3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
15 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
16 cd pod; make html && mv *.html <www home dir> && cd ..
17 cd pod; make tex && <process the latex files> && cd ..
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 /usr/local/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.
125 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
126 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
127 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
128 DynaLoader, Fcntl, FileHandle and IO are always built by default.
129 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
130 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
131 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
132 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
133 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
134 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
136 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
137 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
138 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
140 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
141 to turn off each extension:
144 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
145 Fcntl (Always included by default)
146 FileHandle (Always included by default)
148 IO (Always included by default)
152 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
156 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
158 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
160 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
163 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
164 the Extensions you want.
166 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
167 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
168 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
169 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
171 =head2 GNU-style configure
173 If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
174 use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
178 The B<configure> script emulates several of the more common configure
185 Cross compiling is currently not supported.
187 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
189 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
190 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
191 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
192 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
193 are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
194 how to obtain the libraries.
196 I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
197 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
198 include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
199 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
200 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
201 include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
202 Configure. See the examples below.
208 =item gdbm in /usr/local.
210 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
211 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
212 installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
213 F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
214 necessary steps out automatically.
216 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
217 your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
219 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
222 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
223 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
226 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
227 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
228 messages, then you can just run
232 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
234 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
235 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
237 =item gdbm in /usr/you
239 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
240 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
241 have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
242 still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
243 an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
244 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
245 F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
247 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
251 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
252 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
254 C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
255 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
257 C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
258 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
259 you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
260 F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
263 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
264 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
268 =head2 Installation Directories.
270 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
271 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
272 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
274 By default, Configure uses the following directories for
275 library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
278 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002
279 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
280 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
283 and the following directories for manual pages:
286 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
288 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
289 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
290 instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
291 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
292 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
293 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
294 page, rather than the B<less> program.
296 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
297 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure
298 with -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
300 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.002
302 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
303 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
308 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
311 The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
312 intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
313 will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
314 just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
316 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.002 after
317 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
318 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002/. In 5.000 and 5.001, these files
320 were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will not be
321 using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from the
322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions can
323 be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
325 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
328 =head2 Changing the installation directory
330 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
331 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
332 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
333 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
334 However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
335 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
336 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
337 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
338 an option C<-Dinstallprefix=/foo> to simplify this.
340 Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
341 You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
342 point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
343 also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
344 automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
345 F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
346 directory of your choice):
348 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
349 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
350 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
351 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
352 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
353 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
354 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
356 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
358 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
360 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
367 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
369 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
370 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
371 installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
373 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
374 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
380 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
381 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
382 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
383 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
385 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library.
387 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
388 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
389 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
392 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
393 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
394 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
395 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
396 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
397 can share the same library.
399 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
400 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
401 meachanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
404 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
405 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
406 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
409 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
410 libperl.so.3.2 (for perl5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
411 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
412 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
413 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
414 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
416 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
417 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
419 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
421 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
423 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
424 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environtment variable before running make. You can do
427 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
429 for Bourne-style shells, or
431 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
433 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
434 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
435 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
437 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
438 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
439 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
440 install a standard perl5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
441 try to build perl5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
442 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
443 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
444 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
445 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
446 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
447 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
448 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
450 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
451 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
452 version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
453 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
454 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
456 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
458 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
459 <stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
460 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
461 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
463 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
466 sh Configure -Duseperlio
468 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
470 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
471 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
472 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
479 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
480 cases, and is extensible by the use of "disipline" modules. Sfio
481 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
482 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
483 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
484 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
486 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
487 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
488 it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
490 You select this option by
492 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
494 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
495 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
500 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
501 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
502 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
505 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
507 You select this option via :
509 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
511 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
512 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
516 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
520 =item Running Configure Interactively
522 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
523 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
526 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
527 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler &
528 flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
529 will use the defaults from then on.
531 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
532 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
533 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
537 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
538 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
539 will offer to use that hint file.
541 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
542 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
543 file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
546 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
548 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
549 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
550 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
553 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
554 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
555 Keep the recommended value? [y]
557 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
558 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
561 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
562 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
563 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
566 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
567 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
568 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
569 Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
571 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
572 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
573 Keep the previous value? [y]
575 In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
576 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
577 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
579 =item Changing Compilers
581 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
582 probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
583 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
584 with the options you want to use.
586 This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
587 B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
589 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
591 If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
592 them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
593 then have to rebuild by running
600 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
601 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
602 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
603 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
604 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
608 Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
609 F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
610 The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
612 If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
613 though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
618 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
619 line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
620 optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
621 F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
622 can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
623 lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
625 To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
626 and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
627 and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
631 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
632 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
633 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
636 =item Porting information
638 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, and VMS ports are in the
639 corresponing subdirectories. Additional information, including
640 a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
643 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
644 L<"http:/www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
645 various other operating systems.
649 =head1 Binary Compatibility With 5.003
651 Perl 5.003 turned on the EMBED feature by default, which tries to
652 avoid possible symbol name conflict by prefixing all global symbols
653 with "Perl_". However, its list of global symbols was incomplete.
654 This error has been rectified in Perl 5.004.
656 However, some sites may need to maintain complete binary compatibility
657 with Perl 5.003. If you are building Perl for such a site, then after
658 B<Configure> you should run these two commands:
663 These commands will make your new Perl as binary-compatible with
664 version 5.003 as possible.
