3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8 you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9 <URL:http://www.cpan.org/src/>.
11 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12 with all the defaults are:
14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
25 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
27 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
28 on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
30 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
36 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
37 L<"Porting information"> below.
39 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
42 For information on what's new in this release, see the
43 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
44 changes, see the Changes file.
48 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
49 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
50 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
51 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
53 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
55 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
57 Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
58 you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
61 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
62 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
63 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
65 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
66 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
67 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
68 there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
69 that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
71 =head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
73 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
74 global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
75 extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
78 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
80 Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
81 building perl itself with:
83 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
85 pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
87 =head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
89 Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
90 a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
92 However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
93 -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
94 the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
95 circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
96 built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
97 those extensions to use them with 5.6.
99 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
100 without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
101 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
102 L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
104 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
106 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
107 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
108 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
109 what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
110 file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
111 Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
112 currently installed modules.
114 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
116 Most C compilers are now ANSI-compliant. However, a few current
117 computers are delivered with an older C compiler expressly for
118 rebuilding the system kernel, or for some other historical reason.
119 Alternatively, you may have an old machine which was shipped before
120 ANSI compliance became widespread. Such compilers are not suitable
123 If you find that your default C compiler is not ANSI-capable, but you
124 know that an ANSI-capable compiler is installed on your system, you
125 can tell F<Configure> to use the correct compiler by means of the
126 C<-Dcc=> command-line option -- see L<"gcc">.
128 If do not have an ANSI-capable compiler there are several avenues open
135 You may try obtaining GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide,
136 listed at <URL:http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html>. If, rather than
137 building gcc from source code, you locate a binary version configured
138 for your platform, be sure that it is compiled for the version of the
139 operating system that you are using.
143 You may purchase a commercial ANSI C compiler from your system
144 supplier or elsewhere. (Or your organization may already have
145 licensed such software -- ask your colleagues to find out how to
146 access it.) If there is a README file for your system in the Perl
147 distribution (for example, F<README.hpux>), it may contain advice on
152 Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
153 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
154 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
155 in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
156 available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
157 unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
158 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
159 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
161 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
162 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
163 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
167 Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
168 does not work with some C++ compilers.
170 =head1 Space Requirements
172 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
173 After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
174 total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
175 directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
176 value is system-dependent.
178 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
180 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
189 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
190 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
192 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
193 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
194 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
195 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
196 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
200 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
201 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
202 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
203 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
204 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
205 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
206 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
207 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
208 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
210 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
211 Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
212 it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
213 might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
214 compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
215 the architecture name.
217 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
218 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
220 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
221 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
222 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
223 settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
224 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
230 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
231 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
232 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
233 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
234 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
237 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
238 defaults from then on.
240 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
241 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
243 =head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
245 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
246 also has several convenient options which are all described below.
247 However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
248 you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
249 run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
250 a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
252 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
254 For more help on Configure switches, run:
258 =head2 Common Configure options
260 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
261 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
262 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
268 To compile with gcc you should run
270 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
272 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
273 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
275 =item Installation prefix
277 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
278 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
279 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
282 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
283 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
284 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
286 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
288 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
289 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
290 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
291 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
294 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
295 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
296 attempt infinite recursion.
300 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
301 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
302 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
303 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
304 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
306 By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
307 the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
309 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
311 or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
313 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
314 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
315 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
316 obvious and convenient place.
318 =item Overriding an old config.sh
320 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
321 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
325 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
330 For my Solaris system, I usually use
332 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
334 =head2 GNU-style configure
336 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
337 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
339 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
341 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
344 ./configure.gnu --help
348 Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
350 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
351 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
353 =head2 Installation Directories
355 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
356 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
357 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
358 Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
359 directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
360 be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
362 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
363 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
364 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
365 the defaults from then on.
367 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
368 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
369 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
370 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
371 you can safely skip the next section.
373 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
377 =item Directories for the perl distribution
379 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
380 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
381 5.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
382 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
383 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
385 Configure variable Default value
388 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
389 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
390 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
391 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
392 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
396 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
397 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
398 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
399 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
400 the common style is shown here.
402 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
404 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
405 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
406 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
408 Configure variable Default value
410 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
411 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
412 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
413 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
414 $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
415 $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
419 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
420 modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
422 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will use $sitelib and $sitearch,
423 but will not use the other site-specific directories. Volunteers to
426 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
428 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
429 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
430 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
432 Configure variable Default value
434 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
435 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
436 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
437 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
438 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
439 $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
440 $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
444 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
445 a vendor might choose the following settings:
448 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
449 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
451 This would have the effect of setting the following:
455 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
456 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
457 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
458 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
460 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
461 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
462 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
463 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
464 $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
465 $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
468 $vendorscript /usr/bin
469 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
470 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
471 $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
472 $vendorman3 /usr/man/man3
474 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
475 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
476 the /usr/local hierarchy.
