5.004_65: the infamous semctl()
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / INSTALL
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8e07c86e 1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
8e07c86e 8
dc45a647 9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
8e07c86e 10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 17 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e 19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7beaa944 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 24
7beaa944 25For information on what's new in this release, see the
26pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 28
1ec51d55 29=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55 33read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
34by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
35
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
37 C<code> literal code
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
39
40You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
41proceeding.
c3edaffb 42
eed2e782 43If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
46
203c3eec 47If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
50
693762b4 51=head1 NOTE: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
52
53For Perl 5.004 it was possible to be binary compatible with 5.003.
54Starting from Perl 5.004_50 this is no longer possible because there were
55many deep and far-reaching changes to the language internals.
56
57If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under perl
585.003 or 5.004 and the so-called 'bincompat3' mode (the default mode)
59and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.005, you may need to
60reinstall the extensions. If you wish to continue to support both 5.004
61and 5.005 on your system, you will have to move the 5.004 extensions
62over to the 5.004 architecture-dependent library. See the discussion
63below on L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.">
64
65The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
66
67In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
68changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
69pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
70
aa689395 71=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 72
dc45a647 73The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
74complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
1ec51d55 75actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
dc45a647 76directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 77value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 78
aa689395 79=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 80
edb1cbcb 81If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
82with the command
83
dc45a647 84 make distclean
85
86or
87
edb1cbcb 88 make realclean
c3edaffb 89
dc45a647 90The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
91your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
92
93The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
94files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
95change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
96you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
97not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
8e07c86e 98
99 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 100
e57fd563 101If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
102version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
103the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
104includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
105name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
106Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
107probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
108Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
109numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
110
111Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
1ec51d55 112(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
113pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
e57fd563 114
115In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
116Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 117
dc45a647 118If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
119particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
120same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
121L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
122
aa689395 123=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e 124
125Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
126things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
1ec51d55 127you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
a3cb178b 128is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
203c3eec 129and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
8e07c86e 130
131After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 132*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 133
fb73857a 134Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
135get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
138To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
8e07c86e 139
140 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
141
142This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
143compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
144
4633a7c4 145If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
146with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
147
8e07c86e 148By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
149/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
150the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
151using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
152e.g.
153
25f94b33 154 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 155
156If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
157are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
158then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 159/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 160
84902520 161NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
162your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
163infinite recursion.
164
a3cb178b 165It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
166easily find it. When possible, it's good for both /usr/bin/perl and
167/usr/local/bin/perl to be symlinks to the actual binary. If that can't
168be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
169(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
170into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
171obvious and convenient place.
172
4682965a 173It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
174easily find it. When possible, it's good for both /usr/bin/perl and
175/usr/local/bin/perl to be symlinks to the actual binary. If that can't
176be done, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
177(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
178into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
179obvious and convenient place.
180
aa689395 181By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 182your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531 183statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
184you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 185
203c3eec 186If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
187output, you can run
188
189 sh Configure -des
190
191For my Solaris system, I usually use
192
193 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
194
46bb10fb 195=head2 GNU-style configure
196
1ec51d55 197If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 198use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 199
693762b4 200 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 201
dc45a647 202The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb 203options. Try
204
693762b4 205 ./configure.gnu --help
46bb10fb 206
207for a listing.
208
aa689395 209Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb 210
dc45a647 211(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 212that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 213
24b3df7f 214=head2 Extensions
215
edb1cbcb 216By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
217to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
218only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
693762b4 219B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
220Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
221is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
222set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
223the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
224built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 225useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 226
1ec51d55 227You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
228documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
229ext/ subdirectory.
230
56c6f531 231Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
232DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
233version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
234
24b3df7f 235In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
236to turn off each extension:
237
693762b4 238 B (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 239 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 240 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 241 Fcntl (Always included by default)
242 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 243 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 244 NDBM_File i_ndbm
245 ODBM_File i_dbm
246 POSIX useposix
247 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 248 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 249 Socket d_socket
693762b4 250 Threads usethreads
251 attrs (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 252
253Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
254
255 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
256
257Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
258library.
