3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
23 on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
25 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
31 Full configuration instructions can be found in the INSTALL file.
33 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
34 L<"Porting information"> below.
36 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
37 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
39 For information on what's new in this release, see the
40 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
41 changes, see the Changes file.
43 IMPORTANT NOTE: 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
44 global symbols anymore. This means most CPAN modules probably won't
45 build under this release without adding '-DPERL_POLLUTE' to ccflags
46 in config.sh. This is not the default because we want the modules
47 to get fixed *before* the 5.6 release. pod/perldelta.pod contains
48 additional notes about this.
52 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
53 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
54 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
55 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
57 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
59 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
61 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
64 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
65 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
66 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
68 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
69 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
70 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
71 there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
72 that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
74 =head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
76 If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under perl
77 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions to use
78 them with 5.6. Pure perl modules should continue to work just fine
79 without reinstallation. See the discussions below on L<"Coexistence
80 with earlier versions of perl5"> and L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to
81 5.6"> for more details.
83 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
85 In a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
86 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
87 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
88 what's changed. See also your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
89 file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
90 Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
91 currently installed modules.
93 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
95 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
96 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
97 Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
98 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
99 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
100 in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
101 available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
102 unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
103 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
104 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
106 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
107 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
108 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
110 =head1 Space Requirements
112 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 15 MB of disk space.
113 After completing make, it takes up roughly 20 MB, though the actual
114 total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
115 directories need something on the order of 15 MB, though again that
116 value is system-dependent.
118 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
120 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
129 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
130 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
132 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
133 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
134 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
135 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
136 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
140 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
141 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
142 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
143 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
144 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
145 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
146 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
147 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
148 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
150 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
151 Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
152 it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
153 might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
154 compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
155 the architecture name.
157 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
158 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
160 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
161 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
162 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
163 settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
164 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
170 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
171 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
172 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
173 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
174 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
177 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
178 defaults from then on.
180 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
181 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
183 =head2 Common Configure options
185 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
186 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
187 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
193 To compile with gcc you should run
195 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
197 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
198 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
200 =item Installation prefix
202 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
203 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
204 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
207 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
208 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
209 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
211 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
213 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
214 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
215 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
216 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
219 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
220 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
221 attempt infinite recursion.
225 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
226 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
227 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
228 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
229 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
231 By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
232 the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
234 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
236 or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
238 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
239 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
240 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
241 obvious and convenient place.
243 =item Overriding an old config.sh
245 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
246 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
250 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
255 For my Solaris system, I usually use
257 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
259 =head2 GNU-style configure
261 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
262 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
264 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
266 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
269 ./configure.gnu --help
273 Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
275 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
276 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
278 =head2 Installation Directories
280 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
281 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
282 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
283 Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
284 directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
285 be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
287 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
288 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
289 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
290 the defaults from then on.
292 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
293 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
294 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
295 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
296 you can safely skip the next section.
298 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
302 =item Directories for the perl distribution
304 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.
305 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
306 5.6 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
307 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
308 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
310 Configure variable Default value
313 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
314 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
315 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
316 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
317 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
321 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
322 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
323 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
324 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
325 the common style is shown here.
327 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
329 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
330 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
331 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts. $apiversion
332 is the perl version number (without subversion), e.g. 5.6.
334 Configure variable Default value
336 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
337 $sitescriptdir $siteprefix/bin
338 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/
339 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$apiversion/$archname
340 $siteman1dir $siteprefix/man/man1
341 $siteman3dir $siteprefix/man/man3
345 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
346 modules into $sitelib/$apiversion and architecture-dependent modules
349 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
351 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
352 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
353 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
355 Configure variable Default value
357 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
358 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
359 $vendorscriptdir $vendorprefix/bin
360 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/
361 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$apiversion/$archname
362 $vendorman1dir $vendorprefix/man/man1
363 $vendorman3dir $vendorprefix/man/man3
364 $vendorhtml1dir (none)
365 $vendorhtml3dir (none)
367 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
368 a vendor might choose the following settings:
371 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
372 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
374 This would have the effect of setting the following:
378 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
379 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
380 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
381 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
383 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
384 $sitescriptdir /usr/local/bin
385 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
386 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$apiversion/$archname
387 $siteman1dir /usr/local/man/man1
388 $siteman3dir /usr/local/man/man3
391 $vendorscriptdir /usr/bin
392 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/
393 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$apiversion/$archname
394 $vendorman1dir /usr/man/man1
395 $vendorman3dir /usr/man/man3
397 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
398 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
399 the /usr/local hierarchy. Note too how the vendor-supplied
400 directories track $apiversion, rather than $version, to ease upgrading
401 between maintenance subversions. See L<"Coexistence with earlier
402 versions of perl5"> below for more details.
404 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
405 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
406 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
407 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
408 network. One way to do that would be something like
410 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
414 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
415 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
416 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
417 $prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
418 installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
422 In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
423 pages in a version-specific directory, such as
424 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
425 after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
426 without resetting MANPATH.
428 You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
430 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6/man/man3
432 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
434 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
436 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
441 As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
442 anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
443 Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
444 html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
445 specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
446 but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
451 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
452 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
455 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
456 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
459 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
460 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
461 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
463 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
464 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
465 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
467 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
468 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6 are
470 Configure variable Default value
471 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6
472 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6/$archname
473 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6
474 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6/$archname
476 =head2 Changing the installation directory
478 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
479 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
480 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
481 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
482 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
483 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
484 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
485 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
486 section describes how to do that.
488 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
489 could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
490 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
491 following command line:
493 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
495 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
497 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
498 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
499 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
502 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
504 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
505 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
506 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
507 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
508 Here's one way to do that:
510 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
511 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
512 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
515 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
517 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
518 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
519 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
520 # everywhere in those files.)
521 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
522 # #!/wherever/perl line.
523 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
524 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
525 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
526 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
528 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
530 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
531 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
532 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
533 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
534 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
535 hint file for your system.
537 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
542 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
544 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
546 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
547 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
548 platform-specific hints files.
550 Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6 contains a number of
551 new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
552 set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
553 interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
555 =head2 Configure-time Options
557 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
558 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
559 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
560 some of the main things you can change.
564 On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
565 experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
566 README.threads, and then try:
568 sh Configure -Dusethreads
570 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
571 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
573 The default is to compile without thread support.
575 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
577 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
578 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
579 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
580 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
582 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
585 sh Configure -Duseperlio
587 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
589 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
590 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
591 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
598 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
599 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
600 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
601 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
602 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
603 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
605 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
606 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
608 You select this option by
610 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
612 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
613 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
616 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
617 detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
618 this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
619 Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
620 _exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
621 your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
623 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
628 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
629 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
630 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
633 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
635 You select this option via:
637 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
639 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
640 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
644 =head2 Dynamic Loading
646 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
647 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
648 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
649 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
651 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
653 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
654 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
655 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
658 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
659 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
660 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
661 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
662 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
663 can share the same library.
665 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
666 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
667 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
670 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
671 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
672 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
675 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
676 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
677 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
678 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
679 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
680 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
682 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
683 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
685 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
687 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
689 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
690 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
691 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
692 HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for cygwin) must be set up to include
693 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
694 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
695 library search settings.
697 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
698 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
699 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
702 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
704 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
706 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
709 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
711 for Bourne-style shells, or
713 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
715 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
716 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
718 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
719 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
721 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
723 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
724 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
725 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
726 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
727 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
728 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
729 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
730 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
731 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
732 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
733 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
734 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
735 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
736 to point to the perl build directory.
738 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
739 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
740 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
741 variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
745 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
746 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
747 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
748 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
749 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
750 than your system malloc.
752 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
753 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
754 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
755 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
759 =item Using the system malloc
761 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
763 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
765 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
767 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
769 Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
770 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). The names do not clash
771 with the system versions of these functions.
773 If you add -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC to your ccflags variable in
774 config.sh, then Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
775 names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
776 have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
777 by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
779 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
780 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
781 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
786 =head2 Building a debugging perl
788 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
789 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
790 you probably want to do
792 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
794 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
795 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
796 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
797 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
798 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
799 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
800 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
801 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
802 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
803 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
804 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
806 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
807 it's convenient to have both.
809 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
810 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
812 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
814 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However, you
815 can change a number of factors in the way perl is built by adding
816 appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
818 You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
819 doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
820 shouldn't do that, but some might.)
824 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
825 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
826 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
827 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
828 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
829 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
830 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
831 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
832 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
833 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
835 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
836 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
839 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
840 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
841 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
843 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
844 to turn off each extension:
846 B (Always included by default)
848 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
849 Fcntl (Always included by default)
851 IO (Always included by default)
855 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
859 attrs (Always included by default)
861 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
863 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
865 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
868 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
869 the extensions you want.
871 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
872 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
873 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
874 releases of version 2.
876 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
877 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
878 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
881 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
882 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
883 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
884 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
886 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
888 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
889 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
890 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
891 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
892 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
893 how to obtain the libraries.
895 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
896 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
897 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
898 your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
899 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
900 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
901 See the examples below.
907 =item gdbm in /usr/local
909 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
910 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
911 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
912 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
913 necessary steps out automatically.
915 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
916 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
918 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
921 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
922 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
925 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
926 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
927 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
929 =item gdbm in /usr/you
931 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
932 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
933 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
934 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
935 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
936 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
937 /usr/you/lib to the list.
939 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
943 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
944 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
946 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
947 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
949 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
950 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
951 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
952 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
955 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
956 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
960 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
962 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
963 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
967 =item Running Configure Interactively
969 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
970 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
973 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
974 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
975 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
976 will use the defaults from then on.
978 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
979 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
980 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
984 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
985 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
986 will offer to use that hint file.
988 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
989 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
990 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
991 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
994 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
996 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
997 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
998 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1001 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1002 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1003 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1005 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1006 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1009 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1010 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1011 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1014 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1015 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1016 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1017 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1020 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1021 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1022 Keep the previous value? [y]
1024 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1025 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1026 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1028 =item Changing Compilers
1030 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1031 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1032 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1033 with the options you want to use.
1035 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1036 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1038 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1040 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1041 them to all the .SH files by running
1045 You will then have to rebuild by running
1052 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1053 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1054 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1055 does no checking that your changes make sense.
1059 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1060 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1061 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1063 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1064 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1069 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1070 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1071 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1072 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1073 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1074 lost the next time you run Configure.
1076 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1077 see the file hints/README.hints.
1079 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1080 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1087 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
1088 to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
1089 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1092 =item Environment variable clashes
1094 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1095 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1096 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1097 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1099 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1101 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1103 Build a threading Perl? [n]
1104 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1106 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1107 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1108 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1109 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1110 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1111 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1112 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1114 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1116 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1117 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1118 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1121 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1122 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1123 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1125 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1126 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1128 =item Porting information
1130 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1131 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1132 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1133 subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1135 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1136 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1137 various other operating systems.
1139 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1140 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1141 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1142 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1148 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1149 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1150 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1151 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1152 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1153 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1155 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1160 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1162 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1164 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1165 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1166 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1167 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1173 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1174 for further tips and information.
1178 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1179 during the building of extensions, you should run
1183 to test your version of miniperl.
1187 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1188 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1189 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1190 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1191 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1192 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1194 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1195 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1198 are supported and installed on your system.
1199 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1205 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1206 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1207 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1208 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1209 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1210 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1211 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1215 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1216 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1218 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1219 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1220 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1222 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1223 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1225 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1227 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1228 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1229 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1230 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1231 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1232 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1233 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1234 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1235 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1237 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1238 invoke Configure with
1240 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1242 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1245 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1246 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1249 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1251 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1252 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1253 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1255 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1257 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1258 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1259 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1260 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1261 of your local set-up.
1263 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1265 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1266 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1267 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1269 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1270 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1271 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1272 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1273 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1277 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1278 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1281 sh Configure -Uusenm
1283 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1284 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1287 =item umask not found
1289 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1290 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1291 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1292 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1293 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1297 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1298 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1299 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1300 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1301 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1305 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1306 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1307 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1311 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1312 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1313 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1314 on L<"nm extraction">.
1316 =item __inet_* errors
1318 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1319 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1320 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1321 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1322 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1323 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1324 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1325 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1328 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1330 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1331 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1332 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1333 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1334 update your gcc installation.
1338 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1339 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1347 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1348 with B<make depend; make>.
1352 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
1353 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1354 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1357 =item Missing functions
1359 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1360 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1361 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1362 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1363 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1367 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1368 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1369 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1370 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1371 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1374 =item Missing dbmclose
1376 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1377 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1379 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1381 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1382 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1383 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1384 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1385 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1386 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1387 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1388 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1389 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1390 process is continuing.
1392 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1395 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1397 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1398 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1399 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1401 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1402 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1403 quite that tightly coordinated.
1405 =item sh: ar: not found
1407 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1408 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1409 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1410 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1413 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1415 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1416 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1417 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1419 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1421 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1422 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1423 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1424 to include the System V semaphores.
