3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23 L<"Porting information"> below.
25 For information on what's new in this release, see the
26 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27 changes, see the Changes file.
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. Headings and items are marked
34 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
36 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
38 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
40 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
43 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
44 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
45 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
47 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
48 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
49 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
51 =head1 Space Requirements
53 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space. The
54 complete tree after completing make takes roughly 15 MB, though the
55 actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
56 directories need something on the order of 7 MB, though again that
57 value is system-dependent.
59 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
61 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
66 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
67 you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
68 systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
69 experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably not
70 re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
72 mv config.sh config.sh.old
74 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
75 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
76 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
77 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
78 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
79 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
80 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
81 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
82 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
84 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
85 (such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
86 pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
88 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
89 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
93 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
94 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
95 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
96 is almost always ok. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
97 and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
99 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
100 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
102 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
103 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
104 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
106 To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
108 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
110 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
111 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
113 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
114 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
116 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
117 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
118 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
119 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
122 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
124 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
125 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
126 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
127 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
129 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
130 your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
133 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
134 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
135 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
136 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
138 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
143 For my Solaris system, I usually use
145 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
147 =head2 GNU-style configure
149 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
150 use the supplied configure command, e.g.
154 The configure script emulates a few of the more common configure
161 Cross compiling is not supported.
163 For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
164 "configure", Perl includes a copy of configure named
169 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
170 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
171 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
172 DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
173 not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
174 by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
175 Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
176 Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
177 by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
178 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
180 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
181 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
184 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
185 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
186 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
188 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
189 to turn off each extension:
192 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
193 Fcntl (Always included by default)
195 IO (Always included by default)
199 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
203 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
205 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
207 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
210 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
211 the extensions you want.
213 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of
214 Berkeley DB. Once Berkeley DB version 2 is released, DB_File will be
215 upgraded to work with it. Configure will automatically detect this
216 for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
218 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
219 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
220 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
221 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
223 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
225 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
226 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
227 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
228 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
229 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
230 how to obtain the libraries.
232 Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
233 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
234 include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
235 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
236 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
237 include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
238 Configure. See the examples below.
244 =item gdbm in /usr/local
246 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
247 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
248 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
249 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
250 necessary steps out automatically.
252 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
253 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
255 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
258 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
259 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
262 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
263 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
264 messages, then you can just run
268 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
270 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
271 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
273 =item gdbm in /usr/you
275 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
276 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
277 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
278 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
279 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
280 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
281 /usr/you/lib to the list.
283 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
287 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
288 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
290 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
291 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
293 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
294 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
295 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
296 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
299 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
300 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
304 =head2 Installation Directories
306 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
307 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
308 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
310 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
311 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
312 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
313 will use the defaults from then on.
315 By default, Configure uses the following directories for
316 library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
320 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
321 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
324 and the following directories for manual pages:
327 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
329 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
330 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
333 The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
334 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
335 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
336 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
337 page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
338 change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
340 Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
341 /usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
343 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
345 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
347 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
349 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
350 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
351 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
353 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
355 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
356 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
361 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
364 The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
365 intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
366 will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
367 just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
369 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
370 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
371 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
372 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
373 files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
374 not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
375 the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
376 can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
378 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
381 =head2 Changing the installation directory
383 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
384 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
385 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
386 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
387 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
388 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
389 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
390 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
391 an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
393 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
394 can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
395 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
396 process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
397 run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
399 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
400 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
401 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
402 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
403 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
404 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
405 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
406 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
407 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
408 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
409 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
411 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
418 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
420 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
421 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
422 installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
424 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
425 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
431 # Edit lib/<archname>/<version>/Config.pm to change all the
432 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
433 # really be installed.
434 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
435 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
436 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
437 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
439 =head2 Configure-time Options
441 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
442 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
443 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
444 some of the main things you can change.
446 =head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
448 If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
449 perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
450 need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
452 Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
453 been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
454 may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
455 collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
456 installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
457 re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
458 (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
459 automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
460 -DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
462 Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
463 been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
464 complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
465 Perl for such a site, then when Configure asks if you want binary
466 compatibility, answer "y".
468 On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
469 and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
470 answer "n" when Configure asks if you want binary compatibility, or
471 disable it from the Configure command line with
473 sh Configure -Ud_bincompat3
475 The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
476 appropriate for almost everyone.
478 In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
479 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
480 pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed.
482 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
484 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
485 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
486 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
487 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
489 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
492 sh Configure -Duseperlio
494 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
496 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
497 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
498 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
505 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
506 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
507 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
508 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
509 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
510 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
512 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
513 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
514 it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
516 You select this option by
518 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
520 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
521 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
524 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
525 to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
526 Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
529 You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
530 script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
531 portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
536 main() { printf("42\n"); }
538 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
540 if test X$val = X42; then
541 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
543 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
546 If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
547 and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
550 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
555 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
556 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
557 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
560 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
562 You select this option via:
564 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
566 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
567 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
571 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
573 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
574 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
575 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
578 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
579 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
580 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
581 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
582 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
583 can share the same library.
585 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
586 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
587 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
590 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
591 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
592 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
595 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
596 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
597 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
598 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
599 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
600 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
602 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
603 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
605 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
607 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
609 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
610 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
613 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
615 for Bourne-style shells, or
617 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
619 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
620 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
621 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
623 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
624 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
625 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
626 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
627 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
628 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
629 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
630 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
631 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
632 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
633 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
634 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
635 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
636 to point to the perl build directory.
638 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
639 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
640 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
641 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
642 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
646 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
647 perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
648 the malloc function on your system.
650 The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
651 but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
652 malloc() function is probably a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
654 For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
655 the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
656 with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
657 (e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
658 if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
659 third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
660 your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
661 malloc flags discussed below.)
663 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
665 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
667 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
669 =head2 Malloc Performance Flags
671 If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
672 more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
673 to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
674 more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
675 In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
679 =item -DPERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK
681 If PERL_EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
682 fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
683 variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
687 If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
688 algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
689 allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
691 The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
692 about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
693 additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
694 to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
696 =item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
698 If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
699 algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
700 (starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
701 special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
702 manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
703 might be wise to define this macro.
705 The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
706 require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
711 =head2 Building a debugging perl
713 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
714 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
715 you probably want to do
717 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
719 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
720 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
721 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
722 cc -g2. Check you man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
723 system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
724 config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
725 state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
726 default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
727 reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
728 optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
729 as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
731 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
732 it's convenient to have both.
734 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
735 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
737 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
739 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
740 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
741 by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
744 For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
745 perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
748 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
750 or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
751 at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
752 me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
753 different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
755 You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
756 doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
757 shouldn't do that, but some might.)
759 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
763 =item Running Configure Interactively
765 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
766 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
769 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
770 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
771 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
772 will use the defaults from then on.
774 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
775 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
776 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
780 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
781 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
782 will offer to use that hint file.
784 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
785 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
786 file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
789 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
791 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
792 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
793 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
796 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
797 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
798 Keep the recommended value? [y]
800 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
801 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
804 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
805 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
806 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
809 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
810 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
811 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
812 Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
814 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
815 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
816 Keep the previous value? [y]
818 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
819 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
820 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
822 =item Changing Compilers
824 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
825 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
826 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
827 with the options you want to use.
829 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
830 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
832 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
834 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
835 them to all the .SH files by running
839 You will then have to rebuild by running
846 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
847 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
848 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
849 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
850 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
854 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
855 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
856 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
858 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
859 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
864 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
865 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
866 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
867 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
868 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
869 lost the next time you run Configure.
871 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
872 and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
880 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
881 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
882 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
885 =item Porting information
887 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
888 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
889 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
892 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
893 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
894 various other operating systems.
900 This will look for all the includes.
901 The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
902 Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
903 makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
904 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
905 makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
906 a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
909 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
914 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
916 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
917 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
918 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
919 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
920 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
921 See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
927 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
928 for further tips and information.
932 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
933 during the building of extensions, you should run
937 to test your version of miniperl.
941 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
942 unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
943 while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
944 locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
946 =item malloc duplicates
948 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
949 or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
953 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
954 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
955 and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
956 running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
957 forget to propagate your changes (see
958 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
959 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
963 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
964 numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
966 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
967 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
968 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
970 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
971 previous L<"varargs"> item.
973 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
975 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
976 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
977 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
978 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
979 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
980 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
981 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
982 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
983 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
985 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
986 invoke Configure with
988 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
990 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
993 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
994 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
997 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
999 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1000 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1001 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1003 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1005 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1006 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1007 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1008 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1009 of your local set-up.
1011 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1013 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1014 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1015 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1017 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1018 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1019 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1020 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1021 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1025 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1026 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1029 sh Configure -Uusenm
1031 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1032 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1037 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1038 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1039 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1040 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1041 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1045 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1046 on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
1047 re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
1051 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1052 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1053 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
1054 on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
1056 =item __inet_* errors
1058 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1059 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1060 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1061 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1062 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1063 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1064 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1065 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1070 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1071 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1079 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1080 with B<make depend; make>.
1084 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
1085 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1086 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1089 =item Missing functions
1091 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1092 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1093 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1098 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1099 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1100 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1101 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1102 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1105 =item Missing dbmclose
1107 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1108 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1110 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1112 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1113 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1114 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1115 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1116 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1117 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1118 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1119 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1120 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1121 process is continuing.
1123 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1126 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1128 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1129 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1130 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1132 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1133 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1134 quite that tightly coordinated.
1136 =item sh: ar: not found
1138 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1139 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1140 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1141 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1144 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1146 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1147 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1148 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1152 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1154 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1156 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1158 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1160 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1162 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1168 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1169 should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1170 complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1171 then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1173 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1174 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1175 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1177 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1178 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1179 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1183 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1184 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1188 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1189 complicated constructs).
1191 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1192 comments that apply to your system.
1194 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1195 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1196 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1197 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1198 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1199 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1201 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1207 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1209 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1210 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1211 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1212 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1213 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1214 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1219 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1220 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1221 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1222 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1223 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1224 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1226 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1227 anything, you can run
1229 ./perl installperl -n
1230 ./perl installman -n
1232 make install will install the following:
1235 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1236 will be a link to perl.
1238 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1239 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1240 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1242 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1243 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1244 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1245 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1246 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1247 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1248 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1249 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1250 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1251 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1254 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1256 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1257 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1258 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1259 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1260 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1261 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1262 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1264 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1265 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1266 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1267 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
1268 where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1269 will be used for installing extensions.
1271 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1272 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1273 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1274 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1276 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1278 You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
1279 under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
1280 starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
1281 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
1282 If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
1283 need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1284 since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1285 in incompatible ways.
1287 The old architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1288 directory (such as /usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.003) so that they
1289 will still be accessible even after a later version is installed.
1290 (Note: Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not put their architecture-dependent
1291 libraries in a version-specific directory. They are simply in
1292 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname. If you will not be using 5.000 or
1293 5.001, you may safely remove those files.)
1295 In general, the standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should
1296 be usable by all versions of perl5. However, the diagnostics.pm module
1297 uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod documentation file, so
1298 the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script will only identify
1299 and explain any warnings or errors that the most recently-installed
1300 version of perl can generate.
1302 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
1303 version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1304 to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1305 those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1306 /usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
1307 files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
1308 newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1310 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1311 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1312 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1314 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1316 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1317 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1318 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1320 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1321 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1322 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1325 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1327 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1329 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1330 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1332 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1333 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1334 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1335 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1336 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
1337 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1338 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1340 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1342 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1343 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1344 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1345 by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1346 you specified to Configure; by default this is
1347 /usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
1348 (such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
1349 building (for example, 5.004).
1351 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1352 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1353 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1354 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1357 =head1 installhtml --help
1359 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1360 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1361 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1363 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1368 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1370 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1371 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1372 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1373 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1374 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1377 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1378 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1379 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1380 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1381 (and would welcome patches for them).
1383 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1384 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1386 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1388 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1389 available in TeX format. Type
1391 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1393 =head1 Reporting Problems
1395 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1396 file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1397 manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1398 message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1399 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1401 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
1402 that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1403 perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
1404 but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1406 You might also find helpful information in the Porting
1407 directory of the perl distribution.
1409 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1411 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1412 in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1413 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1414 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
1415 is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1417 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1418 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1419 and running (either):
1421 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1422 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1424 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1425 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1428 Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1429 running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1430 generate the documentation.
1434 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu ,
1435 borrowing very heavily from the original README by Larry Wall,
1436 with lots of helpful feedback and additions from the
1437 perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1439 If you have problems or questions, please see L<"Reporting Problems">
1442 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1444 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.28 1997/10/10 16:50:59 doughera Released $