259
260Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 261the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 262
693762b4 263Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
264DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
265this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
1ec51d55 266
dc45a647 267If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
268adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
269for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
270you.
271
24b3df7f 272Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
273remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
274executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
275well build all the ones that will work on your system.
276
8e07c86e 277=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
278
4633a7c4 279Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
280dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
281Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
282automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1ec51d55 283are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
4633a7c4 284how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 285
1ec51d55 286Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
8e07c86e 287directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
1ec51d55 288include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 289Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
290normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
1ec51d55 291include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
8e07c86e 292Configure. See the examples below.
293
294=head2 Examples
295
296=over 4
297
aa689395 298=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e 299
300Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1ec51d55 301GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
302installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
303/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
8e07c86e 304necessary steps out automatically.
305
306Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1ec51d55 307your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
8e07c86e 308
309When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1ec51d55 310-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 311
312If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
313linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1ec51d55 314-L/usr/local/lib.
8e07c86e 315
316Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
317defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
318messages, then you can just run
319
320 sh Configure -des
321
322and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
323
324This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
325(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
326
327=item gdbm in /usr/you
328
329Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
330but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1ec51d55 331have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
332still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
333an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
8e07c86e 334Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1ec51d55 335/usr/you/lib to the list.
8e07c86e 336
337It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
338line):
339
340 sh Configure -des \
341 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
342 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
343
1ec51d55 344locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
345Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
8e07c86e 346
1ec51d55 347loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
348Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
349you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
350/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
8e07c86e 351
352 sh Configure -des \
353 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
354 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
355
356=back
357
aa689395 358=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4 359
360The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
361appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
362installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
363
7beaa944 364I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
365everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
366process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
367will use the defaults from then on.
1ec51d55 368
4633a7c4 369By default, Configure uses the following directories for
370library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
371by Configure)
372
46bb10fb 373 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 374 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 375 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
376 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
4633a7c4 377
378and the following directories for manual pages:
379
380 /usr/local/man/man1
381 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
382
383(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
384/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
fb73857a 385instead.)
386
387The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
4633a7c4 388they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
389and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
390systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
fb73857a 391page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
392change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
1ec51d55 393
394Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
395/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
396
397 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
398
399Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
400
401 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
4633a7c4 402
403If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 404directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
405-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 406
46bb10fb 407 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 408 /opt/perl/lib
409 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
410 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
411
412 /opt/perl/man/man1
413 /opt/perl/man/man3
414
415The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
416above.
417
418The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
419intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
693762b4 420will automatically look in these directories.
4633a7c4 421
46bb10fb 422In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
4633a7c4 423a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
424stored in a version-specific directory, such as
693762b4 425/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/.
4633a7c4 426
427Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
428Configure.
429
aa689395 430=head2 Changing the installation directory
431
432Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
433associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
434will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
435sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 436However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
aa689395 437packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
438use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
439This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
440an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
441
0dcb58f4 442Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
443can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
444/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
445process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
446run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
aa689395 447
448 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
449 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
450 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
451 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
452 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
453 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
454 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
455 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
456 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
457 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
458 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
459
460Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
461
462 sh Configure -des
463 make
464 make test
465 make install
466
693762b4 467Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
468extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
469follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
470that problem.
471
aa689395 472=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
473
474If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
475convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
476installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
477
478 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
479 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
480 sh Configure -des
481 make
482 make test
483 make install
484 cd /tmp/perl5
fb73857a 485 # Edit lib/<archname>/<version>/Config.pm to change all the
486 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
487 # really be installed.
aa689395 488 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
489 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
490 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
491 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
492
dc45a647 493=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
693762b4 494
495After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
496answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
497person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
498system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
499to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
500hint file for your system.
501
dc45a647 502Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
503answers, you should
504
505 rm -f Policy.sh
506
507to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
508
509Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
510
aa689395 511=head2 Configure-time Options
512
513There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
514system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
515Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
516some of the main things you can change.
517
d5cd9753 518=head2 Installing perl under different names
519
520If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
521when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
522indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
523
524 make install PERLNAME=myperl
525
693762b4 526=head2 Threads
aa689395 527
693762b4 528On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
529enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
f7542a9d 530
693762b4 531 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 532
693762b4 533Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
534line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
535
536The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 537
46bb10fb 538=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
539
540Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 541stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
46bb10fb 542mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
543the default and is the only supported mechanism.
544
545This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
546line with
547
548 sh Configure -Duseperlio
549
550or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
551
552If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
553(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
554tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
555everywhere.
556
557=over 4
558
559=item 1.
560
1ec51d55 561AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 562cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb 563currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
564Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
565extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
566configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
567
568This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
569A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
570it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
571
572You select this option by
573
574 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
575
576If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
577that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
578Configure.
579
1ec51d55 580Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
581to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
33e6ee5f 582Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
583and SunOS 4.
584
585You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
586script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
587portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
588
589 #!/bin/sh
590 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
591 #include <stdio.h>
592 main() { printf("42\n"); }
593 EOCP
594 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
595 val=`./try`
596 if test X$val = X42; then
597 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
598 else
599 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
600 fi
601
602If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
603and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
604your platform.)
605
606There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
607problem.
608
46bb10fb 609=item 2.
610
611Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
612abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
613extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
614abstraction.
615
616This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
617
aa689395 618You select this option via:
46bb10fb 619
620 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
621
622If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
623detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
624
625=back
626
aa689395 627=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 628
629Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
630linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
631extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
632such as -lm.
633
9d67150a 634On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
635replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 636several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
637different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 638you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 639can share the same library.
640
641The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 642penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 643mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 644and upgrades.
645
646In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 647test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 648Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
649results.
650
651The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 652libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 653libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 654based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
655version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
656isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
657
658For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
659for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
660
661You can elect to build a shared libperl by
662
663 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
664
665To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 666LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 667this with
668
669 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
670
671for Bourne-style shells, or
672
673 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
674
675for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
676Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
677LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
678
9d67150a 679There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
680want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
681with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 682install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
683try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 684the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
685ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 686libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 687that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531 688in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
689equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 690with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 691override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 692to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 693
694The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
695directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 696version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
9d67150a 697variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
698installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
699
55479bb6 700=head2 Malloc Issues
701
702Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
703perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
704the malloc function on your system.
705
706The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
707but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
693762b4 708malloc() function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
55479bb6 709
710For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
711the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
712with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
713(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
714if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
715third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
716your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
717malloc flags discussed below.)
718
719To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
720
721 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
722
723or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
724
aa689395 725=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 726
55479bb6 727If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
1ec51d55 728more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
55479bb6 729to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
1ec51d55 730more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
55479bb6 731In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
c3edaffb 732
aa689395 733=over 4
734
84902520 735=item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
2ae324a7 736
84902520 737If PERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
2ae324a7 738fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
1ec51d55 739variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
aa689395 740
741=item -DPACK_MALLOC
742
1ec51d55 743If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 744algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
745allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
aa689395 746
1ec51d55 747The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
55479bb6 748about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
749additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
750to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
aa689395 751
752=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
753
1ec51d55 754If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
55479bb6 755algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
756(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
757special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
758manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
759might be wise to define this macro.
aa689395 760
55479bb6 761The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
762require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
aa689395 763negligible.
764
765=back
766
3bf462b8 767=head2 Building a debugging perl
768
769You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 770B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8 771you probably want to do
772
773 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
774
203c3eec 775This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
776to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
777executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
a3cb178b 778cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
203c3eec 779system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
1ec51d55 780config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
203c3eec 781state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
1ec51d55 782default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
783reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
3fe9a6f1 784optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
203c3eec 785as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
786
787You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
788it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 789
790If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
791versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
792
aa689395 793=head2 Other Compiler Flags
794
795For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
796you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
1ec51d55 797by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
aa689395 798config.sh.
799
800For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
801perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
802following:
803
804 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
805
203c3eec 806or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
807at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
808me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
809different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
810
811You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
812doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
813shouldn't do that, but some might.)
c3edaffb 814
8e07c86e 815=head2 What if it doesn't work?
816
817=over 4
818
25f94b33 819=item Running Configure Interactively
820
821If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
822Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
823guesses.
824
825All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 826have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 827flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33 828will use the defaults from then on.
829
830If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
831config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
832instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
833
aa689395 834=item Hint files
8e07c86e 835
836The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
837in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
838will offer to use that hint file.
839
840Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
841If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
1ec51d55 842file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
8e07c86e 843extensive example.
844
edb1cbcb 845=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
846
847Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
8484.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
849standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
850will see a message:
851
852 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
853 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
854 Keep the recommended value? [y]
855
856You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
857relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
858overriding it.
859
860If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
861used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
862to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
863system.
864
865For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
866and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
867Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
868Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
869
870 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
871 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
872 Keep the previous value? [y]
873
1ec51d55 874In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 875should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 876the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
877
8e07c86e 878=item Changing Compilers
879
880If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 881probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e 882rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
883with the options you want to use.
884
1ec51d55 885This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
886gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 887
c3edaffb 888=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 889
1ec51d55 890If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
891them to all the .SH files by running
892
893 sh Configure -S
894
895You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 896
897 make depend
898 make
8e07c86e 899
900=item config.over
901
902You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
903guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
904is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 905does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 906L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e 907
908=item config.h
909
1ec51d55 910Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
911Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
912The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 913
1ec51d55 914If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
915though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e 916lost.
917
918=item cflags
919
920If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 921line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
922optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
923toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
924can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
925lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 926
1ec51d55 927To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
928and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
929and then re-run
930
931 sh Configure -S
932 make depend
8e07c86e 933
aa689395 934=item No sh
8e07c86e 935
dfe9444c 936If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
937to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
8e07c86e 938You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
939mechanism.
940
c3edaffb 941=item Porting information
942
2ae324a7 943Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55 944corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
945including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c3edaffb 946subdirectory.
947
7f678428 948Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 949http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 950various other operating systems.
951
8e07c86e 952=back
953
954=head1 make depend
955
956This will look for all the includes.
1ec51d55 957The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
958Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
959makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
960makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
961makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
c3edaffb 962a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
963if in doubt.)
8e07c86e 964
965Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
966explicitly above.
967
968=head1 make
969
970This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
971
972If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 973If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
974the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
975send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
976perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 977See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e 978
979=over 4
980
1ec51d55 981=item hints
8e07c86e 982
983If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
984for further tips and information.
985
1ec51d55 986=item extensions
8e07c86e 987
1ec51d55 988If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 989during the building of extensions, you should run
990
991 make minitest
992
993to test your version of miniperl.
994
e57fd563 995=item locale
996
997If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
998unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
999while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
3e6e419a 1000locale. See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales
1001and the whole L<Locale problems> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1002The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1003
1004 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1005 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1006 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1007 LANG = (unset)
1008 are supported and installed on your system.
1009 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1010
1011at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1012
1ec51d55 1013=item malloc duplicates
c3edaffb 1014
dc45a647 1015If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DEMBEDMYMALLOC
1016to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 1017
7f678428 1018=item varargs
c3edaffb 1019
1020If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1021correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
1022and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
1023running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 1024forget to propagate your changes (see
1025L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1026See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1027
1ec51d55 1028=item croak
c3edaffb 1029
1030If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1031numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
1032
1033 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
1034 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1035 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
1036
1037it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1038previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1039
9d67150a 1040=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 1041
1042If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1043Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 1044-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 1045$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
6877a1cf 1046and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1047Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 1048environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 1049your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1050the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1051
7beaa944 1052One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1053invoke Configure with
1054
1055 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1056
1057for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1058instead.
1059
84902520 1060Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1061include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1062config.sh.
1063
9d67150a 1064=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1065
1066If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1067it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1068L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1069
1ec51d55 1070=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1071
1072If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1073the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1074Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1075fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1076of your local set-up.
1077
1078=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1079
1080The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1081that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1082which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1083
aa689395 1084The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1085actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1086failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1087"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1088functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1089
aa689395 1090=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1091
1092If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1093try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1094with
1095
1096 sh Configure -Uusenm
1097
1098or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1099If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1100config.sh.