478 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker does not use these directories.
479 Volunteers to fix this are needed.
481 The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
482 version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
483 However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
484 installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
485 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
486 on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
488 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
489 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
490 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
491 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
492 network. One way to do that would be something like
494 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
498 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
499 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
500 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
501 Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
502 version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
506 In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
507 pages in a version-specific directory, such as
508 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
509 after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
510 without resetting MANPATH.
512 You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
514 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
516 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
518 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
520 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
525 As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
526 anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
527 Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
528 html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
529 specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
530 but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
535 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
536 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
539 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
540 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
543 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
544 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
545 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
547 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
548 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
549 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
551 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
552 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
554 Configure variable Default value
555 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
556 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
557 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
558 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
560 =head2 Changing the installation directory
562 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
563 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
564 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
565 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
566 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
567 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
568 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
569 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
570 section describes how to do that.
572 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
573 could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
574 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
575 following command line:
577 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
579 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
581 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
582 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
583 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
586 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
588 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
589 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
590 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
591 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
592 Here's one way to do that:
594 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
595 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
596 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
599 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
601 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
602 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
603 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
604 # everywhere in those files.)
605 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
606 # #!/wherever/perl line.
607 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
608 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
609 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
610 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
612 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
614 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
615 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
616 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
617 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
618 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
619 hint file for your system.
621 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
626 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
628 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
630 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
631 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
632 platform-specific hints files.
634 Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
635 new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
636 set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
637 interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
639 =head2 Configure-time Options
641 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
642 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
643 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
644 some of the main things you can change.
648 On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
649 experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
650 README.threads, and then try:
652 sh Configure -Dusethreads
654 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
655 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
657 The default is to compile without thread support.
659 As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
660 The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
661 (ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
662 ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
663 5005threads behavior instead by either
665 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
668 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
670 Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
671 and these options may disappear as well.
673 =head2 64 bit support.
675 If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them with
676 compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>, you can build a perl that
679 There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
680 using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
681 -Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
682 the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
684 The C<use64bitint> does only as much as is required to get 64-bit
685 integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long longs")
686 while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because your
687 pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint> does
688 not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it might,
689 but it doesn't have to): the C<use64bitint> means that you will be
690 able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.
692 The C<use64bitall> goes all the way by attempting to switch also
693 integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
694 create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
695 resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
696 have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
699 Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
702 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
703 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
704 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
705 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
709 In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
710 range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
711 (that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
712 this support (if it is available).
716 You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
717 and the long double support.
719 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
721 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
722 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
723 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
724 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
726 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
729 sh Configure -Duseperlio
731 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
733 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
734 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
735 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
742 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
743 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
744 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
745 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
746 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
747 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
749 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
750 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
752 You select this option by
754 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
756 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
757 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
760 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
761 detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
762 this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
763 Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
764 _exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
765 your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
767 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
772 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
773 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
774 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
777 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
779 You select this option via:
781 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
783 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
784 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
788 =head2 Dynamic Loading
790 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
791 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
792 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
793 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
795 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
797 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
798 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
799 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
802 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
803 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
804 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
805 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
806 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
807 can share the same library.
809 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
810 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
811 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
814 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
815 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
816 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
819 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
820 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
821 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
822 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
823 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
824 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
826 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
827 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
829 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
831 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
833 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
834 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
835 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
836 HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
837 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
838 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
839 library search settings.
841 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
842 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
843 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
846 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
848 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
850 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
853 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
855 for Bourne-style shells, or
857 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
859 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
860 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
862 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
863 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
865 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
867 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
868 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
869 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
870 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
871 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
872 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
873 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
874 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
875 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
876 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
877 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
878 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
879 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
880 to point to the perl build directory.
882 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
883 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
884 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
885 variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
889 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
890 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
891 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
892 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
893 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
894 than your system malloc.
896 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
897 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
898 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
899 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
903 =item Using the system malloc
905 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
907 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
909 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
911 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
913 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
914 asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
915 run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
916 can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
919 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
921 or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
923 Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
924 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
925 not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
928 If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
929 names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
930 have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
931 by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
933 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
934 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
935 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
940 =head2 Building a debugging perl
942 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
943 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
944 you probably want to do
946 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
948 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
949 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
950 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
951 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
952 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
953 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
954 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
955 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
956 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
957 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
958 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
960 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
961 it's convenient to have both.
963 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
964 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
968 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
969 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
970 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
971 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
972 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
973 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
974 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
975 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
976 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
977 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
979 If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
980 running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
981 extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
982 it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
983 has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
984 extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
985 convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
986 you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
987 dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
989 You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
990 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
993 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
994 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
995 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
997 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
998 to turn off each extension:
1000 B (Always included by default)
1002 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
1003 Fcntl (Always included by default)
1005 IO (Always included by default)
1009 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
1012 Threads use5005threads
1013 attrs (Always included by default)
1015 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
1017 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
1019 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
1022 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1023 the extensions you want.
1025 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1026 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1027 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1028 releases of version 2.
1030 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1031 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1032 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1035 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
1036 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1037 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1038 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1040 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1042 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1043 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1044 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1045 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1046 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1047 how to obtain the libraries.
1049 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1050 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1051 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
1052 your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
1053 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1054 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1055 See the examples below.
1061 =item gdbm in /usr/local
1063 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1064 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
1065 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1066 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1067 necessary steps out automatically.
1069 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1070 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1072 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1075 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1076 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1079 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1080 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1081 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
1083 =item gdbm in /usr/you
1085 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1086 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1087 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1088 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1089 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1090 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1091 /usr/you/lib to the list.
1093 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1097 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1098 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1100 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1101 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1103 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1104 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1105 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1106 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1109 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1110 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1114 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1116 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1117 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1121 =item Running Configure Interactively
1123 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1124 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1127 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1128 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1129 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1130 will use the defaults from then on.
1132 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1133 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1134 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1138 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1139 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1140 will offer to use that hint file.
1142 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1143 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1144 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1145 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1148 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1150 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
1151 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1152 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1155 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1156 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1157 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1159 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1160 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1163 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1164 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1165 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1168 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1169 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1170 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1171 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1174 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1175 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1176 Keep the previous value? [y]
1178 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1179 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1180 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1182 =item Changing Compilers
1184 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1185 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1186 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1187 with the options you want to use.
1189 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1190 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1192 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1194 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1195 them to all the .SH files by running
1199 You will then have to rebuild by running
1206 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1207 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1208 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1209 does no checking that your changes make sense.
1213 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1214 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1215 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1217 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1218 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1223 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1224 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1225 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1226 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1227 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1228 lost the next time you run Configure.
1230 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1231 see the file hints/README.hints.
1233 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1234 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1241 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1242 Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1243 system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1244 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1247 =item Environment variable clashes
1249 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1250 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1251 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1252 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1254 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1256 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1258 Build a threading Perl? [n]
1259 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1261 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1262 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1263 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1264 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1265 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1266 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1267 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1269 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1271 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1272 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1273 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1276 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1277 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1278 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1280 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1281 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1283 =item Porting information
1285 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1286 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1287 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1288 subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1290 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1291 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1292 various other operating systems.
1294 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1295 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1296 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1297 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1303 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1304 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1305 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1306 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1307 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1308 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1310 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1315 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1317 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1319 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1320 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1321 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1322 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1328 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1329 for further tips and information.
1333 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1334 during the building of extensions, you should run
1338 to test your version of miniperl.
1342 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1343 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1344 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1345 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1346 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1347 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1349 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1350 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1353 are supported and installed on your system.
1354 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1360 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1361 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1362 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1363 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1364 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1365 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1366 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1370 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1371 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1373 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1374 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1375 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1377 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1378 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1380 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1382 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1383 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1384 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1385 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1386 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1387 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1388 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1389 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1390 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1392 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1393 invoke Configure with
1395 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1397 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1400 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1401 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1404 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1406 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1407 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1408 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1410 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1412 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1413 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1414 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1415 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1416 of your local set-up.
1418 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1420 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1421 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1422 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1424 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1425 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1426 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1427 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1428 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1432 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1433 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1436 sh Configure -Uusenm
1438 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1439 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1442 =item umask not found
1444 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1445 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1446 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1447 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1448 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1452 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1453 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1454 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1455 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1456 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1460 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1461 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1462 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1466 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1467 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1468 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1469 on L<"nm extraction">.
1471 =item __inet_* errors
1473 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1474 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1475 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1476 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1477 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1478 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1479 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1480 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1483 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1485 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1486 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1487 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1488 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1489 update your gcc installation.
1493 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1494 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1502 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1503 with B<make depend; make>.
1507 If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1509 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1511 This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1512 indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1515 =item Missing functions
1517 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1518 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1519 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1520 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1521 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1525 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1526 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1527 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1528 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1529 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1532 =item Missing dbmclose
1534 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1535 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1537 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1539 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1540 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1541 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1542 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1543 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1544 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1545 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1546 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1547 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1548 process is continuing.
1550 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1553 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1555 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1556 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1557 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1559 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1560 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1561 quite that tightly coordinated.
