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.
25 Improve and simplify detection of local libraries and header files.
27 Expand documentation of installation process in new INSTALL file.
29 Upgrade Traps and Pitfalls:
31 Since a lot has changed in the build process, you are probably best off
32 starting with a fresh copy of the perl5.002 sources. In particular,
33 your 5.000 or 5.001 config.sh will contain several variables that are no
34 longer needed. Further, improvements in the Configure tests may mean
35 that some of the answers will be different than they were in previous
36 versions, and which answer to keep can be difficult to sort out.
37 Therefore, you are probably better off ignoring your old config.sh, as
40 make distclean # (if you've built perl before)
41 rm -f config.sh # (in case distclean mysteriously fails)
42 sh Configure [whatever options you like]
51 Summary of user-visible Configure and build changes since 5.000:
53 A large number of enhancements and fixes have been made to the
54 Configure and build process for perl. Most of these will not be
55 visible to the ordinary user--they just make the process more robust
56 and likely to work on a wider range of platforms.
58 This is a brief summary of the most important changes.
61 New and improved Configure command line options. -O now overrides
62 config.sh settings. -D options can now include spaces, if
63 protected in quotes (e.g. -Dcc='gcc -posix'). Type Configure -h
64 for a full listing of options.
66 Users can now turn on the defaults for the rest of Configure by
67 typing &-d at any Configure prompt. This is useful if you just
68 want to change one or two answers.
70 Support on (non-Sun) SVR4 systems for dynamic loading and shared
73 Numerous new or updated hints files: PowerUnix, aix 3.x and 4.x,
74 bsd386, convexos, cxux, DEC OSF, Esix, FreeBSD, HP-UX (especially if
75 you're using the bundled compiler), irix 4.x, 5.x, and 6.x, Linux,
76 MPE/IX, NeXT 3.0 and 3.2, Solaris, SVR4, Ultrix (especially 4.3),
79 Improved generation of a suitable name for architecture-dependent
80 library files. NOTE: This may differ from the name you had from
81 your 5.000 installation.
83 Many many portability enhancements and fixes.
87 The process for building extensions has been extensively revised. See
88 lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for complete documentation. Basically, with
89 just a simple Makefile.PL (such as the one generated by h2xs), you can
90 now build an extension from anywhere on your system, even if you've
91 deleted the perl source.
93 Improved build/install documentation in README. A little.
95 Improved dynamic loading on HP-UX. Support dynamic loading on SVR4.
97 Installperl now gets the version correct :-)
99 Installperl now saves the perl *.h files and the libperl.a library
100 in your architecture-dependent library directory so that you can
101 later build extensions without having to re-install the perl
104 Include x2p/a2p.c generated by byacc from x2p/a2p.y.
106 Many many portability fixes.
108 Upgrade Traps and Pitfalls:
110 Since a lot has changed in the build process, you are probably best
111 off starting with a fresh copy of the perl5.000 sources. In particular,
112 your 5.000 config.sh will contain several variables that are no longer
113 needed. Further, improvements in the Configure tests may mean that some
114 of the answers will be different than they were in 5.000, and which answer
115 to keep can be difficult to sort out. Therefore, you are probably
116 better off ignoring your old config.sh.
118 One big change is that architecture-dependent library files may well
119 be stored in a different location in 5.001. This is because the default
120 name used in the 5.000 release was not sufficiently specific to
121 distinguish incompatible architectures. The relevant variable is $archlib
122 in config.sh. Before you run ``make install'' you should rename your old
123 $archlib. Thus if your $archlib for version 5.000 was
124 /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo, and your new value for 5.001 is
125 /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo-bar, then you should
126 mv /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo /usr/local/lib/perl5/foo-bar
127 before running ``make install''.
129 Alternatively, you could override Configure's default guess for $archlib
130 either by sh Configure -Darchname='foo', or by answering 'foo' when
131 prompted by Configure for the architecture name.
133 The following is the sequence of steps to upgrade to 5.001:
142 <mv old architecture-dependent library to new location, if needed>