3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 ****************************
8 *** NEEDS WORK FOR 5.004 ***
9 ****************************
11 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
19 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
20 cd pod; make html && mv *.html <www home dir> && cd ..
21 cd pod; make tex && <process the latex files> && cd ..
24 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
27 L<"Porting Information">, below.
31 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
32 proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
35 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
36 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
37 read it as is with any pager or editor.
39 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
40 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
41 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
43 =head1 Space Requirements.
45 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
46 The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
47 15 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
48 system-dependent. The installation directories need something
49 on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
51 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution.
53 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
58 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
59 you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
60 systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
61 experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
62 re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
64 mv config.sh config.sh.old
66 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
67 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
68 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
69 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
70 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
71 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
72 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
73 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
74 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
76 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
77 call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
78 precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
80 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
81 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
85 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
86 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
87 you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
90 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
91 F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
93 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
94 to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
98 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
99 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
101 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
102 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
104 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
109 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
110 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
111 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
112 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
115 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
117 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
118 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
119 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
120 /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
122 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading, if
123 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
124 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
125 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
127 =head2 GNU-style configure
129 If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
130 use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
134 The B<configure> script emulates several of the more common configure
141 Cross compiling is currently not supported.
143 For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
144 "configure", Perl includes a copy of B<configure> named
147 =head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
149 Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
150 been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
151 may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
152 collisons. This change broke compatability with version 5.002, so
153 installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
154 re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
155 (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
156 automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
157 -DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
159 Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, which has been
160 rectified in Perl 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
161 complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
162 Perl for such a site, then when B<Configure> asks if you want binary
163 compatibility, answer "y".
167 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
168 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
169 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
170 DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
171 not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
172 by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
173 Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
174 Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
175 by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
176 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
178 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
179 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
180 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
182 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
183 to turn off each extension:
186 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
187 Fcntl (Always included by default)
189 IO (Always included by default)
193 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
197 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
199 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
201 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
204 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
205 the Extensions you want.
207 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
208 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
209 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
210 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
212 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
214 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
215 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
216 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
217 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
218 are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
219 how to obtain the libraries.
221 I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
222 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
223 include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
224 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
225 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
226 include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
227 Configure. See the examples below.
233 =item gdbm in /usr/local.
235 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
236 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
237 installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
238 F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
239 necessary steps out automatically.
241 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
242 your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
244 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
247 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
248 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
251 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
252 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
253 messages, then you can just run
257 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
259 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
260 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
262 =item gdbm in /usr/you
264 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
265 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
266 have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
267 still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
268 an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
269 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
270 F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
272 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
276 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
277 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
279 C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
280 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
282 C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
283 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
284 you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
285 F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
288 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
289 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
293 =head2 Installation Directories.
295 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
296 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
297 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
299 By default, Configure uses the following directories for
300 library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
303 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
304 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
305 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
306 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
308 and the following directories for manual pages:
311 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
313 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
314 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
315 instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
316 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
317 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
318 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
319 page, rather than the B<less> program.
321 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
322 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure
323 with -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
325 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
327 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
328 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
333 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
336 The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
337 intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
338 will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
339 just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
341 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
342 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
343 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
344 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
345 files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
346 not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
347 the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
348 can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
350 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
353 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
355 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
356 <stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
357 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
358 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
360 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
363 sh Configure -Duseperlio
365 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
367 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
368 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
369 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
376 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
377 cases, and is extensible by the use of "disipline" modules. Sfio
378 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
379 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
380 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
381 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
383 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
384 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
385 it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
387 You select this option by
389 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
391 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
392 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
397 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
398 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
399 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
402 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
404 You select this option via :
406 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
408 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
409 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
413 =head2 Changing the installation directory
415 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
416 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
417 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
418 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
419 However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
420 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
421 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
422 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
423 an option C<-Dinstallprefix=/foo> to simplify this.
425 Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
426 You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
427 point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
428 also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
429 automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
430 F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
431 directory of your choice):
433 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
434 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
435 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
436 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
437 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
438 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
439 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
440 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
441 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
442 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
443 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
445 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
452 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library.
454 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
455 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
456 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
459 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
460 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
461 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
462 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
463 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
464 can share the same library.
466 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
467 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
468 meachanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
471 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
472 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
473 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
476 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
477 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
478 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
479 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
480 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
481 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
483 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
484 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
486 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
488 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
490 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
491 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environtment variable before running make. You can do
494 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
496 for Bourne-style shells, or
498 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
500 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
501 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
502 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
504 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
505 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
506 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
507 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
508 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
509 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
510 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
511 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
512 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
513 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
514 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
515 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
517 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
518 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
519 version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
520 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
521 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
523 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
525 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
526 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
527 installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
529 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
530 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
536 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
537 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
538 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
539 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
541 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
545 =item Running Configure Interactively
547 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
548 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
551 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
552 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler &
553 flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
554 will use the defaults from then on.
556 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
557 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
558 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
562 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
563 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
564 will offer to use that hint file.
566 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
567 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
568 file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
571 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
573 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
574 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
575 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
578 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
579 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
580 Keep the recommended value? [y]
582 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
583 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
586 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
587 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
588 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
591 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
592 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
593 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
594 Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
596 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
597 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
598 Keep the previous value? [y]
600 In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
601 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
602 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
604 =item Changing Compilers
606 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
607 probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
608 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
609 with the options you want to use.
611 This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
612 B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
614 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
616 If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
617 them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
618 then have to rebuild by running
625 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
626 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
627 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
628 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
629 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
633 Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
634 F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
635 The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
637 If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
638 though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
643 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
644 line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
645 optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
646 F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
647 can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
648 lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
650 To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
651 and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
652 and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
656 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
657 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
658 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
661 =item Porting information
663 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, and VMS ports are in the
664 corresponing subdirectories. Additional information, including
665 a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
668 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
669 L<"http:/www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
670 various other operating systems.
676 This will look for all the includes.
677 The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
678 F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
679 F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
680 F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
681 F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
682 a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
685 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
690 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
692 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
693 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
694 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
695 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
696 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
697 Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
698 that comes with the distribution.
700 [The B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution is
701 useful for sending in such reports, but you need to have
702 perl compiled and installed before you can use it.]
708 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
709 for further tips and information.
713 If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
714 during the building of extensions, you should run
718 to test your version of miniperl.
722 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
723 unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
724 while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
725 locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
729 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
733 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
734 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
735 and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
736 running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
737 forget to propagate your changes (see
738 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
739 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
743 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
744 numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
746 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
747 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
748 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
750 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
751 previous L<"varargs"> item.
753 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
755 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
756 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
757 B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
758 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
759 and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
760 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
761 your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
762 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
764 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
766 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
767 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
768 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
772 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
773 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
774 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
775 of your local set-up.
777 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
779 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
780 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
781 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
783 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
784 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
785 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
786 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
787 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
791 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
792 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
797 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
798 If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
803 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
804 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
805 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
806 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
807 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
811 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
812 on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
813 re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
817 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
818 optimizier. Edit config.sh and change the line
826 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
827 with B<make depend; make>.
831 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
832 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
833 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
836 =item Missing functions
838 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
839 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
840 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
845 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
846 some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
847 internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
848 F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
849 F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
852 =item Missing dbmclose
854 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
855 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
857 =item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
859 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
860 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
861 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
862 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
863 systems; few systems will need all the possible libries listed.
864 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
865 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
866 they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
867 reassure you that the process is continuing.
869 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
872 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
874 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
875 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
876 extension without the -lgdbm library.
878 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
879 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
880 quite that tightly coordinated.
884 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
886 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
888 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
890 UTS may need one or more of B<-DCRIPPLED_CC>, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
892 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
894 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
896 db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55: Old versions of the DB library
897 (including the DB library which comes with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken
898 handling of recno databases with modified bval settings. Upgrade your
905 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
906 doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
907 file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run it
908 in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
910 If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
911 B<TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
912 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
916 You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
917 comments that apply to your system.
919 B<Note>: one possible reason for errors is that some external programs
920 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
921 C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
922 one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
923 LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
924 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
926 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
927 C<setenv LC_ALL C> (for C shell) or <LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL> (for
928 Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
929 test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
930 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
931 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
932 things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
933 C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
938 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
939 B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
940 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
941 page, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
942 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
943 ignore any messages about chown not working.
945 You may see some harmless error messages and warnings from pod2man.
946 You may safely ignore them. (Yes, they should be fixed, but they
947 didn't seem important enough to warrant holding up the entire release.)
949 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
950 anything, you can run
952 ./perl installperl -n
955 B<make install> will install the following:
958 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
959 will be a link to perl.
961 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
962 a2p awk-to-perl translator
963 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
965 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
966 s2p sed-to-perl translator
967 find2perl find-to-perl translator
968 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
969 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
970 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
971 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
972 pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
975 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
976 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
977 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
978 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
979 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
980 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
981 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
983 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
984 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
985 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
986 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
987 where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
988 will be used for installing extensions.
990 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
991 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
992 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
993 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
995 Most of the documentation in the pod/ directory is also available
996 in HTML and LaTeX format. Type
998 cd pod; make html; cd ..
1000 to generate the html versions, and
1002 cd pod; make tex; cd ..
1004 to generate the LaTeX versions.
1006 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1008 Some of the perl library files need to be able to obtain information from
1009 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1010 header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1011 by perl. These files will be placed in architectural library directory
1012 you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1013 F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1014 (such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1015 building (for example, C<5.003>).
1017 B<NOTE:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion of
1018 the header files in not perfect. You may have to hand edit some of the
1019 converted files to get them to parse correctly. For example, it breaks
1020 spectacularly on type casting and certain structures.
1022 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.
1024 You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
1025 under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
1026 starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
1027 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
1028 If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
1029 need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1030 since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1031 in incompatible ways.
1033 The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1034 directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.004>) so that
1035 they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
1036 put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1037 directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1038 you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1041 The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
1042 should be usable by all versions of perl5.
1044 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
1045 version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1046 to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1047 those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1048 F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.004>. Then Perl 5.004 will find your
1049 files in the 5.004 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
1050 newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1052 Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1053 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1054 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1056 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1058 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1059 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1060 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1062 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1064 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1066 By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1067 they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1069 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1070 F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1071 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1072 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1073 the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
1074 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1075 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1077 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1079 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1080 in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1081 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1082 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1083 is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1085 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
1086 along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1087 and running (either):
1089 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1090 ./roffitall -psroff # Otherwise
1092 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1094 Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1095 running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1096 generate the documentation.
1100 Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1101 from the original README by Larry Wall.
1103 =head1 LAST MODIFIED