1 If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2 It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3 designed to be readable as is.
7 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
11 First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
12 didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13 http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
14 subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
15 odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16 development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17 production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18 tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19 worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
21 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
22 the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
29 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
31 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32 platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
33 If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively, by
34 just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35 any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36 To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37 "make install PERLNAME=myperl".
39 These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
41 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
42 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
44 For information on what's new in this release, see the
45 pod/perl5100delta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
46 changes, see the Changes file.
50 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
51 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
52 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
53 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
55 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
57 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
60 Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
61 you should probably at least skim through this document before
64 In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
65 your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
66 instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
67 system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
68 for even more information.
70 For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
71 L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
76 =head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
78 Please see pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of the changes and
79 potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
80 the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
81 to pod/perl5100delta.pod for more detailed information.
83 B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
85 If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
86 using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
89 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
90 without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
91 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
93 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
95 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
96 in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
97 pod/perl5100delta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
98 installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
99 list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
100 way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
104 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
105 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
106 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
107 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
108 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
111 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
112 defaults from then on.
114 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
115 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
117 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
120 =head2 Common Configure options
122 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
126 to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
127 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
133 To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
134 system, you should run
136 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
138 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
139 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
141 =item Installation prefix
143 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
144 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
145 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
148 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
149 directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
150 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
152 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
154 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
155 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
156 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
157 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
158 for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
159 or you may experience odd test failures.
161 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
162 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
163 attempt infinite recursion.
167 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
168 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
169 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
170 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
171 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
172 on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
173 configured may be found with
177 (Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
178 spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
179 at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
181 By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
182 version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
184 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
186 or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
188 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
189 (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
190 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
191 obvious and convenient place.
193 =item Building a development release
195 For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
196 use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
197 because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
198 Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
203 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
208 =head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
210 For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
211 be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
212 have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
213 after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
214 For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
217 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
219 To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
220 Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
221 variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
222 But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
224 For more help on Configure switches, run
228 =head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
230 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
231 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
232 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
233 some of the main things you can change.
237 On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
240 sh Configure -Dusethreads
242 The default is to compile without thread support.
244 Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
245 model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
246 called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
247 thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
248 (5005threads) has been removed for release 5.10.
250 The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
251 'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
254 When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
255 the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
256 This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
257 fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
258 PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
259 way to do this is to run Configure with
260 C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
262 =head3 Large file support
264 Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
265 2 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
266 support is on by default.
268 This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
269 seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
270 using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
271 be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
272 parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
275 There's also one known limitation with the current large files
276 implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
277 section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
278 like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
280 If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
282 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
284 =head3 64 bit support
286 If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
287 them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
288 you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
290 There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
291 using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
292 -Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
293 the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
295 The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
296 64-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
297 longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
298 your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
299 does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
300 might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
301 you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
303 The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
304 integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
305 create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
306 resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
307 have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
310 Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
314 In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
315 range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
316 (that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
317 this support (if it is available).
321 You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
322 and the long double support.
324 =head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
326 In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
327 Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
328 enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
329 a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
330 and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
332 In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
333 create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
334 the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
335 in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
336 data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
337 certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
339 In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
340 elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
341 basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
342 then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
343 adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
344 existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
345 specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
346 data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
347 randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
348 is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
350 One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
351 vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
352 variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
353 is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
354 example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
355 which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
356 variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
357 the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
359 B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
360 ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
361 5. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
362 be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
363 randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
364 between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
365 hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
370 Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
371 TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
372 access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
373 Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
374 You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
375 L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
377 =head3 Dynamic Loading
379 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
380 If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
381 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
382 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
384 =head3 Building a shared Perl library
386 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
387 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
388 extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
390 On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
391 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
392 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
393 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
394 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
395 can share the same library.
397 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
398 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
399 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
402 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
403 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
404 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
407 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
408 libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
409 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
410 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
411 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
412 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
414 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
416 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
418 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
419 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
420 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
421 for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
422 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
423 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
424 library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
425 variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
427 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
429 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
430 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
431 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
434 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
438 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
440 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
443 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
445 for Bourne-style shells, or
447 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
449 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
450 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
451 again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
453 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
454 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
457 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
459 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
460 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
461 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
462 install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
463 try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
464 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
465 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
466 libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
467 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
468 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
469 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
470 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
471 LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
472 Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
473 _RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
475 In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
476 with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
479 A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
480 architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
481 You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
482 point to your new architecture-dependent library.
484 =head3 Environment access
486 Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
487 is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
488 leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
489 to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
490 whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
491 but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
492 embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
493 by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
494 use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
495 C<perl_construct()> call.
497 =head2 Installation Directories
499 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
500 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
501 questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
502 slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
503 you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
504 from then on. Alternatively, you can
506 grep '^install' config.sh
508 after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
510 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
511 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
512 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
513 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
514 you can safely skip the next section.
516 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
520 =item Directories for the perl distribution
522 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.10.0.
523 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
524 5.10.0 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
525 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
526 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
528 Configure variable Default value
529 $prefixexp /usr/local
530 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
531 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
532 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
533 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
534 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
535 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
539 $prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
540 directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
541 file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
542 variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
544 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
545 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
546 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
547 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
548 the common style is shown here.
550 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
552 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
553 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
554 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
556 Configure variable Default value
557 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
558 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
559 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
560 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
561 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
562 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
563 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
564 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
565 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
567 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
568 modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
570 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
572 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
573 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
574 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
576 Configure variable Default value
577 $vendorprefixexp (none)
578 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
579 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
580 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
582 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
584 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
585 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
586 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
587 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
588 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
590 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
591 a vendor might choose the following settings:
594 $siteprefix /usr/local
597 This would have the effect of setting the following:
600 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
601 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
602 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
603 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
604 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
606 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
607 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
608 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
609 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
610 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
611 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
613 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
614 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
615 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
616 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
617 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
618 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
620 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
621 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
622 the /usr/local hierarchy.
624 The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
625 version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
626 However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
627 installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
628 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
629 on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
631 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
632 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
633 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
634 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
635 network. One way to do that would be something like
637 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
641 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
642 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
643 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
644 Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
645 version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
647 For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
648 installation, perhaps in a strange place:
650 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
654 There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
655 that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
656 separated list of directories, like this
658 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
660 The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
661 ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
662 modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
663 touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
664 version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
665 present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
666 directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
667 run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
669 =item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
671 Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
673 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
675 Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
676 When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
677 anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
682 By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
683 are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
684 want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
686 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
690 Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
691 HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
692 add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
693 variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
694 documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
695 eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
699 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
700 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
703 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
704 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
707 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
708 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
709 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
711 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
712 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
713 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
715 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
716 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
718 Configure variable Default value
719 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
720 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
721 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
722 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
724 =head2 Changing the installation directory
726 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
727 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
728 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
729 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
730 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
731 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
732 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
733 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
734 section describes how to do that.
736 To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
739 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
741 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
743 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
744 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
745 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
748 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
750 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
751 to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
752 multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
753 archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
754 using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
755 automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
758 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
761 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
762 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
763 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
765 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
767 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
768 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
769 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
770 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
771 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
772 hint file for your system. This will work even if Policy.sh was
773 generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
774 different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
775 you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
776 example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
777 as the system on which the file was generated.
779 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
784 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
786 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
788 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
789 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
790 platform-specific hints files.
792 =head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
794 Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
795 installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
796 and these will be used by the perl being built.
797 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
799 To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
800 modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
802 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
804 When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
805 $PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
807 =head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
809 Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
810 where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
811 read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
812 architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
815 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
816 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
817 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
819 This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
820 pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
821 unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
825 as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
827 =head2 Building a debugging perl
829 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
830 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
831 you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
832 (activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
833 system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
835 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
839 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
841 For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
842 for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
843 to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
849 Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
851 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
853 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
854 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
855 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
856 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
857 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
858 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
859 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
860 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
861 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
862 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
863 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
865 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
866 it's convenient to have both.
872 =item -DEBUGGING=both
874 Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
878 Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
880 =item -DEBUGGING=none
882 Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
886 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
887 versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
891 Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
892 in the ext/ subdirectory.
894 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
895 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
896 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
897 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
898 is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
899 set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
901 If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
902 running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
903 extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
904 it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
905 has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
906 extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
907 convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
908 you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
909 dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
911 If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
912 is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
914 You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
915 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
918 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
919 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
920 version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
922 To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
923 -Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
924 a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
925 C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
926 the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
927 extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
928 certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
929 examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
930 these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
932 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
933 the extensions you want.
935 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
936 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
937 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
938 releases of version 2.
940 If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
941 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
942 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
945 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
946 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
947 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
948 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
950 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
952 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
953 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
954 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
955 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
956 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
957 how to obtain the libraries.
959 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
960 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
961 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
962 your database libraries are not in a directory normally
963 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
964 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
965 See the examples below.
971 =item gdbm in /usr/local
973 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
974 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
975 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
976 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
977 necessary steps out automatically.
979 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
980 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
982 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
985 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
986 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
989 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
990 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
991 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
993 =item gdbm in /usr/you
995 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
996 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
997 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
998 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
999 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1000 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1001 /usr/you/lib to the list.
1003 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1007 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1008 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1010 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1011 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1013 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1014 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1015 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1016 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1019 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1020 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1024 =head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1026 A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1027 compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
1028 following instructions.
1030 Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
1031 DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
1032 links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
1033 for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
1034 --enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1035 additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1038 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1039 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
1040 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
1041 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
1042 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
1043 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1045 Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1048 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1049 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1051 ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1054 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1055 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1057 =head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1059 If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1060 Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1061 need to use B<Configure -O>.
1063 =head2 GNU-style configure
1065 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1066 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1068 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1070 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1073 ./configure.gnu --help
1077 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1078 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1080 See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1082 =head2 Malloc Issues
1084 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1085 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1086 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1087 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1088 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1089 than your system malloc.
1091 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1092 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1093 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1094 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1098 =item Using the system malloc
1100 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1102 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1104 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1106 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1108 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1109 run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1111 Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1112 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1113 These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1115 If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1116 will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1117 sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1118 been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1120 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1121 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1122 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1125 =item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1127 This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1128 Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1129 using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1131 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1133 to enable this option.
1137 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1139 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1140 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1144 =item Running Configure Interactively
1146 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1147 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1150 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1151 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1152 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1153 will use the defaults from then on.
1155 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1156 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1157 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1161 Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1167 The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1168 library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1173 The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1174 although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1175 resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1179 How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1180 speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1181 implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1182 often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1186 The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1187 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1188 will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1189 not to, you should accept its offer.
1191 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1192 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1193 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1194 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1195 file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1197 Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1198 Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
1200 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1202 If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1203 different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1204 always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1207 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1208 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1209 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1210 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1213 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1214 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1215 Keep the previous value? [y]
1217 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1218 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1219 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1221 =item Changing Compilers
1223 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1224 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1225 rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
1227 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1229 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1230 them to all the .SH files by running
1234 You will then have to rebuild by running
1239 =item config.over and config.arch
1241 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1242 Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1243 before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1244 however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1245 This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1247 There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1248 config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1249 architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1250 hints file that creates the config.arch.
1254 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1255 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1256 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1258 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1259 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1264 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1265 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1266 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1267 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1268 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1269 lost the next time you run Configure.
1271 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1272 see the file hints/README.hints.
1274 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1275 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1282 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1283 Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1284 system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1285 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1288 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1290 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1291 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1292 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1295 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1296 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1297 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1299 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1300 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1302 =item Porting information
1304 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1305 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1306 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1307 subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
1309 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1310 http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
1311 various other operating systems.
1313 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
1314 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1315 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1316 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1320 =head2 Adding extra modules to the build
1322 You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1323 CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1324 command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1326 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
1328 or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1329 then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1330 The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
1331 This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1332 extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1333 extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
1335 Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1336 modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1337 or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1338 do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1340 Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1341 dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1342 For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
1343 headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1344 process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1348 suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1349 nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
1351 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1352 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1353 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1354 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1355 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1356 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1357 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1358 features of the kernel.
1360 Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1361 of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1362 software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1363 should be considered deprecated.
1365 Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
1366 privileges, such as B<sudo>.
1370 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1371 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1372 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1373 makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1374 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1375 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1377 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1382 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1384 =head2 Expected errors
1386 These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1389 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1391 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1393 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1395 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1396 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1397 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1398 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1404 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1405 for further tips and information.
1409 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1410 during the building of extensions, run
1414 to test your version of miniperl.
1418 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1419 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1420 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1421 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1422 whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1423 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1425 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1426 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1429 are supported and installed on your system.