668 This will look for all the includes.
669 The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
670 F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
671 F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
672 F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
673 F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
674 a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
677 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
682 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
684 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
685 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
686 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
687 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
688 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
689 Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
690 that comes with the distribution.
692 [The B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution is
693 useful for sending in such reports, but you need to have
694 perl compiled and installed before you can use it.]
700 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
701 for further tips and information.
705 If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
706 during the building of extensions, you should run
710 to test your version of miniperl.
714 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
715 unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
716 while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
717 locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
721 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
725 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
726 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
727 and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
728 running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
729 forget to propagate your changes (see
730 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
731 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
735 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
736 numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
738 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
739 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
740 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
742 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
743 previous L<"varargs"> item.
745 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
747 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
748 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
749 B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
750 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
751 and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
752 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
753 your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
754 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
756 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
758 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
759 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
760 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
764 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
765 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
766 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
767 of your local set-up.
769 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
771 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
772 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
773 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
775 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
776 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
777 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
778 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
779 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
783 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
784 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
789 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
790 If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
795 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
796 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
797 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
798 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
799 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
803 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
804 on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
805 re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
809 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
810 optimizier. Edit config.sh and change the line
818 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
819 with B<make depend; make>.
823 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
824 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
825 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
828 =item Missing functions
830 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
831 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
832 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
837 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
838 some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
839 internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
840 F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
841 F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
844 =item Missing dbmclose
846 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
847 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
849 =item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
851 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
852 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
853 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
854 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
855 systems; few systems will need all the possible libries listed.
856 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
857 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
858 they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
859 reassure you that the process is continuing.
861 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
864 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
866 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
867 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
868 extension without the -lgdbm library.
870 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
871 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
872 quite that tightly coordinated.
876 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
878 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
880 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
882 UTS may need one or more of B<-DCRIPPLED_CC>, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
884 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
886 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
892 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
893 doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
894 file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run it
895 in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
897 If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
898 B<TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
899 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
903 You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
904 comments that apply to your system.
906 B<Note>: one possible reason for errors is that some external programs
907 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
908 C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
909 one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
910 LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
911 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
913 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
914 C<setenv LC_ALL C> (for C shell) or <LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL> (for
915 Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
916 test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
917 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
918 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
919 things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
920 C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
923 =head1 INSTALLING PERL5
927 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
928 B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
929 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
930 page, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
931 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
932 ignore any messages about chown not working.
934 You may see some harmless error messages and warnings from pod2man.
935 You may safely ignore them. (Yes, they should be fixed, but they
936 didn't seem important enough to warrant holding up the entire release.)
938 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
939 anything, you can run
941 ./perl installperl -n
944 B<make install> will install the following:
947 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
948 will be a link to perl.
950 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
951 a2p awk-to-perl translator
952 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
954 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
955 s2p sed-to-perl translator
956 find2perl find-to-perl translator
957 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
958 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
959 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
960 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
961 pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
964 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
965 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
966 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
967 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
968 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
969 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
970 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
972 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
973 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
974 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
975 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
976 where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
977 will be used for installing extensions.
979 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
980 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
981 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
982 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
984 Most of the documentation in the pod/ directory is also available
985 in HTML and LaTeX format. Type
987 cd pod; make html; cd ..
989 to generate the html versions, and
991 cd pod; make tex; cd ..
993 to generate the LaTeX versions.
995 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
997 Some of the perl library files need to be able to obtain information from
998 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
999 header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1000 by perl. These files will be placed in architectural library directory
1001 you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1002 F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1003 (such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1004 building (for example, C<5.003>).
1006 B<NOTE:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion of
1007 the header files in not perfect. You may have to hand edit some of the
1008 converted files to get them to parse correctly. For example, it breaks
1009 spectacularly on type casting and certain structures.
1011 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.
1013 You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
1014 under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
1015 starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
1016 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
1017 If you want to retain a version of perl5 prior to perl5.003, you'll
1018 need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1019 since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1020 in incompatible ways.
1022 The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1023 directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.002>) so that
1024 they are still accessible. I<Note:> perl5.000 and perl5.001 did not
1025 put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1026 directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1027 you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1030 The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
1031 should be usable by all versions of perl5.
1033 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
1034 version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1035 to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1036 those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1037 F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.002>. Then perl5.002 will find your
1038 files in the 5.002 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
1039 newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1041 Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1042 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1043 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1045 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.002
1047 and adding /opt/perl5.002/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1048 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1049 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1051 B<NOTE>: Starting with 5.002_01, all functions in the perl C source
1052 code are protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that
1053 you may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
1054 collisons. This breaks compatability with
1055 version 5.002, so once you install 5.002_01 (or higher) you will
1056 need to re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable
1057 extensions. (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
1058 automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
1059 -DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
1061 In the future, we certainly hope that most extensions won't need to be
1062 recompiled for use with a newer version of perl.
1064 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1066 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1068 By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1069 they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1071 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1072 F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1073 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1074 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1075 the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
1076 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1077 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1079 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1081 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1082 in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1083 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1084 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1085 is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1089 Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1090 from the original README by Larry Wall.
1092 =head1 LAST MODIFIED