3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
17 (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23 L<"Porting Information"> below.
27 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
28 proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
31 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
33 read it as is with any pager or editor.
35 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
36 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
37 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
39 =head1 Space Requirements
41 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
42 The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
43 15 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
44 system-dependent. The installation directories need something
45 on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
47 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
49 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
54 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
55 you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
56 systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
57 experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
58 re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
60 mv config.sh config.sh.old
62 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
63 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
64 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
65 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
66 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
67 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
68 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
69 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
70 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
72 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
73 call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
74 precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
76 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
77 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
81 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
82 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
83 you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
86 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
87 F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
89 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
90 to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
94 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
95 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
97 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
98 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
100 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
105 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
106 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
107 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
108 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
111 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
113 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
114 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
115 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
116 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
118 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
119 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
120 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
121 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
123 =head2 GNU-style configure
125 If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
126 use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
130 The B<configure> script emulates a few of the more common configure
137 Cross compiling is not supported.
139 For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
140 "configure", Perl includes a copy of B<configure> named
145 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
146 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
147 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
148 DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
149 not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
150 by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
151 Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
152 Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
153 by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
154 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
156 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
157 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
158 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
160 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
161 to turn off each extension:
164 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
165 Fcntl (Always included by default)
167 IO (Always included by default)
171 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
175 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
177 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
179 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
182 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
183 the extensions you want.
185 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
186 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
187 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
188 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
190 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
192 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
193 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
194 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
195 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
196 are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
197 how to obtain the libraries.
199 I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
200 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
201 include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
202 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
203 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
204 include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
205 Configure. See the examples below.
211 =item gdbm in /usr/local
213 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
214 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
215 installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
216 F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
217 necessary steps out automatically.
219 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
220 your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
222 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
225 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
226 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
229 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
230 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
231 messages, then you can just run
235 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
237 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
238 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
240 =item gdbm in /usr/you
242 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
243 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
244 have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
245 still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
246 an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
247 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
248 F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
250 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
254 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
255 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
257 C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
258 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
260 C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
261 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
262 you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
263 F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
266 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
267 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
271 =head2 Installation Directories
273 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
274 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
275 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
277 By default, Configure uses the following directories for
278 library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
282 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
286 and the following directories for manual pages:
289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
291 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
292 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
293 instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
294 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
295 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
296 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
297 page, rather than the B<less> program.
299 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
300 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
301 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
303 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
305 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
306 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
311 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
314 The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
315 intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
316 will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
317 just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
319 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
320 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
321 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
323 files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
324 not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
325 the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
326 can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
328 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
331 =head2 Changing the installation directory
333 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
334 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
335 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
336 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
337 However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
338 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
339 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
340 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
341 an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
343 Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
344 You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
345 point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
346 also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
347 automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
348 F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
349 directory of your choice):
351 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
352 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
353 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
354 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
356 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
358 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
359 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
360 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
361 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
363 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
370 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
372 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
373 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
374 installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
376 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
377 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
383 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
384 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
385 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
386 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
388 =head2 Configure-time Options
390 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
391 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
392 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
393 some of the main things you can change.
395 =head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
397 If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
398 perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
399 need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
401 Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
402 been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
403 may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
404 collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
405 installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
406 re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
407 (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
408 automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
409 -DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
411 Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
412 been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
413 complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
414 Perl for such a site, then when B<Configure> asks if you want binary
415 compatibility, answer "y".
417 On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
418 and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
419 answer "n" when B<Configure> asks if you want binary compatibility.
421 The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
422 appropriate for almost everyone.
424 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
426 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
427 <stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
428 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
429 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
431 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
434 sh Configure -Duseperlio
436 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
438 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
439 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
440 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
447 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
448 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
449 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
450 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
451 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
452 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
454 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
455 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
456 it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
458 You select this option by
460 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
462 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
463 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
466 I<Note:> On some systems, sfio's B<iffe> configuration script fails
467 to detect that you have an C<atexit> function (or equivalent).
468 Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
471 You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
472 script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
473 portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
478 main() { printf("42\n"); }
480 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
482 if test X$val = X42; then
483 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
485 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
488 If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
489 and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
492 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
497 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
498 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
499 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
502 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
504 You select this option via:
506 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
508 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
509 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
513 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
515 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
516 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
517 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
520 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
521 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
522 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
523 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
524 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
525 can share the same library.
527 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
528 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
529 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
532 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
533 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
534 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
537 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
538 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
539 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
540 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
541 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
542 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
544 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
545 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
547 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
549 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
551 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
552 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
555 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
557 for Bourne-style shells, or
559 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
561 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
562 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
563 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
565 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
566 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
567 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
568 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
569 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
570 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
571 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
572 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
573 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
574 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
575 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
576 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
578 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
579 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
580 version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
581 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
582 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
586 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
587 perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
588 the malloc function on your system.
590 The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
591 but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
592 malloc() function is probably a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
594 For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
595 the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
596 with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
597 (e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
598 if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
599 third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
600 your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
601 malloc flags discussed below.)
603 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
605 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
607 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
609 =head2 Malloc Performance Flags
611 If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
612 more of the following items to your C<cflags> config.sh variable
613 to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
614 more about these flags by reading the F<malloc.c> source.
615 In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
619 =item -DEMERGENCY_SBRK
621 If this macro is defined, running out of memory need not be a fatal
622 error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
627 If C<PACK_MALLOC> is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
628 algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
629 allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
631 The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in C<alignbytes>) is
632 about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
633 additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
634 to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
636 =item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
638 If C<TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE> is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
639 algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
640 (starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
641 special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
642 manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
643 might be wise to define this macro.
645 The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
646 require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
651 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
653 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
654 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
655 by adding appropriate B<-D> directives to your ccflags variable in
658 For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
659 perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
662 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
664 or by adding C<-Drand=random> and C<-Dsrandom=srandom> to your ccflags
665 at the appropriate Configure prompt. (You may also have to adjust
666 Configure's guess for 'randbits' as well.)
668 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
672 =item Running Configure Interactively
674 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
675 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
678 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
679 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
680 flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
681 will use the defaults from then on.
683 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
684 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
685 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
689 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
690 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
691 will offer to use that hint file.
693 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
694 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
695 file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
698 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
700 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
701 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
702 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
705 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
706 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
707 Keep the recommended value? [y]
709 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
710 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
713 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
714 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
715 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
718 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
719 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
720 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
721 Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
723 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
724 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
725 Keep the previous value? [y]
727 In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
728 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
729 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
731 =item Changing Compilers
733 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
734 probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
735 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
736 with the options you want to use.
738 This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
739 B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
741 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
743 If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
744 them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
745 then have to rebuild by running
752 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
753 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
754 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
755 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
756 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
760 Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
761 F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
762 The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
764 If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
765 though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
770 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
771 line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
772 optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
773 F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
774 can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
775 lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
777 To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
778 and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
779 and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
783 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
784 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
785 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
788 =item Porting information
790 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports are in the
791 corresponding subdirectories. Additional information, including
792 a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
795 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
796 L<"http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
797 various other operating systems.
803 This will look for all the includes.
804 The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
805 F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
806 F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
807 F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
808 F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
809 a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
812 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
817 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
819 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
820 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
821 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
822 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
823 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
824 See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
830 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
831 for further tips and information.
835 If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
836 during the building of extensions, you should run
840 to test your version of miniperl.
844 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
845 unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
846 while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
847 locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
851 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
852 or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
856 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
857 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
858 and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
859 running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
860 forget to propagate your changes (see
861 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
862 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
866 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
867 numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
869 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
870 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
871 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
873 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
874 previous L<"varargs"> item.
876 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
878 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
879 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
880 B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
881 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
882 and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
883 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
884 your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
885 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
887 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
889 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
890 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
891 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
895 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
896 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
897 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
898 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
899 of your local set-up.
901 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
903 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
904 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
905 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
907 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
908 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
909 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
910 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
911 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
915 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
916 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
921 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
922 If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
927 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
928 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
929 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
930 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
931 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
935 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
936 on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
937 re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
941 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
942 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
950 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
951 with B<make depend; make>.
955 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
956 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
957 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
960 =item Missing functions
962 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
963 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
964 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
969 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
970 some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
971 internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
972 F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
973 F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
976 =item Missing dbmclose
978 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
979 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
981 =item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
983 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
984 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
985 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
986 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
987 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
988 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
989 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
990 they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
991 reassure you that the process is continuing.
993 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
996 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
998 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
999 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1000 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1002 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1003 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1004 quite that tightly coordinated.
1006 =item sh: ar: not found
1008 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1009 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1010 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1011 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the F</usr/ccs/bin>
1014 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1016 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1017 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1018 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1022 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1024 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1026 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1028 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
1030 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1032 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1038 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
1039 doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
1040 file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
1041 tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
1043 If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
1044 F<./TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1045 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1049 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1050 individual subtests is to B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
1054 (this assumes that I<most> tests succeed, since F<harness> uses
1055 complicated constructs).
1057 You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1058 comments that apply to your system.
1060 B<Note>: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1061 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1062 C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1063 one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1064 LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1065 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1067 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1073 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1075 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
1076 test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1077 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1078 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1079 things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
1080 C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1085 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1086 B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
1087 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1088 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1089 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1090 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1092 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1093 anything, you can run
1095 ./perl installperl -n
1096 ./perl installman -n
1098 B<make install> will install the following:
1101 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1102 will be a link to perl.
1104 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1105 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1106 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1108 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1109 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1110 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1111 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1112 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1113 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1114 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1115 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1116 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1117 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1120 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1122 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1123 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1124 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1125 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1126 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1127 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1128 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1130 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1131 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1132 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1133 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
1134 where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1135 will be used for installing extensions.
1137 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1138 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1139 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1140 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1142 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1144 You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
1145 under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
1146 starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
1147 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
1148 If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
1149 need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1150 since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1151 in incompatible ways.
1153 The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1154 directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.004>) so that
1155 they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
1156 put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1157 directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1158 you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1161 The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
1162 should be usable by all versions of perl5.
1164 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
1165 version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1166 to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1167 those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1168 F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003>. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
1169 files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
1170 newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1172 Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1173 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1174 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1176 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1178 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1179 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1180 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1182 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1184 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1186 By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1187 they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1189 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1190 F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1191 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1192 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1193 the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
1194 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1195 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1197 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1199 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1200 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1201 header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1202 by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1203 you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1204 F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1205 (such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1206 building (for example, C<5.004>).
1208 B<Note:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1209 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1210 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1211 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1214 =head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
1216 Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1217 available in HTML format. Type
1219 cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
1221 where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
1223 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1225 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1226 available in TeX format. Type
1228 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1230 =head1 Reporting Problems
1232 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1233 file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1234 manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1235 message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1236 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1238 Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
1239 that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1240 B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution,
1241 but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1243 You might also find helpful information in the F<Porting>
1244 directory of the perl distribution.
1246 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1248 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1249 in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1250 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1251 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1252 is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1254 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
1255 along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1256 and running (either):
1258 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1259 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1261 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1262 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1265 Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1266 running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1267 generate the documentation.
1271 Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1272 from the original README by Larry Wall.
1274 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1276 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.3 1997/02/28 16:34:11 doughera Released $