1426 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1428 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1429 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1430 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1431 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1436 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1437 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1438 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1439 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1440 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1441 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1442 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1443 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1447 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1449 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1451 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1453 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1455 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1456 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1457 you will get a message telling what to do.
1459 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1461 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1463 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1464 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1465 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1466 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1467 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1473 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1474 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1475 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1477 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1478 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1479 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1481 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1483 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1484 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1485 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1489 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1490 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1494 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1495 complicated constructs).
1497 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1498 comments that apply to your system.
1504 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1505 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1506 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1507 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1508 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1509 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1511 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1517 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1519 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1520 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1521 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1522 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1523 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1524 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1529 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1530 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1531 Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1532 fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1533 will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1536 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1538 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1540 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1541 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1542 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1543 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1549 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1550 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1551 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1552 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1553 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1554 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1556 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1558 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1559 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1560 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1562 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1564 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1565 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1567 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1569 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1570 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1571 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1573 =head2 Installed files
1575 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1576 anything, you can run
1578 ./perl installperl -n
1579 ./perl installman -n
1581 make install will install the following:
1584 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1585 will be a link to perl.
1587 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1588 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1589 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1591 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1592 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1593 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1594 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1595 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1596 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1597 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1598 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1599 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1600 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1603 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1604 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
1606 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1607 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1608 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1610 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
1611 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1613 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1614 in L<"Installation Directories">.
1616 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1617 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
1618 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1619 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1621 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1623 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1624 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1625 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1626 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1627 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1628 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1629 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1630 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1632 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1633 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1634 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1636 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1637 searched by 5.005_03 are
1639 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1640 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1641 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1642 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1644 Now, suppose you install version 5.6. The directories searched by
1647 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6/$archname
1648 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6
1649 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6/$archname
1650 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6
1652 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1653 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1655 Notice the last two entries -- Perl understands the default structure
1656 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1657 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
1658 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6. Further,
1659 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
1660 present only in 5.6. That new module will get installed into
1661 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6 and will be available to 5.6,
1662 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
1664 Also, by default, 5.6 will look in
1666 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1668 for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
1670 Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1. The directories
1671 searched by 5.6.1 will be
1673 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1674 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
1675 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6/$archname
1676 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6
1678 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1679 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1680 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1682 When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1683 $sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1684 does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.6 and
1685 5.6.1 can use the extension.
1687 However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1688 old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1689 to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1690 (The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1691 extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1692 is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1693 to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
1694 5.6 will find your files in the 5.6 directory, and newer versions
1695 of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1696 (This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1698 Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your modules
1699 every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1700 number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
1702 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1704 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1705 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
1706 won't interfere with another version. One convenient way to do this
1707 is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1709 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1711 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1712 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1713 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1715 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1716 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1719 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1720 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1721 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1724 =head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6
1726 Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.005_50
1727 will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.005_50 and later. You will,
1728 however, be able to continue using 5.005 even after you install 5.6.
1729 The 5.005 binary will still be able to find the modules built under
1730 5.005; the 5.6 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1731 directories, and will not find them. See also your installed copy
1732 of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally
1733 installed modules. Note that you want perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod
1734 for installed module information.
1736 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1738 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1740 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1741 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1743 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1744 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1745 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1746 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1747 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1748 whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1749 possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1751 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1753 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1754 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1755 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1756 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1757 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1759 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1760 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1761 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1762 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1765 =head1 installhtml --help
1767 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1768 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1769 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1771 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1772 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1774 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1779 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1781 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1782 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1783 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1784 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1785 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1788 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1789 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1790 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1791 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1792 (and would welcome patches for them).
1794 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1795 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1797 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1799 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1800 available in TeX format. Type
1802 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1804 =head1 Reporting Problems
1806 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1807 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1808 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1809 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1810 an accurate description of your problem.
1812 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1813 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1814 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1815 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1816 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1818 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1819 information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1820 Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1821 complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
1822 commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
1823 are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1824 usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1825 reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1826 will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1827 try to keep it brief but clear.
1829 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1831 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1832 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1833 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1834 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1835 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1837 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1838 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1841 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1842 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1844 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1845 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1848 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1849 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1854 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1855 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1856 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1858 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1859 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1861 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1863 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1864 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
1865 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1866 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1867 and the contact information to match your distribution.
1869 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1871 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $