One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
505vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
506variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
507is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 508example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043 509which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
510variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
511the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 512
3debabd9 513B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043 514ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
5155. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
516be, affected by the insertion order. It is likely that Perl 5.10 and
517Perl 6 will randomise all hashes. Note that because of this
518randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
519between different runs of Perl since Data::Dumper by default dumps
520hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
521recommended.
504f80c1 522
ce80d64e 523=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5 524
525Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
526TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
527access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
528Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
529
ce80d64e 530=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 531
532By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
533your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
534statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
535you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
536
ce80d64e 537=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 538
539Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
540linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
541extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
542such as -lm.
543
9d67150a 544On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
545replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 546several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
547different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 548you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 549can share the same library.
550
551The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 552penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 553mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 554and upgrades.
555
556In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 557test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 558Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
559results.
560
561The default name for the shared library is typically something like
ce80d64e 562libperl.so.6.2 (for Perl 5.6.2), or libperl.so.602, or simply
9d67150a 563libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 564based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
565version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
566isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
567
568For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
569for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
570
571You can elect to build a shared libperl by
572
ce80d64e 573 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
574
575To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
576library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
577NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
578for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
579the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
580be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
581library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
582variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
583
584 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
585
586However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
587shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
588something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
589./perl:
590
591 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
592or
593 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
594
595then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
596You can do this with
597
598 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
599
600for Bourne-style shells, or
601
602 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
603
604for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
605unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
606again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
607
608You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
609messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
610for example:
61118126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
612
613There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
614want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
615with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
616install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
617try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
618the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
619ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
620libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
621that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
622in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
623equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
624with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
625LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
626Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
627_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
628
629In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
630with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
631previous build.
632
633A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
634architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
635You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
636point to your new architecture-dependent library.
637
575e1338 638=head3 Environment access
639
640Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
641is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
642leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
643to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
644whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
645but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
646embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 647by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
575e1338 648use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
649C<perl_construct()> call.
650
ce80d64e 651=head2 Installation Directories
652
653The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
654appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
655installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
656Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
657
658I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
659everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
660process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
661the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
662
663 grep '^install' config.sh
664
665after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
666
667The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
668people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
669distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
670need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
671you can safely skip the next section.
672
673The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
674
675=over 4
676
677=item Directories for the perl distribution
678
679By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.9.0.
680$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
6815.9.0 or 5.9.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
682determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
683variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
684
685 Configure variable Default value
686 $prefixexp /usr/local
687 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
688 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
689 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
690 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
691 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
692 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
693 $html1direxp (none)
694 $html3direxp (none)
695
696$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
697directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
698file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
699variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
700
701Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
702/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
703instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
704directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
705the common style is shown here.
706
707=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
708
709After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
710CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
711be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
712
713 Configure variable Default value
714 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
715 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
716 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
717 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
718 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
719 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
720 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
721 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
722 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
723
724By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
725modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
726
727=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
728
729Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
730distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
731for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
732
733 Configure variable Default value
734 $vendorprefixexp (none)
735 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
736 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
737 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
738 $vendorlibexp
739 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
740 $vendorarchexp
741 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
742 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
743 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
744 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
745 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
746
747These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
748a vendor might choose the following settings:
749
750 $prefix /usr
751 $siteprefix /usr/local
752 $vendorprefix /usr
753
754This would have the effect of setting the following:
755
756 $binexp /usr/bin
757 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
758 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
759 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
760 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
761 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
762
763 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
764 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
765 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
766 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
767 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
768 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
769
770 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
771 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
772 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
773 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
774 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
775 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
776
777Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
778/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
779the /usr/local hierarchy.
780
781The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
782version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
783However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
784installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
785See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
786on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
787
788Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
789example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
790are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
791site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
792network. One way to do that would be something like
793
794 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
795
796=item otherlibdirs
797
798As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
799variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
800directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
801Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
802version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
803
804For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
805installation, perhaps in a strange place:
806
807 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
808
809=item APPLLIB_EXP
810
811There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
812that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
813separated list of directories, like this
814
815 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
816
817The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
818ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
819modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
820touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
821version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
822present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
823directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
824run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
825
20ef40cf 826=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
827
828Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
829
36de116d 830 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 831
36de116d 832Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
20ef40cf 833When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
834anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
835entries to @INC.