1563 =item sh: ar: not found
1565 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1566 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1567 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1568 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1571 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1573 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1574 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1575 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1577 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1579 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1580 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1581 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1582 to include the System V semaphores.
1584 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1586 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1587 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1588 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1589 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1594 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1595 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1596 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1597 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1598 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1599 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1600 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1601 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1603 =item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1605 The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1606 make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1607 archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1608 C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1609 archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1610 incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1611 official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1612 that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1613 archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1615 This message can also be a symptom of using (say) a GNU tar compiled
1616 for SunOS4 on Solaris. When you run SunOS4 binaries on Solaris the
1617 run-time system magically alters pathnames matching m#lib/locale# - so
1618 when tar tries to create lib/locale.pm a differently-named file gets
1621 You may find the file under its assumed name and be able to rename it
1622 back. Or use Sun's tar to do the extract.
1624 =item invalid token: ##
1626 You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. See L<WARNING: This
1627 version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C>.
1629 =item lib/locale.pm: No such file or directory
1631 See L<THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE>.
1635 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1637 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1639 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1641 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1643 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1644 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1645 you will get a message telling what to do.
1647 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1649 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1651 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1652 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1653 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1654 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1655 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1661 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1662 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1663 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1665 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1666 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1667 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1669 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1671 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1672 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1673 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1677 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1678 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1682 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1683 complicated constructs).
1685 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1686 comments that apply to your system.
1692 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1693 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1694 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1695 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1696 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1697 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1699 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1705 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1707 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1708 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1709 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1710 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1711 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1712 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1717 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1718 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1719 For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1720 test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
1722 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1724 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1726 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1727 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1728 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1729 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1735 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1736 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1737 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1738 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1739 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1740 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1742 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1744 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1745 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1746 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1748 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1750 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1751 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1753 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1755 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1756 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1757 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1759 =head2 Installed files
1761 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1762 anything, you can run
1764 ./perl installperl -n
1765 ./perl installman -n
1767 make install will install the following:
1770 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1771 will be a link to perl.
1773 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1774 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1775 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1777 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1778 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1779 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1780 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1781 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1782 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1783 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1784 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1785 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1786 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1789 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1790 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
1792 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1793 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1794 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1796 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
1797 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1799 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1800 in L<"Installation Directories">.
1802 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1803 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
1804 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1805 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1807 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1809 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1810 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1811 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1812 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1813 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1814 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1815 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1816 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1818 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1819 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1820 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1822 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1823 searched by 5.005_03 are
1825 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1826 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1827 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1828 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1830 Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
1831 fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
1832 searched by version 5.6.0 will be
1834 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
1835 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
1836 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1837 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1839 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1840 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1841 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1843 Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
1844 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1845 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
1846 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
1847 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
1848 present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
1849 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
1850 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
1852 The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
1853 5.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
1855 Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
1856 binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
1857 by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
1859 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1860 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
1861 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
1862 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
1864 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1865 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1867 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1868 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1869 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1871 Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
1872 5.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
1873 extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
1874 of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
1875 versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
1876 the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
1877 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
1878 same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
1879 version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
1881 This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
1882 to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
1883 versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
1885 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1887 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1888 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
1889 won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
1890 libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
1891 way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1893 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1895 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1896 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1897 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1899 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1900 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1903 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1904 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1905 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1908 =head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
1910 Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
1911 prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
1912 5.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
1913 you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
1914 (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
1916 See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
1917 incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
1918 perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
1920 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1922 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1924 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1925 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1927 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1928 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1929 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1930 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1931 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1932 whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1933 possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1935 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1937 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1938 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1939 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1940 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1941 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1943 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1944 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1945 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1946 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1949 =head1 installhtml --help
1951 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1952 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1953 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1955 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1956 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1958 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1963 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1965 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1966 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1967 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1968 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1969 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1972 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1973 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1974 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1975 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1976 (and would welcome patches for them).
1978 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1979 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1981 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1983 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1984 available in TeX format. Type
1986 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1988 =head1 Reporting Problems
1990 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1991 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1992 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1993 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1994 an accurate description of your problem.
1996 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1997 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1998 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1999 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
2000 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
2002 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
2003 information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
2004 Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
2005 complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
2006 commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
2007 are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
2008 usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
2009 reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
2010 will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
2011 try to keep it brief but clear.
2013 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
2015 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2016 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
2017 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
2018 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2019 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
2021 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
2022 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2025 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
2026 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
2028 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
2029 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2032 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2033 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2038 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2039 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2040 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
2042 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2043 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2045 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2047 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
2048 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
2049 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
2050 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2051 and the contact information to match your distribution.
2053 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
2055 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $