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[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,
4951a6f9 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
c67773d0 26 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
27 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
28
29note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
30you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
31
32 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
33
66a1b24b 34subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
c67773d0 35the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
20d11268 36
a318903f 37Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
38The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
20d11268 39difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
40require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
41
12f54d27 42The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
43optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
44respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
45levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
46Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
47
20d11268 48If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
eed1f4d3 49complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
60ecc970 50details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
51team.
20d11268 52
53=head2 OS level
54
55Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
56level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
64cb7701 57show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
584.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
1a3e4d88 59
20d11268 60 # oslevel
61 4.3.0.0
62 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
e41d30bc 63 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
64 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
65 #
66
64cb7701 67The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl
68cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
1a3e4d88 69
70 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
71 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
c67773d0 72 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
64cb7701 73 #
20d11268 74
75=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
76
8218ea5d 77AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
78Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
79misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
80For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
81many other platforms.
82
83Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
84or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
85called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
86used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
87earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
88modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
efc3b6b5 89more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
8218ea5d 90using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
91code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
92was not possible using the emulated interface.
12f54d27 93
20d11268 94=head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
95
96All defaults for Configure can be used.
97
98If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
4951a6f9 99will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
c67773d0 100but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
101removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
102versions should be considered obsolete.
20d11268 103
a318903f 104Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
105level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
106versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
107are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
108in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the
66a1b24b 109"base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
a318903f 110cumulative.
111
112 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
113 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
114
115 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
116 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
117 : welcome message ...
118 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
119 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
120 Password:
121 ... accepted login stuff
122 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
123 ftp> dir other other.ll
124 output to local-file: other.ll? y
125 200 PORT command successful.
126 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
127 226 Transfer complete.
128 ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll
129 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
130 200 PORT command successful.
131 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
132 226 Transfer complete.
133 ftp> bye
134 ... goodbye messages
135 # ls -l *.ll
136 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
137 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
138
139On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
140
141 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
142 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
143 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
144 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
145 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
146 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
147 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
148 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
149 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
150 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
151 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
152 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
153 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
154 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
155 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
156 #
157
158On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
159
64cb7701 160 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
161 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
162 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
163 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
164 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
165 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
166 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
c67773d0 167 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
168 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
a318903f 169 #
170
64cb7701 171Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
172fill in its choices
a318903f 173
174 # smit install_update
175 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
c67773d0 176 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
a318903f 177 [ OK ]
178 [ OK ]
179
180Follow the messages ... and you're done.
181
8381f7b7 182If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
183http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
184"C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
185
e083a1cd 186=head2 The usenm option
187
188If linking miniperl
189
190 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
191
192causes error like this
193
194 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
195 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
196 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
197 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
198 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
199 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
200 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
201 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information.
202
203you could retry with
204
205 make realclean
206 rm config.sh
207 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
208
209which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library
210symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
211
dd993642 212Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of
213Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used.
214
20d11268 215=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
216
c67773d0 217Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
218as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
219Linux compatibility packages, available here:
818c4caa 220
4238f5a6 221 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
20d11268 222
20d11268 223=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
224
60ecc970 225Should yield no problems.
20d11268 226
227=head2 Threaded Perl
228
60ecc970 229Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
1d69df2b 230threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
20d11268 231
bef58541 232You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
233
234 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
235
236The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
237line this
238
239 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
240
241in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
242is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
243different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
244is not really significant here.
245
20d11268 246=head2 64-bit Perl
247
1d69df2b 248If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
12f54d27 249configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
250still fail.
20d11268 251
12f54d27 252=head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
20d11268 253
12f54d27 254In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
255may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
256In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
257the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
258has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
259(such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
260therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
20d11268 261
262=head1 AUTHOR
263
3bd76f0a 264H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
20d11268 265
20d11268 266=head1 DATE
267
c67773d0 268Version 0.0.6: 23 Dec 2002
20d11268 269
270=cut