Remove Encode::Tcl::Extended, suggested by
[p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git] / README.aix
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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
d5d9880c 17When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
20d11268 18an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
19gcc for AIX are widely available.
20
21At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
210b36aa 22for which you have to pay: B<xlc> and B<VAC>. If you decide to use either
20d11268 23of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
24upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
25
26 xlC.C 3.1.4.0
60ecc970 27 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.0
20d11268 28
a318903f 29Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
30The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
20d11268 31difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
32require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
33
12f54d27 34The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
35optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
36respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
37levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
38Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
39
20d11268 40If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
41complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-specific
60ecc970 42details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
43team.
20d11268 44
45=head2 OS level
46
47Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
48level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
a318903f 49show the base, but is not always complete:
20d11268 50
51 # oslevel
52 4.3.0.0
53 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
54 bos.rte 4.3.2.1 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
55 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
56 #
57
58=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
59
8218ea5d 60AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
61Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
62misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
63For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
64many other platforms.
65
66Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
67or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
68called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
69used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
70earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
71modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
72more compliant with other applications like Apache/modperl which are
73using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
74code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
75was not possible using the emulated interface.
12f54d27 76
20d11268 77=head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
78
79All defaults for Configure can be used.
80
81If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
60ecc970 82will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0.
20d11268 83
a318903f 84Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
85level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
86versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
87are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
88in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the
89`base' is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
90cumulative.
91
92 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
93 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
94
95 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
96 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
97 : welcome message ...
98 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
99 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
100 Password:
101 ... accepted login stuff
102 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
103 ftp> dir other other.ll
104 output to local-file: other.ll? y
105 200 PORT command successful.
106 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
107 226 Transfer complete.
108 ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
109 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
110 200 PORT command successful.
111 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
112 226 Transfer complete.
113 ftp> bye
114 ... goodbye messages
115 # ls -l *.ll
116 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
117 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
118
119On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
120
121 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
122 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
123 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
124 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
125 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
126 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
127 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
128 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
129 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
130 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
131 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
132 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
133 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
134 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
135 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
136 #
137
138On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
139
140 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'vac.C '
141 vac.C 4.4.0.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
142 vac.C 4.4.0.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
143 # grep 'vac.C.4.4.0.*.bff' other.ll
144 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13466624 May 26 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.1.bff
145 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13473792 Aug 31 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.2.bff
146 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13480960 May 19 20:32 vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
147 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
148 #
149
150Then execute the following command, and fill in its choices
151
152 # smit install_update
153 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
154 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff ]
155 [ OK ]
156 [ OK ]
157
158Follow the messages ... and you're done.
159
20d11268 160=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
161
210b36aa 162We're working on this using gcc-3.0 ... (any input highly appreciated)
20d11268 163
20d11268 164=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
165
60ecc970 166Should yield no problems.
20d11268 167
168=head2 Threaded Perl
169
60ecc970 170Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
171threads are used in combination with 64bit configurations.
20d11268 172
173=head2 64-bit Perl
174
60ecc970 175If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64bit
12f54d27 176configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
177still fail.
20d11268 178
12f54d27 179=head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
20d11268 180
12f54d27 181In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
182may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
183In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
184the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
185has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
186(such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
187therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
20d11268 188
189=head1 AUTHOR
190
191H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
192
193Structure copied from README.hpux
194
195=head1 DATE
196
12f54d27 197Version 0.0.3: 12 Jul 2001
20d11268 198
199=cut