3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8 you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9 <URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/>.
11 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12 with all the defaults are:
14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
25 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
27 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
28 on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
30 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
36 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
37 L<"Porting information"> below.
39 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
42 For information on what's new in this release, see the
43 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
44 changes, see the Changes file.
48 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
49 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
50 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
51 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
53 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
55 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
57 Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
58 you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
61 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
62 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
63 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
65 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
66 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
67 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
68 there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
69 that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
71 =head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
73 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
74 global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
75 extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
78 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
80 Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
81 building perl itself with:
83 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
85 pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
87 =head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
89 Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
90 a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
92 However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
93 -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
94 the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
95 circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
96 built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
97 those extensions to use them with 5.6.
99 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
100 without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
101 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
102 L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
104 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
106 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
107 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
108 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
109 what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
110 file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
111 Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
112 currently installed modules.
114 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
116 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
117 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
118 Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
119 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
120 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
121 in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
122 available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
123 unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
124 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
125 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
127 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
128 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
129 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
131 Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
132 does not work with some C++ compilers.
134 =head1 Space Requirements
136 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
137 After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
138 total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
139 directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
140 value is system-dependent.
142 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
144 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
153 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
154 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
156 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
157 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
158 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
159 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
160 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
164 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
165 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
166 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
167 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
168 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
169 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
170 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
171 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
172 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
174 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
175 Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
176 it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
177 might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
178 compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
179 the architecture name.
181 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
182 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
184 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
185 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
186 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
187 settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
188 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
194 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
195 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
196 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
197 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
198 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
201 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
202 defaults from then on.
204 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
205 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
207 =head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
209 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
210 also has several convenient options which are all described below.
211 However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
212 you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
213 run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
214 a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
216 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
218 For more help on Configure switches, run:
222 =head2 Common Configure options
224 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
225 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
226 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
232 To compile with gcc you should run
234 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
236 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
237 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
239 =item Installation prefix
241 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
242 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
243 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
246 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
247 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
248 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
250 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
252 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
253 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
254 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
255 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
258 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
259 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
260 attempt infinite recursion.
264 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
265 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
266 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
267 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
268 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
270 By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
271 the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
273 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
275 or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
277 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
278 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
279 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
280 obvious and convenient place.
282 =item Overriding an old config.sh
284 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
285 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
289 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
294 For my Solaris system, I usually use
296 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
298 =head2 GNU-style configure
300 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
301 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
303 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
305 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
308 ./configure.gnu --help
312 Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
314 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
315 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
317 =head2 Installation Directories
319 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
320 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
321 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
322 Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
323 directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
324 be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
326 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
327 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
328 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
329 the defaults from then on.
331 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
332 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
333 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
334 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
335 you can safely skip the next section.
337 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
341 =item Directories for the perl distribution
343 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
344 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
345 5.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
346 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
347 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
349 Configure variable Default value
352 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
353 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
354 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
355 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
356 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
360 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
361 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
362 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
363 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
364 the common style is shown here.
366 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
368 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
369 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
370 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
372 Configure variable Default value
374 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
375 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
376 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
377 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
378 $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
379 $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
383 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
384 modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
386 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will use $sitelib and $sitearch,
387 but will not use the other site-specific directories. Volunteers to
390 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
392 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
393 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
394 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
396 Configure variable Default value
398 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
399 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
400 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
401 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
402 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
403 $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
404 $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
408 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
409 a vendor might choose the following settings:
412 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
413 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
415 This would have the effect of setting the following:
419 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
420 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
421 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
422 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
424 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
425 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
426 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
427 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
428 $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
429 $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
432 $vendorscript /usr/bin
433 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
434 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
435 $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
436 $vendorman3 /usr/man/man3
438 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
439 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
440 the /usr/local hierarchy.
442 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker does not use these directories.
443 Volunteers to fix this are needed.
445 The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
446 version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
447 However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
448 installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
449 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
450 on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
452 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
453 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
454 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
455 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
456 network. One way to do that would be something like
458 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
462 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
463 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
464 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
465 $prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
466 installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
470 In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
471 pages in a version-specific directory, such as
472 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
473 after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
474 without resetting MANPATH.
476 You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
478 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
480 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
482 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
484 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
489 As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
490 anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
491 Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
492 html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
493 specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
494 but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
499 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
500 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
503 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
504 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
507 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
508 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
509 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
511 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
512 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
513 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
515 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
516 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
518 Configure variable Default value
519 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
520 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
521 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
522 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
524 =head2 Changing the installation directory
526 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
527 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
528 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
529 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
530 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
531 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
532 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
533 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
534 section describes how to do that.
536 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
537 could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
538 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
539 following command line:
541 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
543 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
545 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
546 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
547 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
550 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
552 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
553 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
554 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
555 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
556 Here's one way to do that:
558 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
559 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
560 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
563 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
565 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
566 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
567 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
568 # everywhere in those files.)
569 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
570 # #!/wherever/perl line.
571 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
572 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
573 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
574 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
576 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
578 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
579 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
580 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
581 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
582 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
583 hint file for your system.
585 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
590 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
592 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
594 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
595 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
596 platform-specific hints files.
598 Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
599 new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
600 set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
601 interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
603 =head2 Configure-time Options
605 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
606 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
607 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
608 some of the main things you can change.
612 On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
613 experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
614 README.threads, and then try:
616 sh Configure -Dusethreads
618 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
619 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
621 The default is to compile without thread support.
623 As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
624 The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
625 (ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
626 ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
627 5005threads behavior instead by either
629 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
632 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
634 Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
635 and these options may disappear as well.
637 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
639 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
640 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
641 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
642 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
644 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
647 sh Configure -Duseperlio
649 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
651 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
652 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
653 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
660 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
661 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
662 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
663 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
664 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
665 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
667 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
668 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
670 You select this option by
672 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
674 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
675 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
678 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
679 detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
680 this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
681 Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
682 _exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
683 your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
685 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
690 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
691 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
692 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
695 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
697 You select this option via:
699 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
701 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
702 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
706 =head2 Dynamic Loading
708 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
709 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
710 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
711 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
713 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
715 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
716 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
717 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
720 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
721 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
722 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
723 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
724 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
725 can share the same library.
727 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
728 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
729 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
732 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
733 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
734 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
737 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
738 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
739 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
740 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
741 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
742 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
744 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
745 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
747 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
749 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
751 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
752 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
753 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
754 HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
755 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
756 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
757 library search settings.
759 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
760 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
761 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
764 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
766 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
768 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
771 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
773 for Bourne-style shells, or
775 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
777 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
778 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
780 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
781 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
783 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
785 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
786 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
787 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
788 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
789 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
790 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
791 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
792 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
793 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
794 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
795 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
796 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
797 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
798 to point to the perl build directory.
800 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
801 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
802 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
803 variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
807 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
808 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
809 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
810 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
811 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
812 than your system malloc.
814 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
815 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
816 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
817 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
821 =item Using the system malloc
823 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
825 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
827 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
829 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
831 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
832 asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
833 run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
834 can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
837 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
839 or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
841 Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
842 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
843 not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
846 If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
847 names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
848 have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
849 by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
851 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
852 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
853 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
858 =head2 Building a debugging perl
860 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
861 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
862 you probably want to do
864 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
866 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
867 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
868 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
869 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
870 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
871 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
872 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
873 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
874 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
875 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
876 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
878 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
879 it's convenient to have both.
881 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
882 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
886 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
887 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
888 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
889 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
890 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
891 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
892 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
893 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
894 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
895 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
897 If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
898 running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
899 extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
900 it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
901 has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
902 extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
903 convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
904 you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
905 dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
907 You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
908 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
911 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
912 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
913 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
915 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
916 to turn off each extension:
918 B (Always included by default)
920 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
921 Fcntl (Always included by default)
923 IO (Always included by default)
927 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
930 Threads use5005threads
931 attrs (Always included by default)
933 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
935 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
937 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
940 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
941 the extensions you want.
943 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
944 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
945 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
946 releases of version 2.
948 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
949 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
950 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
953 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
954 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
955 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
956 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
958 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
960 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
961 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
962 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
963 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
964 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
965 how to obtain the libraries.
967 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
968 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
969 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
970 your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
971 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
972 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
973 See the examples below.
979 =item gdbm in /usr/local
981 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
982 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
983 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
984 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
985 necessary steps out automatically.
987 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
988 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
990 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
993 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
994 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
997 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
998 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
999 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
1001 =item gdbm in /usr/you
1003 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1004 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1005 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1006 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1007 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1008 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1009 /usr/you/lib to the list.
1011 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1015 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1016 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1018 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1019 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1021 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1022 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1023 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1024 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1027 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1028 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1032 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1034 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1035 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1039 =item Running Configure Interactively
1041 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1042 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1045 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1046 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1047 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1048 will use the defaults from then on.
1050 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1051 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1052 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1056 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1057 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1058 will offer to use that hint file.
1060 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1061 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1062 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1063 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1066 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1068 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
1069 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1070 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1073 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1074 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1075 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1077 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1078 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1081 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1082 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1083 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1086 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1087 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1088 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1089 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1092 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1093 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1094 Keep the previous value? [y]
1096 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1097 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1098 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1100 =item Changing Compilers
1102 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1103 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1104 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1105 with the options you want to use.
1107 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1108 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1110 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1112 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1113 them to all the .SH files by running
1117 You will then have to rebuild by running
1124 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1125 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1126 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1127 does no checking that your changes make sense.
1131 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1132 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1133 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1135 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1136 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1141 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1142 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1143 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1144 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1145 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1146 lost the next time you run Configure.
1148 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1149 see the file hints/README.hints.
1151 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1152 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1159 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1160 Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1161 system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1162 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1165 =item Environment variable clashes
1167 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1168 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1169 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1170 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1172 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1174 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1176 Build a threading Perl? [n]
1177 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1179 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1180 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1181 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1182 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1183 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1184 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1185 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1187 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1189 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1190 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1191 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1194 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1195 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1196 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1198 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1199 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1201 =item Porting information
1203 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1204 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1205 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1206 subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1208 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1209 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1210 various other operating systems.
1212 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1213 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1214 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1215 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1221 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1222 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1223 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1224 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1225 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1226 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1228 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1233 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1235 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1237 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1238 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1239 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1240 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1246 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1247 for further tips and information.
1251 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1252 during the building of extensions, you should run
1256 to test your version of miniperl.
1260 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1261 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1262 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1263 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1264 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1265 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1267 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1268 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1271 are supported and installed on your system.
1272 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1278 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1279 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1280 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1281 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1282 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1283 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1284 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1288 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1289 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1291 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1292 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1293 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1295 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1296 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1298 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1300 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1301 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1302 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1303 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1304 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1305 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1306 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1307 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1308 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1310 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1311 invoke Configure with
1313 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1315 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1318 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1319 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1322 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1324 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1325 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1326 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1328 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1330 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1331 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1332 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1333 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1334 of your local set-up.
1336 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1338 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1339 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1340 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1342 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1343 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1344 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1345 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1346 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1350 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1351 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1354 sh Configure -Uusenm
1356 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1357 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1360 =item umask not found
1362 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1363 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1364 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1365 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1366 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1370 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1371 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1372 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1373 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1374 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1378 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1379 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1380 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1384 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1385 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1386 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1387 on L<"nm extraction">.
1389 =item __inet_* errors
1391 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1392 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1393 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1394 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1395 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1396 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1397 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1398 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1401 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1403 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1404 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1405 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1406 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1407 update your gcc installation.
1411 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1412 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1420 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1421 with B<make depend; make>.
1425 If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1427 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1429 This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1430 indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1433 =item Missing functions
1435 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1436 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1437 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1438 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1439 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1443 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1444 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1445 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1446 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1447 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1450 =item Missing dbmclose
1452 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1453 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1455 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1457 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1458 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1459 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1460 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1461 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1462 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1463 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1464 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1465 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1466 process is continuing.
