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20d11268 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
5=head1 NAME
6
7README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems
8
9=head1 DESCRIPTION
10
a318903f 11This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating
12system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
13is compiled and/or runs.
20d11268 14
15=head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
16
c5252117 17For information on compilers on older versions of AIX, see L<Compiling
18Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3>.
7fabfece 19
20When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
21an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
22gcc for AIX are widely available.
23
24=head2 Supported Compilers
25
26Currently all versions of IBM's "xlc", "xlc_r", "cc", "cc_r" or
c5252117 27"vac" ANSI/C compiler will work for building Perl if that compiler
7fabfece 28works on your system.
29
c5252117 30If you plan to link Perl to any module that requires thread-support,
e1051f11 31like DBD::Oracle, it is better to use the _r version of the compiler.
c5252117 32This will not build a threaded Perl, but a thread-enabled Perl. See
33also L<Threaded Perl> later on.
e1051f11 34
7fabfece 35As of writing (2008-11) only the IBM XL C for AIX or XL C/C++ for AIX
36compiler is supported by IBM on AIX 5L/6.1.
37
38The following compiler versions are supported by IBM:
39
40XL C and XL C/C++ V7, V8, V9, V10
41
42The XL C for AIX is integrated in the XL C/C++ for AIX compiler.
43
fe5460cc 44If you choose XL C/C++ V9 you need APAR IZ35785 installed
45otherwise the integrated SDBM_File do not compile correctly due
46to an optimization bug. You can circumvent this problem by
47adding -qipa to the optimization flags (-Doptimize='-O -qipa').
48The PTF for APAR IZ35785 which solves this problem will be available
7fabfece 49in 1Q 2009. IBM does provide an emergency fix for this problem.
50
fe5460cc 51Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
52The former is recommended, as not only it can compile Perl with no
53difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later
7fabfece 54that require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
55
fe5460cc 56If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
57complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
58details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the
7fabfece 59development team.
60
fe5460cc 61=head2 Perl 5.8.9 was successfully compiled and tested on:
62
63 AIX Level | Compiler Level | w th | w/o th
64 --------------------------+-------------------------+------+-------
65 5.1 TL9 32 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
66 5.1 TL9 32 bit | gcc 3.2.2 | OK | OK
67 5.1 TL9 64 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
68 5.2 TL10 32 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
69 5.2 TL10 64 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
70 5.3 TL7 32 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
71 5.3 TL7 32 bit | gcc 4.2.4 | OK | OK
72 5.3 TL7 64 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
73 6.1 TL1 32 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
74 6.1 TL1 64 bit + IZ39077 | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
75
76 w th = with thread
77 w/o th = without thread
78
79Successfully tested means that all make test runs with an result of 100% OK.
80All tests were conducted with -Duseshrplib set.
81
7fabfece 82=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
83
fe5460cc 84Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x) and AIX 4.3
85or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
86called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
87used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
88earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
89modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
90more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
91using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of
92C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions,
7fabfece 93which was not possible using the emulated interface.
94
95It is highly recommended to use the new interface.
96
97=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
98
99Should yield no problems.
100
101=head2 Threaded Perl
102
81189653 103Should yield no problems with AIX 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1.
7fabfece 104
81189653 105IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.6.0 on AIX 5.1 and V5.8.2 on
106AIX 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1) for some AIX
107system scripts. If you switch the links in /usr/bin from the
7fabfece 108AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build Perl then you
109get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if the
110threaded options are used.
111
c5252117 112The threaded Perl build works also on AIX 5.1 but the IBM Perl
81189653 113build (Perl v5.6.0) is not threaded on AIX 5.1.
114
7fabfece 115=head2 64-bit Perl
116
117If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
118configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX 6.1
119you need a APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX functions.
81189653 120The APAR number for this problem is IZ39077.
7fabfece 121
122If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs you
123can set:
124
125 /etc/security/limits
126 default: (or your user)
127 data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte)
128
129With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB.
130The -1 removes this limit.
131
e1051f11 132=head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/32-bit)
7fabfece 133
134With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
135passes all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default
c5252117 136configuration for the Perl builds that AIX ships with.
7fabfece 137
138 rm config.sh
139 ./Configure \
140 -d \
141 -Dcc=cc_r \
142 -Duseshrplib \
143 -Dusethreads \
144 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
145
fe5460cc 146The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
7fabfece 147IBM AIX system Perl installation.
148
149=head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (32-bit)
150
fe5460cc 151With the following options you get a Perl version which passes
7fabfece 152all make tests in 32-bit mode.
153
154 rm config.sh
155 ./Configure \
156 -d \
157 -Dcc=cc_r \
158 -Duseshrplib \
159 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
160
161The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
162IBM AIX system Perl installation.
163
e1051f11 164=head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/64-bit)
7fabfece 165
166With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
167passes all make tests in 64-bit mode.
168
169 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
170
171 rm config.sh
172 ./Configure \
173 -d \
174 -Dcc=cc_r \
175 -Duseshrplib \
176 -Dusethreads \
177 -Duse64bitall \
178 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
179
180=head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1(64-bit)
181
fe5460cc 182With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all
183make tests in 64-bit mode.
7fabfece 184
185 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
fe5460cc 186
7fabfece 187 rm config.sh
188 ./Configure \
189 -d \
190 -Dcc=cc_r \
191 -Duseshrplib \
192 -Duse64bitall \
193 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
194
fe5460cc 195The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
7fabfece 196IBM AIX system Perl installation.
197
fe5460cc 198If you choose gcc to compile 64-bit Perl then you need to use the
199following options:
200
201 -Dcc='gcc -maix64'
202
203
204=head2 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3
205
206Due to the fact that AIX 4.3.3 reached end-of-service in December 31,
2072003 this information is provided as is. The Perl versions prior to
208Perl 5.8.9 could be compiled on AIX up to 4.3.3 with the following
209settings (your mileage may vary):
7fabfece 210
d5d9880c 211When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
20d11268 212an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
213gcc for AIX are widely available.
214
215At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
4951a6f9 216for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
20d11268 217of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
218upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
219
c67773d0 220 xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
221 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
222
223note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
224you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
225
226 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
227
66a1b24b 228subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
c67773d0 229the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
20d11268 230
a318903f 231Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
232The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
20d11268 233difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
234require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
235
12f54d27 236The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
237optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
238respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
239levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
240Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
241
20d11268 242If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
eed1f4d3 243complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
60ecc970 244details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
245team.
20d11268 246
247=head2 OS level
248
249Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
250level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
64cb7701 251show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
2524.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
1a3e4d88 253
20d11268 254 # oslevel
255 4.3.0.0
256 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
e41d30bc 257 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
258 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
259 #
260
c5252117 261The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, Perl
64cb7701 262cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
1a3e4d88 263
264 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
265 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
c67773d0 266 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
64cb7701 267 #
20d11268 268
269=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
270
8218ea5d 271AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
272Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
273misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
c5252117 274For Perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
8218ea5d 275many other platforms.
276
277Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
278or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
279called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
280used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
281earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
c5252117 282modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
efc3b6b5 283more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
8218ea5d 284using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
c5252117 285code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, which
8218ea5d 286was not possible using the emulated interface.
12f54d27 287
20d11268 288=head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
289
290All defaults for Configure can be used.
291
292If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
4951a6f9 293will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
c67773d0 294but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
295removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
296versions should be considered obsolete.
20d11268 297
a318903f 298Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
299level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
300versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
301are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
c5252117 302in the developer snapshots of Perl), or to one version up where the
66a1b24b 303"base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
a318903f 304cumulative.
305
306 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
307 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
308
309 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
310 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
311 : welcome message ...
312 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
313 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
314 Password:
315 ... accepted login stuff
316 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
317 ftp> dir other other.ll
318 output to local-file: other.ll? y
319 200 PORT command successful.
320 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
321 226 Transfer complete.
322 ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
323 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
324 200 PORT command successful.
325 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
326 226 Transfer complete.
327 ftp> bye
328 ... goodbye messages
329 # ls -l *.ll
330 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
331 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
332
333On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
334
335 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
336 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
337 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
338 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
339 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
340 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
341 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
342 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
343 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
344 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
345 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
346 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
347 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
348 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
349 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
350 #
351
352On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
353
64cb7701 354 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
355 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
356 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
357 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
358 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
359 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
360 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
c67773d0 361 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
362 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
a318903f 363 #
364
64cb7701 365Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
366fill in its choices
a318903f 367
368 # smit install_update
369 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
c67773d0 370 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
a318903f 371 [ OK ]
372 [ OK ]
373
374Follow the messages ... and you're done.
375
8381f7b7 376If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
377http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
378"C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
379
e083a1cd 380=head2 The usenm option
381
382If linking miniperl
383
384 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
385
386causes error like this
387
388 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
389 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
390 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
391 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
392 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
393 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
394 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
395 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information.
396
397you could retry with
398
399 make realclean
400 rm config.sh
401 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
402
403which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library
404symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
405
dd993642 406Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of
407Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used.
408
c5252117 409=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building Perl
20d11268 410
c67773d0 411Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
412as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
413Linux compatibility packages, available here:
818c4caa 414
4238f5a6 415 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
20d11268 416
20d11268 417=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
418
60ecc970 419Should yield no problems.
20d11268 420
421=head2 Threaded Perl
422
60ecc970 423Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
1d69df2b 424threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
20d11268 425
bef58541 426You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
427
428 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
429
430The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
431line this
432
433 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
434
435in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
436is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
437different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
438is not really significant here.
439
20d11268 440=head2 64-bit Perl
441
1d69df2b 442If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
12f54d27 443configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
444still fail.
20d11268 445
12f54d27 446=head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
20d11268 447
12f54d27 448In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
449may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
450In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
451the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
452has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
453(such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
454therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
20d11268 455
7fabfece 456=head1 AUTHORS
20d11268 457
3bd76f0a 458H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
7fabfece 459Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net>
20d11268 460
20d11268 461=head1 DATE
462
e1051f11 463Version 0.0.8: 01 Dec 2008
20d11268 464
465=cut