836
ce80d64e 837=item Man Pages
838
839In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
840pages in a version-specific directory, such as
841/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
842after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
843without resetting MANPATH.
844
845You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
846
847 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.9.0/man/man3
848
849Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
850
851 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
852
853Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
854Configure.
855
856=item HTML pages
857
858Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
859HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
860add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
861variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
862documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
863eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
864
865=back
866
867Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
868to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
869architectures.
870
871Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
872directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
873filesystem.
c3edaffb 874
ce80d64e 875Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
876development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
877discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 878
ce80d64e 879If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
880library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
881suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 882
ce80d64e 883Thus, for example, if you Configure with
884-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 885
ce80d64e 886 Configure variable Default value
887 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
888 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
889 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
890 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 891
ce80d64e 892=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 893
ce80d64e 894Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
895associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
896will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
897sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
898However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
899packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
900wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
901management software to move perl to its final destination. This
902section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 903
ce80d64e 904Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
905could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
906/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
907following command line:
c3edaffb 908
ce80d64e 909 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 910
ce80d64e 911(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 912
ce80d64e 913Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
914modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
915follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
916that problem.
c3edaffb 917
ce80d64e 918=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 919
ce80d64e 920If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
921to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
922multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
923archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
924using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
925automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
926simply do:
830717a7 927
ce80d64e 928 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
929 make
930 make test
931 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
932 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
933 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 934
ce80d64e 935=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 936
ce80d64e 937After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
938answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
939person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
940system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
941to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
a0a8d9d3 942hint file for your system. This will work even if Policy.sh was
943generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 944different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3 945you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
946example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
947as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 948
ce80d64e 949Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
950answers, you should
c3edaffb 951
ce80d64e 952 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 953
ce80d64e 954to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 955
ce80d64e 956Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 957
ce80d64e 958If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
959to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
960platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 961
ce80d64e 962=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 963
ce80d64e 964Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
965installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
966and these will be used by the perl being built.
967See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 968
ce80d64e 969To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
970modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 971
ce80d64e 972 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 973
ce80d64e 974When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
975$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 976
ce80d64e 977=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 978
ce80d64e 979Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
980where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
981read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
982architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
983links) by
06c896bb 984
ce80d64e 985 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
986 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
987 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 988
ce80d64e 989This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
990pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
991unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 992
ce80d64e 993 make
06c896bb 994
ce80d64e 995as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 996
3bf462b8 997=head2 Building a debugging perl
998
999You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 1000B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae 1001you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
1002(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
1003system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
1004
1005 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
1006
1007For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
1008for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
1009to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
1010
1011=over 4
1012
1013=item -DEBUGGING=old
1014
1015Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
3bf462b8 1016
1017 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1018
203c3eec 1019This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1020to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1021executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
d6baa268 1022cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1023your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1024variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1025internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1026if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1027old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1028ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1029L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
203c3eec 1030
1031You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1032it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 1033
eaf812ae 1034=over 4
1035
1036=item -DDEBUGGING
1037
1038=item -DEBUGGING
1039
1040=item -DEBUGGING=both
1041
1042Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
1043
1044=item -DEBUGGING=-g
1045
1046Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
1047
1048=item -DEBUGGING=none
1049
1050Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
1051
1052=back
1053
3bf462b8 1054If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 1055versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1056
8d74ce1c 1057=head2 Extensions
1058
80c1f5de 1059Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1060in the ext/ subdirectory.
1061
8d74ce1c 1062By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1063to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1064only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1065Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
ce80d64e 1066is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1067set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1068
c42e3e15 1069If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1070running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1071extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1072it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1073has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1074extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1075convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1076you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1077dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1078
a522f097 1079If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1080is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1081
c42e3e15 1082You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
8d74ce1c 1083documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1084ext/ subdirectory.
1085
1086Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1087DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
ce80d64e 1088version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
1089
1090To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1091-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1092a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
1093C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1094the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1095extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1096certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1097examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1098these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c 1099
1100Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1101the extensions you want.
1102
1103Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1104DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1105this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1106releases of version 2.
1107
1108If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1109adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1110for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1111you.
1112
80c1f5de 1113Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
8d74ce1c 1114remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1115executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1116well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1117
1118=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1119
1120Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1121dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1122Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1123automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1124are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1125how to obtain the libraries.
1126
d6baa268 1127If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1128searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1129appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 1130your database libraries are not in a directory normally
d6baa268 1131searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1132the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1133See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1134
ce80d64e 1135=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c 1136
1137=over 4
1138
1139=item gdbm in /usr/local
1140
1141Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1142GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c 1143installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1144/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1145necessary steps out automatically.
1146
1147Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1148your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1149
1150When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1151-L/usr/local/lib.
1152
1153If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1154linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1155-L/usr/local/lib.
1156
d6baa268 1157Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1158you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1159/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1160
1161=item gdbm in /usr/you
1162
1163Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1164but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1165have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1166still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1167an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1168Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1169/usr/you/lib to the list.
1170
1171It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1172line):
1173
d6baa268 1174 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1175 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1176 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1177
1178locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1179Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1180
1181loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1182Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1183you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1184/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1185
d6baa268 1186 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c 1187 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1188 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1189
1190=back
1191
bb636fa4 1192=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1193
ce80d64e 1194A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1195compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
bb636fa4 1196following instructions.
1197
1198Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1199DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1200links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1201for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
bb636fa4 1202--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1203additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1204--prefix=/usr):
1205
1206 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1207 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1208 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1209 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1210 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
bb636fa4 1211 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1212
1213Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1214for ODBM/NDBM):
1215
1216 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1217 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1218
1219ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1220using DB 3.1.17:
1221
1222 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1223 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1224
ce80d64e 1225=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1226
1227If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
1228with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
1229
1230=head2 GNU-style configure
1231
1232If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1233use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1234
1235 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1236
1237The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1238options. Try
1239
1240 ./configure.gnu --help
1241
1242for a listing.
1243
1244(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1245that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1246
1247See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1248
1249=head2 Malloc Issues
1250
1251Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1252so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1253the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1254version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1255perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1256than your system malloc.
1257
1258However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1259experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1260that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1261(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1262
1263=over 4
1264
1265=item Using the system malloc
1266
1267To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1268
1269 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1270
1271or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1272
1273=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1274
1275NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1276run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1277
1278Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1279Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1280These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1281
1282If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1283will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1284sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1285been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1286
1287Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1288from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1289does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1290versions.
1291
1292=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1293
1294This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1295Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1296using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1297
1298 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1299
1300to enable this option.
1301
1302=back
1303
8e07c86e 1304=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1305
8d74ce1c 1306If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
40dd8381 1307If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 1308
8e07c86e 1309=over 4
1310
25f94b33 1311=item Running Configure Interactively
1312
1313If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1314Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1315guesses.
1316
1317All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1318have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1319flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 1320will use the defaults from then on.
1321
1322If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1323config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1324instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1325
aa689395 1326=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1327
a0a8d9d3 1328Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1329
1330=over 4
1331
1332=item o
1333
1334The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1335library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1336and so on.
1337
1338=item o
1339
1340The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1341although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1342resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1343
1344=item o
1345
1346How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1347speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1348implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1349often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1350
1351=back
1352
1353The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1354in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1355will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1356not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e 1357
1358Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617 1359If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1360for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1361More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3 1362file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1363
1364Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1365Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1366
edb1cbcb 1367=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1368
82c11e95 1369If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1370different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1371always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1372on your system.
edb1cbcb 1373
1374For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1375and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1376Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a 1377Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1378issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1379
1380 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1381 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1382 Keep the previous value? [y]
1383
1ec51d55 1384In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1385should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1386the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1387
8e07c86e 1388=item Changing Compilers
1389
1390If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1391probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 1392rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1393with the options you want to use.
1394
1ec51d55 1395This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1396gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1397
c3edaffb 1398=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1399
1ec51d55 1400If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1401them to all the .SH files by running
1402
1403 sh Configure -S
1404
1405You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1406
1407 make depend
1408 make
8e07c86e 1409
48370efc 1410=item config.over and config.arch
1411
1412You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1413Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1414before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1415however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1416This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1417
1418There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1419config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1420architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1421hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e 1422
1423=item config.h
1424
1ec51d55 1425Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1426Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1427The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1428
1ec51d55 1429If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1430though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 1431lost.
1432
1433=item cflags
1434
1435If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1436line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1437optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1438toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1439can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1440lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1441
f5b3b617 1442To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1443see the file hints/README.hints.
1444
1445To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1446$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55 1447
1448 sh Configure -S
1449 make depend
8e07c86e 1450
aa689395 1451=item No sh
8e07c86e 1452
c42e3e15 1453If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1454Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1455system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e 1456You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1457mechanism.
1458
d6baa268 1459=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1460
1461In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1462
1463Build a threading Perl? [n]
1464Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1465
1466This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1467(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1468"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1469to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1470being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1471'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1472(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1473
1474=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1475
1476If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1477that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1478HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1479fail
1480
1481Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1482Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1483sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1484
1485and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1486libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1487
c3edaffb 1488=item Porting information
1489
e6f03d26 1490Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 1491corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1492including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1493subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1494
7f678428 1495Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1496http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1497various other operating systems.
1498
ce80d64e 1499If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1500section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1501in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1502Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1503
8e07c86e 1504=back
1505
ce80d64e 1506=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5 1507
1508You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1509CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1510command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1511
1512 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1513
1514or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1515then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1516The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097 1517This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1518extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1519extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5 1520
1521Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1522modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1523or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1524do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1525
1526Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1527dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1528For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1529library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1530headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1531process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1532
ce80d64e 1533=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1534
ce80d64e 1535suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1536nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21 1537
1538 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1539 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1540 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1541 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1542 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1543 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1544 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1545 features of the kernel.
1546
1547Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1548of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1549software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1550should be considered deprecated.
ce80d64e 1551Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
1552privileges, such as B<sudo>, http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ .
03739d21 1553
8e07c86e 1554=head1 make depend
1555
bfb7748a 1556This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1557The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1558the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1559makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a 1560(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1561Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 1562
1563Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1564explicitly above.
1565
1566=head1 make
1567
1568This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1569
8d410bc4 1570=head2 Expected errors
1571
1572These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1573
1574 ...
1575 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1576 ...
1577 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1578
8d74ce1c 1579=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1580
8e07c86e 1581If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1582If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1583the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
40dd8381 1584then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8e07c86e 1585
1586=over 4
1587
1ec51d55 1588=item hints
8e07c86e 1589
1590If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1591for further tips and information.
1592
1ec51d55 1593=item extensions
8e07c86e 1594
1ec51d55 1595If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1596during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1597
3a6175e1 1598 make minitest
c3edaffb 1599
1600to test your version of miniperl.
1601
e57fd563 1602=item locale
1603
bfb7748a 1604If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1605them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1606running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1607See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1608whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a 1609The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1610
1611 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1612 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1613 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1614 LANG = (unset)
1615 are supported and installed on your system.
1616 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1617
1618at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1619
7f678428 1620=item varargs
c3edaffb 1621
1622If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a 1623correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1624gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1625in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a 1626correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1627your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1628See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1629
bfb7748a 1630=item util.c
c3edaffb 1631
1632If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1633numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1634
bfb7748a 1635 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1636 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1637 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1638
1639it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1640previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1641
1ec51d55 1642=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1643
1644If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1645the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1646Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1647fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1648of your local set-up.
1649
aa689395 1650=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1651
1652If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1653try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1654with
1655
1656 sh Configure -Uusenm
1657
1658or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1659If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1660config.sh.
1661
bfb7748a 1662=item umask not found
1663
1664If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1665is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1666Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1667this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1668try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1669
7f678428 1670=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1671
1672If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1673problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1674version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1675(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1676d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1677
1678 d_vprintf='define'
1679
1680If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a 1681on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1682the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1683
3fe9a6f1 1684=item do_aspawn
1685
1686If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1687problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a 1688fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1689on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1690
84902520 1691=item __inet_* errors
1692
1693If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1694referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1695installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1696these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1697in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721 1698newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1699If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1700with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1701test process to avoid the problem.
1702
1703=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1704
1705On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1706reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1707but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1708other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1709header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1710another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1711Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721 1712header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1713normally /usr/include).
84902520 1714
d6baa268 1715=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1716
1717This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1718gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1719changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1720rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1721update your gcc installation.
1722
aa689395 1723=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1724
9d67150a 1725If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1726optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1727
1728 optimize='-O'
1729
bfb7748a 1730to
9d67150a 1731
1732 optimize=' '
1733
1734then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1735with B<make depend; make>.
1736
4bbc1586 1737=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1738
4bbc1586 1739If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1740undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1741should look something like
1742
1743 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1744
1745The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1746need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1747will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1748need to start all over again. Run
1749
1750 make distclean
1751
1752and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1753what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1754Configure.
1755
1756If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1757L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1758
1759If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1760need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1761that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1762you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1763look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1764
1ec51d55 1765=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1766
1ec51d55 1767Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1768toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1769allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1770each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1771makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1772specific rule.
1773
7f678428 1774=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1775
c3edaffb 1776SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1777that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1778
f3d9a6ba 1779=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1780
1781If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1782the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1783then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1784Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1785systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1786For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1787unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1788they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1789reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1790process is continuing.
7f678428 1791
1792On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1793message
1794
f3d9a6ba 1795 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1796
1797then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1798the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1799extension without the -lgdbm library.
1800
1801It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1802this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1803quite that tightly coordinated.
1804
aa689395 1805=item sh: ar: not found
1806
1807This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1808was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1809make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1810is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1811directory.
1812
1813=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1814
1815Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1816with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1817bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1818
6087ac44 1819=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1820
11906ba0 1821If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44 1822V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1823also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1824to include the System V semaphores.
1825
11906ba0 1826=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621 1827
1828Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1829both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1830ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1831with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1832system.
1833
d6baa268 1834=item GNU binutils
1835
1836If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1837tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1838with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1839may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1840under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1841to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1842vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1843Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1844
16dc217a 1845=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1846
1847The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1848make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1849archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1850C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1851archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1852incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1853official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1854that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1855archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1856
16dc217a 1857=item invalid token: ##
1858
ce80d64e 1859You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1860need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1861file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1862options.
16dc217a 1863
1ec51d55 1864=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1865
1866Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1867
1868Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1869
1870NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1871
9ede5bc8 1872UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1873
11906ba0 1874FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1875configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1876you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1877
d6baa268 1878HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1879Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1880tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1881break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1882(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1883
6c8d78fb 1884Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1885installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1886and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1887the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1888view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1889to avoid the BIND.
1890
8e07c86e 1891=back
1892
58a21a9b 1893=head2 Cross-compilation
1894
e7a3c61b 1895Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1896rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1897June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1898the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1899while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1900platforms.
1901
1902What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1903cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1904up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1905(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1906awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1907version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1908cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1909
1910See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1911the particular platforms:
1912
1913=over 4
1914
1915=item WinCE/PocketPC
1916
75472953 1917README.ce
e7a3c61b 1918
1919=item Open Zaurus
1920
1921Cross/README
1922
1923=item EPOC
1924
1925README.epoc
1926
1927=item Symbian
1928
1929README.symbian
1930
1931=item OS/400
1932
1933README.os400
1934
1935=back
1936
1937Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1938modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1939cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1940platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1941L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1942of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1943
1944For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1945C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1946directory>.
1947
1948About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1949work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1950building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1951building the perl executable because that would require building
1952extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1953extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1954cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1955
1956The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1957at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1958both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1959cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1960target system.
1961
1962To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1963has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b 1964
1965 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1966
1967This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652 1968symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1969for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b 1970
1971During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1972into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1973cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1974target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1975transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1976the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1977methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1978F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1979
1980To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1981the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1982happens), supply Configure with
1983
1984 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1985
1986The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa 1987must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1988You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b 1989
1990 -Dtargetuser=luser
1991
1992but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1993
93bc48fa 1994Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1995which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1996This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1997In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1998environment:
58a21a9b 1999
2000 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
2001 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
2002 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
2003 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
2004 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
2005
2006If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
2007compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
2008C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa 2009(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
2010as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
2011will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
2012in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b 2013
2014In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
2015choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
2016for example:
2017
2018 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
2019
2020Putting it all together:
2021
2022 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 2023 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2024 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b 2025 -Dtargetuser=root \
2026 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
2027 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2028 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2029 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2030 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
2031 -D...
2032
e7a3c61b 2033or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa 2034
2035 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2036 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2037 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2038 -D...
2039
e7a3c61b 2040Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
2041F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
2042
2043 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2044 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2045 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
2046 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2047 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2048 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
2049
8e07c86e 2050=head1 make test
2051
d6baa268 2052This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
2053'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
2054wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 2055
84902520 2056Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 2057opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
2058a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 2059
c4f23d77 2060=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
2061
1ec51d55 2062If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
2063by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 2064bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 2065
2066 ./perl op/groups.t
2067
aa689395 2068Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 2069individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 2070
2071 ./perl harness
2072
fb73857a 2073(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831 2074complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
2075need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
2076PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
2077right Perl library path:
2078
2079 setenv PERL_CORE 1
2080 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
2081 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 2082
5cda700b 2083(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 2084You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831 2085comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2086shared library path if you get errors like:
2087
2088 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2089
2090See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2091
c4f23d77 2092=over 4
2093
2094=item locale
2095
1ec51d55 2096Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2097may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 2098B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 2099one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2100LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2101are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2102
2103If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2104
2105 setenv LC_ALL C
2106
2107(for C shell) or
2108
2109 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2110
1ec51d55 2111for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2112make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2113is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2114shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 2115things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2116open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2117external program.
eed2e782 2118
0740bb5b 2119=item Timing problems
2120
c29923ff 2121Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2122sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f 2123If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2124these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2125with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2126and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2127F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2128F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2129
c4f23d77 2130=item Out of memory
2131
2132On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2133of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296 2134For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2135test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77 2136
2137Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2138
2139 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2140
2141to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2142test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2143tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2144and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2145
4f76e5ba 2146=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2147
2148First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2149real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2150
2151Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2152directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2153systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2154run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2155test').
2156
2157The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2158
2159(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2160other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2161
2162This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2163unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2164are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2165
2166(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2167by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2168UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2169add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2170used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2171set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2172file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2173others.)
2174
2175This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2176permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2177also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2178is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2179should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2180supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2181used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
218211.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2183on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2184local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2185
b2b23189 2186(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2187any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2188directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba 2189(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2190building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2191module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1 2192
2193See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2194about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2195
c4f23d77 2196=back
2197
8e07c86e 2198=head1 make install
2199
2200This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2201Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2202to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2203pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e 2204are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2205in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2206
2207If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2208similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2209and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2210by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2211
dd64f1c3 2212=head2 Installing perl under different names
2213
2214If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2215when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2216indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2217
2218 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2219
beb13193 2220You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2221"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2222
2223 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2224
5cda700b 2225This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2226avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2227Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
beb13193 2228
ce80d64e 2229=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2230
2231You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2232the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2233
2234 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2235
2236DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2237the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2238
2239
dd64f1c3 2240=head2 Installed files
2241
8e07c86e 2242If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2243anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2244
8e07c86e 2245 ./perl installperl -n
2246 ./perl installman -n
2247
1ec51d55 2248make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2249
d56c5707 2250 binaries
2251
8e07c86e 2252 perl,
2253 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
2254 will be a link to perl.
2255 suidperl,
2256 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
2257 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707 2258
2259 scripts
2260
8e07c86e 2261 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2262 read from stdin.
2263 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2264 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2265 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2266 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2267 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2268 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2269 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2270 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2271 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2272 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707 2273 pod2man,
2274 pod2text,
2275 pod2checker,
2276 pod2select,
2277 pod2usage
aa689395 2278 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2279 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2280
d56c5707 2281 library files
2282
2283 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2284 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707 2285
2286 documentation
2287
d6baa268 2288 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2289 module man
2290 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e 2291 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2292
d6baa268 2293Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2294in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2295
d56c5707 2296Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2297under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531 2298optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2299program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2300
d56c5707 2301Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2302installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2303perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2304disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2305To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2306
2307 Configure -Dversiononly
2308
2309or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2310you can just manually run
2311
2312 ./perl installperl -v
2313
2314and skip installman altogether.
2315See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2316approach.
2317
aa689395 2318=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2319
9a664500 2320Perl 5.9 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2321In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2322
693762b4 2323In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 23245.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
693762b4 2325all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2326around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2327For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2328with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2329top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2330#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2331
ce80d64e 2332Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
2333with a newer version of Perl Here is how it is supposed to work.
2334(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2335
d6baa268 2336Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2337searched by 5.005_03 are
2338
2339 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2340 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2341 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2342 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2343
0a08c020 2344Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2345fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2346searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2347
0a08c020 2348 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2349 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2350 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2351 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2352
2353 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2354 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2355 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2356
c42e3e15 2357Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2358of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2359directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2360to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2361suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020 2362present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2363/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2364but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2365
c42e3e15 2366The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23675.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2368
cc65bb49 2369Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2370with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901 2371Configure defaults) will be:
2372
2373 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2374 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2375 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2376 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2377
0a08c020 2378 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2379
d6baa268 2380 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2381
d6baa268 2382 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2383
cc65bb49 2384Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2385modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2386
0a08c020 2387Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 23885.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
cc65bb49 2389extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2390of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2391newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2392compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2393installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
23945.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
23955.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2396install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
23975.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020 2398
2399This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2400to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2401versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4 2402
2403=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2404
1ec51d55 2405Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2406separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020 2407won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2408libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2409way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2410
9a664500 2411 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2412
9a664500 2413and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2414may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2415scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2416
693762b4 2417Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2418(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4 2419each major version.
2420
6877a1cf 2421If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2422seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2423subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2424yet.
2425
e655887d 2426=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2427
9a664500 2428B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
e655887d 2429and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2430(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
9a664500 2431used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24325.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d 2433installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2434above.)
c42e3e15 2435
2436See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2437incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2438perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2439
8e07c86e 2440=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2441
2442You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2443
1ec51d55 2444By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2445they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 2446
2447In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2448perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 2449process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2450However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268 2451the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
4dc3e0af 2452whatever the appropriate pathname is). See L<perltrap> for
d6baa268 2453possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2454
aa689395 2455=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2456
d6baa268 2457Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2458system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2459header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268 2460by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2461library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2462
d6baa268 2463Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2464of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2465hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2466For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2467structures.
aa689395 2468
fb73857a 2469=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2470
3e3baf6d 2471Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2472format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2473documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2474
d6baa268 2475Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2476html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2477
fb73857a 2478The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2479perl documentation:
aa689395 2480
3e3baf6d 2481 ./installhtml \
2482 --podroot=. \
2483 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2484 --recurse \
2485 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2486 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2487 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2488 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2489 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2490 --verbose
2491
2492See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2493many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2494see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2495resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2496(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2497
fb73857a 2498You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2499the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2500
aa689395 2501=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2502
2503Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2504available in TeX format. Type
2505
2506 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2507
8ebf57cf 2508=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2509
2510The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2511Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2512operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2513
c8214fdf 2514Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b 2515Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2516space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2517Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf 2518programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2519depends on what do you need to do.
2520
8ebf57cf 2521In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2522recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2523depends on what you need.
2524
2525Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2526
2527 use strict;
2528 use warnings;
2529 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2530 print("$f\n");
2531 }
2532
bfe08c74 2533in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf 2534
2535 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74 2536 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2537 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2538 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2539 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2540 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2541
2542Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2543size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2544
bfe08c74 2545 /usr/bin/perl
2546 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2547 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2548 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2549 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2550 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2551 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2552 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2553 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2554 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2555 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2556 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2557 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2558 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2559 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2560 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2561 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2562 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2563 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2564 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2565 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2566 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2567 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2568 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2569 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2570 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2571 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2572 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2573 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2574 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2575 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2576 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2577 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2578 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2579 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2580 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2581 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2582 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2583 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2584 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2585 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2586 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2587 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2588 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2589 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2590 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2591 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2592 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2593 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2594 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2595 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2596 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2597 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74 2598 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2599 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2600 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2601 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2602 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2603 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2604 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2605 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2606 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2607 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2608 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2609 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2610 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2611 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2612 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2613 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2614 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2615 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2616 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2617 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2618 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2619 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2620 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2621 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2622 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2623 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2624 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2625 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2626 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2627 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2628 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2629 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2630 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2631 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2632 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2633 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2634
e7a3c61b 2635A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2636need to run a Perl program is
2637
a0a8d9d3 2638 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b 2639
2640(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2641it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2642use something like the below
2643
2644 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2645
2646(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2647and 'ktrace'.)
2648
8e07c86e 2649=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2650
bfb7748a 2651Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2652is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2653build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a 2654can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2655sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2656
1ec51d55 2657Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a 2658along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2659running (either):
34a2a22e 2660
2661 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2662 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 2663
2664This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2665(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2666set-up.)
34a2a22e 2667
bfb7748a 2668Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2669the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2670the documentation.
34a2a22e 2671
8e07c86e 2672=head1 AUTHOR
2673
bfb7748a 2674Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2675heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2676feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2677
f5b3b617 2678If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2679L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2680
2681=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2682
2683This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2684the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2685If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268 2686a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2687and the contact information to match your distribution.