1101
7f678428 1102=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1103
1104If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1105problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1106version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1107(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1108d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1109
1110 d_vprintf='define'
1111
1112If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1113on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
1114re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
1115
3fe9a6f1 1116=item do_aspawn
1117
1118If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1119problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1120fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
1121on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
1122
84902520 1123=item __inet_* errors
1124
1125If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1126referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1127installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1128these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1129in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1130newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1131updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1132/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1133avoid the problem.
1134
aa689395 1135=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1136
9d67150a 1137If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1138optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1139
1140 optimize='-O'
1141
1142to something like
1143
1144 optimize=' '
1145
1146then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1147with B<make depend; make>.
1148
1ec51d55 1149=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1150
1ec51d55 1151If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
56c6f531 1152flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1153This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1154indigestion easily.
9d67150a 1155
1156=item Missing functions
1157
1158If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1159other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1160there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1161likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1162
1ec51d55 1163=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1164
1ec51d55 1165Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1166toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1167allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1168each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1169makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e 1170specific rule.
1171
7f678428 1172=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1173
c3edaffb 1174SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1175that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1176
f3d9a6ba 1177=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1178
1179If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1180the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1181then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1182Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1183systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1184For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1185unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba 1186they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1187reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1188process is continuing.
7f678428 1189
1190On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1191message
1192
f3d9a6ba 1193 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1194
1195then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1196the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1197extension without the -lgdbm library.
1198
1199It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1200this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1201quite that tightly coordinated.
1202
aa689395 1203=item sh: ar: not found
1204
1205This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1206was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1207make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1208is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1209directory.
1210
1211=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1212
1213Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1214with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1215bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1216
1ec51d55 1217=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1218
1219Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1220
1221Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1222
1223NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1224
1ec51d55 1225UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1226
1227If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1228
1229Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1230
8e07c86e 1231=back
1232
1233=head1 make test
1234
84902520 1235This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1236should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1237complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1238then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1239
84902520 1240Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1241opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1242a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1243
c4f23d77 1244=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1245
1ec51d55 1246If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1247by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1248bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1249
1250 ./perl op/groups.t
1251
aa689395 1252Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1253individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1254
1255 ./perl harness
1256
fb73857a 1257(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1258complicated constructs).
1259
fb73857a 1260You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1261comments that apply to your system.
1262
c4f23d77 1263=over 4
1264
1265=item locale
1266
1ec51d55 1267Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1268may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1269B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55 1270one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1271LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1272are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1273
1274If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1275
1276 setenv LC_ALL C
1277
1278(for C shell) or
1279
1280 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1281
1ec51d55 1282for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1283make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1284is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1285shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55 1286things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1287open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1288external program.
eed2e782 1289
c4f23d77 1290=item Out of memory
1291
1292On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1293of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1294Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1295fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1296will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1297same time.
1298
1299Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1300
1301 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1302
1303to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1304test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1305tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1306and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1307
1308You may also be able to reduce perl's memory usage by using some of
1309the ideas described above in L<"Malloc Performance Flags">.
1310
1311=back
1312
8e07c86e 1313=head1 make install
1314
1315This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1316Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1317to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1318pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e 1319are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1320ignore any messages about chown not working.
1321
1322If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1323anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1324
8e07c86e 1325 ./perl installperl -n
1326 ./perl installman -n
1327
1ec51d55 1328make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 1329
1330 perl,
1331 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1332 will be a link to perl.
1333 suidperl,
1334 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1335 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1336 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1337 read from stdin.
1338 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1339 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1340 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1341 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1342 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1343 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1344 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1345 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1346 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1347 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1348 pod2man, and
1349 pod2text
1350 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e 1351
1352 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1353 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1354 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1355 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1356 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1357 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1358 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1359
4633a7c4 1360Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1361$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1362 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1363 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
4633a7c4 1364where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1365will be used for installing extensions.
1366
56c6f531 1367Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1368under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1369optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1370program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1371
aa689395 1372=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1373
693762b4 1374WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1375tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1376
1377In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
13785.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1379all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1380around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1381For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 1382with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 1383top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1384#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1385
1386(If you are upgrading from 5.002 or earlier, beware that some of the
1387standard library files have changed in incompatible ways, so you are
1388probably better off starting with a fresh installation.)
1389
1390The standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should be usable by
1391all versions of perl5 after 5.002. An exception is the diagnostics.pm
1392module. Since that module uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod
1393documentation file, the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script
1394will only identify and explain any warnings or errors that the most
1395recently-installed version of perl can generate. Usually, this is not
1396a problem.
1397
1398Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1399with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1400(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1401
1402The directories searched by version 5.004_05 will be
1403
1404 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00405
1405 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1406 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1407 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1408
1409while the directories searched by version 5.004_04 are
1410
1411 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1412 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
1413 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1414 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
1415
1416When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into
1417/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname (if it is architecture-specific.)
1418This directory is deliberately NOT version-specific so that both 5.004_04
1419and 5.004_05 can use the extension.
1420
1421However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to
1422use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
4633a7c4 1423those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
693762b4 1424/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404. Then use your newer version of
1425perl to rebuild and re-install the extension into site_perl. This way,
1426Perl 5.004_04 will find your files in the 5.00404 directory, and
1427newer versions of perl will find your newer extension in the site_perl
1428directory.
1429
1430=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1431
1ec51d55 1432Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d52d4e46 1433separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1434using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1435
46bb10fb 1436 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1437
46bb10fb 1438and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1439may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1440scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1441
693762b4 1442Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1443(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1444each major version.
1445
6877a1cf 1446If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1447seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1448subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1449yet.
1450
693762b4 1451=head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1452
1453Extensions compiled with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50 will need
1454to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later.
1455
1456If you wish to continue using those extensions under 5.004_04, for
1457example, then you need to move those extensions from their current
dc45a647 1458directories, which are something like
693762b4 1459
1460 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1461 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
1462
1463to the version-specific directory such as
1464
1465 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.00404
1466
1467as described above.
1468
1469Once you have moved the 5.00404 versions of the extensions out of the
1470way, you may recompile and reinstall with 5.005.
1471
8e07c86e 1472=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1473
1474You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1475
1ec51d55 1476By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1477they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e 1478
1479In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1480perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e 1481process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1482However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1ec51d55 1483the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
edb1cbcb 1484(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1485for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1486
aa689395 1487=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1488
1489Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1490the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1491header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
aa689395 1492by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1ec51d55 1493you specified to Configure; by default this is
1494/usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
1495(such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
1496building (for example, 5.004).
aa689395 1497
1ec51d55 1498Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
aa689395 1499conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1500to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1501correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1502certain structures.
1503
fb73857a 1504=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1505
3e3baf6d 1506Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1507format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1508documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1509
fb73857a 1510The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1511perl documentation:
aa689395 1512
3e3baf6d 1513 ./installhtml \
1514 --podroot=. \
1515 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1516 --recurse \
1517 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1518 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1519 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1520 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1521 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1522 --verbose
1523
1524See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1525many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1526see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1527resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1528(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1529
fb73857a 1530You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1531the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1532
aa689395 1533=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1534
1535Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1536available in TeX format. Type
1537
1538 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1539
1540=head1 Reporting Problems
1541
1542If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1543file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1544manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1545message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1546perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1547
1ec51d55 1548Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
aa689395 1549that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1ec51d55 1550perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
aa689395 1551but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1552
1ec51d55 1553You might also find helpful information in the Porting
aa689395 1554directory of the perl distribution.
1555
8e07c86e 1556=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1557
1558Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1559in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1560build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1ec51d55 1561can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
8e07c86e 1562is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1563
1ec51d55 1564Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1565along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
34a2a22e 1566and running (either):
1567
1568 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1569 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e 1570
1571This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1572(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1573set-up.)
34a2a22e 1574
1575Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1576running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1577generate the documentation.
1578
8e07c86e 1579=head1 AUTHOR
1580
fb73857a 1581Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu ,
1582borrowing very heavily from the original README by Larry Wall,
1583with lots of helpful feedback and additions from the
1584perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1585
1586If you have problems or questions, please see L<"Reporting Problems">
1587above.
8e07c86e 1588
a5f75d66 1589=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1590
c4f23d77 1591$Id: INSTALL,v 1.34 1998/04/23 18:19:41 doughera Released $