1468 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1471 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1473 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1474 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1475 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1477 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1478 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1479 quite that tightly coordinated.
1481 =item sh: ar: not found
1483 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1484 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1485 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1486 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1489 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1491 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1492 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1493 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1495 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1497 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1498 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1499 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1500 to include the System V semaphores.
1502 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1504 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1505 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1506 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1507 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1512 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1513 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1514 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1515 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1516 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1517 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1518 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1519 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1523 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1525 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1527 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1529 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1531 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1532 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1533 you will get a message telling what to do.
1535 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1537 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1539 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1540 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1541 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1542 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1543 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1549 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1550 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1551 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1553 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1554 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1555 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1557 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1559 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1560 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1561 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1565 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1566 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1570 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1571 complicated constructs).
1573 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1574 comments that apply to your system.
1580 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1581 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1582 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1583 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1584 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1585 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1587 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1593 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1595 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1596 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1597 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1598 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1599 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1600 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1605 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1606 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1607 For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1608 test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
1610 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1612 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1614 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1615 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1616 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1617 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1623 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1624 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1625 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1626 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1627 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1628 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1630 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1632 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1633 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1634 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1636 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1638 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1639 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1641 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1643 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1644 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1645 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1647 =head2 Installed files
1649 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1650 anything, you can run
1652 ./perl installperl -n
1653 ./perl installman -n
1655 make install will install the following:
1658 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1659 will be a link to perl.
1661 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1662 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1663 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1665 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1666 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1667 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1668 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1669 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1670 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1671 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1672 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1673 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1674 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1677 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1678 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
1680 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1681 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1682 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1684 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
1685 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1687 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1688 in L<"Installation Directories">.
1690 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1691 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
1692 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1693 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1695 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1697 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1698 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1699 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1700 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1701 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1702 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1703 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1704 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1706 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1707 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1708 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1710 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1711 searched by 5.005_03 are
1713 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1714 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1715 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1716 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1718 Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
1719 fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
1720 searched by version 5.6.0 will be
1722 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
1723 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
1724 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1725 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1727 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1728 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1729 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1731 Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
1732 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1733 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
1734 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
1735 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
1736 present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
1737 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
1738 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
1740 The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
1741 5.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
1743 Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
1744 binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
1745 by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
1747 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1748 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
1749 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
1750 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
1752 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1753 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
1755 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1756 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1757 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1759 Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
1760 5.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
1761 extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
1762 of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
1763 versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
1764 the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
1765 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
1766 same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
1767 version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
1769 This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
1770 to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
1771 versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
1773 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1775 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1776 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
1777 won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
1778 libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
1779 way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1781 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1783 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1784 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1785 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1787 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1788 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1791 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1792 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1793 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1796 =head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
1798 Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
1799 prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
1800 5.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
1801 you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
1802 (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
1804 See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
1805 incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
1806 perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
1808 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1810 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1812 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1813 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1815 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1816 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1817 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1818 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1819 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1820 whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1821 possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1823 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1825 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1826 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1827 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1828 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1829 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1831 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1832 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1833 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1834 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1837 =head1 installhtml --help
1839 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1840 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1841 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1843 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1844 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1846 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1851 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1853 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1854 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1855 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1856 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1857 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1860 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1861 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1862 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1863 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1864 (and would welcome patches for them).
1866 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1867 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1869 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1871 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1872 available in TeX format. Type
1874 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1876 =head1 Reporting Problems
1878 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1879 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1880 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1881 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1882 an accurate description of your problem.
1884 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1885 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1886 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1887 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1888 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1890 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1891 information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1892 Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1893 complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
1894 commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
1895 are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1896 usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1897 reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1898 will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1899 try to keep it brief but clear.
1901 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1903 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1904 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1905 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1906 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1907 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1909 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1910 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1913 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1914 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1916 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1917 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1920 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1921 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1926 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1927 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1928 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1930 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1931 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1933 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1935 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1936 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
1937 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1938 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1939 and the contact information to match your distribution.
1941 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1943 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $