5 Summary of user-visible Configure and build changes since 5.001:
7 Yet more enhancements and fixes have been made to the Configure and
8 build process for perl. Most of these will not be visible to the
9 ordinary user--they just make the process more robust and likely to
10 work on a wider range of platforms.
12 This is a brief summary of the most important changes:
14 Include 5.000 - 5.001 upgrage notes :-) (see below). You might
15 want to read through them as well as these notes.
17 Install documentation for perl modules and pod2* translators. You can
18 now view perl module documentation with either your system's man(1)
19 program or with the supplied perldoc script.
21 Support Linux ELF dynamic loading.
23 Many hint file updates.
30 Summary of user-visible Configure and build changes since 5.000:
32 A large number of enhancements and fixes have been made to the
33 Configure and build process for perl. Most of these will not be
34 visible to the ordinary user--they just make the process more robust
35 and likely to work on a wider range of platforms.
37 This is a brief summary of the most important changes.
40 New and improved Configure command line options. -O now overrides
41 config.sh settings. -D options can now include spaces, if
42 protected in quotes (e.g. -Dcc='gcc -posix'). Type Configure -h
43 for a full listing of options.
45 Users can now turn on the defaults for the rest of Configure by
46 typing &-d at any Configure prompt. This is useful if you just
47 want to change one or two answers.
49 Support on (non-Sun) SVR4 systems for dynamic loading and shared
52 Numerous new or updated hints files: PowerUnix, aix 3.x and 4.x,
53 bsd386, convexos, cxux, DEC OSF, Esix, FreeBSD, HP-UX (especially if
54 you're using the bundled compiler), irix 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x, Linux,
55 MPE/IX, NeXT 3.0 and 3.2, Solaris, SVR4, Ultrix (especially 4.3),
58 Improved generation of a suitable name for architecture-dependent
59 library files. NOTE: This may differ from the name you had from
60 your 5.000 installation.
62 Many many portability enhancements and fixes.
66 The process for building extensions has been extensively revised. See
67 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for complete documentation. Basically, with
68 just a simple Makefile.PL (such as the one generated by h2xs), you can
69 now build an extension from anywhere on your system, even if you've
70 deleted the perl source.
72 Improved build/install documentation in README. A little.
74 Improved dynamic loading on HP-UX. Support dynamic loading on SVR4.
76 Installperl now gets the version correct :-)
78 Installperl now saves the perl *.h files and the libperl.a library
79 in your architecture-dependent library directory so that you can
80 later build extensions without having to re-install the perl
83 Include x2p/a2p.c generated by byacc from x2p/a2p.y.
85 Many many portability fixes.
87 Upgrade Traps and Pitfalls:
89 Since a lot has changed in the build process, you are probably best
90 off starting with a fresh copy of the perl5.000 sources. In particular,
91 your 5.000 config.sh will contain several variables that are no longer
92 needed. Further, improvements in the Configure tests may mean that some
93 of the answers will be different than they were in 5.000, and which answer
94 to keep can be difficult to sort out. Therefore, you are probably
95 better off ignoring your old config.sh.
97 One big change is that architecture-dependent library files may well
98 be stored in a different location in 5.001. This is because the default
99 name used in the 5.000 release was not sufficiently specific to
100 distinguish incompatible architectures. The relevant variable is $archlib
101 in config.sh. Before you run ``make install'' you should rename your old
102 $archlib. Thus if your $archlib for version 5.000 was
103 /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo, and your new value for 5.001 is
104 /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo-bar, then you should
105 mv /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo-bar
106 before running ``make install''.
108 Alternatively, you could override Configure's default guess for $archlib
109 either by sh Configure -Darchname='foo', or by answering 'foo' when
110 prompted by Configure for the architecture name.
112 The following is the sequence of steps to upgrade to 5.001:
121 <mv old architecture-dependent library to new location, if needed>