1430 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1436 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1437 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1438 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1439 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
1440 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1441 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1442 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1446 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1447 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1449 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1450 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1451 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1453 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1454 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1456 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1458 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1459 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1460 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1461 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1462 of your local set-up.
1466 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1467 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1470 sh Configure -Uusenm
1472 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1473 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1476 =item umask not found
1478 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1479 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1480 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1481 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1482 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1486 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1487 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1488 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1489 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1490 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1494 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1495 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1496 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1500 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1501 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1502 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1503 on L<"nm extraction">.
1505 =item __inet_* errors
1507 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1508 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1509 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1510 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1511 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1512 newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1513 If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1514 with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1515 test process to avoid the problem.
1517 =item *_r() prototype NOT found
1519 On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1520 reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1521 but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1522 other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1523 header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1524 another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
1525 Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
1526 header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1527 normally /usr/include).
1529 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1531 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1532 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1533 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1534 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1535 update your gcc installation.
1539 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1540 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1548 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1549 with B<make depend; make>.
1551 =item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
1553 If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1554 undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1555 should look something like
1557 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1559 The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1560 need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1561 will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1562 need to start all over again. Run
1566 and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1567 what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1570 If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1571 L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1573 If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1574 need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1575 that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1576 you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1577 look through through config.h for likely suspects.
1581 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1582 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1583 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1584 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1585 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1588 =item Missing dbmclose
1590 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1591 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1593 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1595 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1596 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1597 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1598 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1599 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1600 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1601 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1602 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1603 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1604 process is continuing.
1606 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1609 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1611 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1612 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1613 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1615 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1616 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1617 quite that tightly coordinated.
1619 =item sh: ar: not found
1621 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1622 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1623 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1624 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1627 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1629 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1630 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1631 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1633 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1635 If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
1636 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1637 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1638 to include the System V semaphores.
1640 =item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
1642 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1643 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1644 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1645 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1650 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1651 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1652 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1653 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1654 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1655 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1656 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1657 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1659 =item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1661 The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1662 make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1663 archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1664 C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1665 archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1666 incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1667 official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1668 that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1669 archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1671 =item invalid token: ##
1673 You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1674 need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1675 file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1680 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1682 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1684 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1686 UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1688 FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1689 configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1690 you will get a message telling you what to do.
1692 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1693 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1694 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1695 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1696 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1698 Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1699 installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1700 and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1701 the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1702 view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1707 =head2 Cross-compilation
1709 Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1710 rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1711 June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1712 the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1713 while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1716 What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1717 cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1718 up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1719 (using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1720 awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1721 version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1722 cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1724 See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1725 the particular platforms:
1729 =item WinCE/PocketPC
1751 Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1752 modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1753 cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1754 platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1755 L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1756 of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1758 For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1759 C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1762 About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1763 work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1764 building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1765 building the perl executable because that would require building
1766 extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1767 extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1768 cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1770 The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1771 at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1772 both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1773 cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1776 To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1777 has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
1779 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1781 This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1782 symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1783 for cross-compilation.
1785 During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1786 into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1787 cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1788 target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1789 transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1790 the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1791 methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1792 F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1794 To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1795 the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1796 happens), supply Configure with
1798 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1800 The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
1801 must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1802 You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
1806 but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1808 Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1809 which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1810 This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1811 In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1814 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1816 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1817 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1818 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1820 If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1821 compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1822 C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
1823 (The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1824 as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1825 will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1826 in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
1828 In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1829 choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1832 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1834 Putting it all together:
1836 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1837 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1838 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
1840 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1841 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1842 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1843 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1844 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1847 or if you are happy with the defaults:
1849 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1850 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1851 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1854 Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1855 F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1857 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1858 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1859 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1860 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1861 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1862 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1866 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1867 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1868 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1870 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1871 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1872 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1874 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1876 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1877 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1878 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1882 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1883 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1887 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1888 complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
1889 need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
1890 PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
1891 right Perl library path:
1894 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
1895 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
1897 (For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
1898 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1899 comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1900 shared library path if you get errors like:
1902 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1904 See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
1910 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1911 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1912 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1913 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1914 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1915 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1917 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1923 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1925 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1926 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1927 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1928 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1929 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1930 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1933 =item Timing problems
1935 Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1936 sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
1937 If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1938 these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1939 with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1940 and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
1941 F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
1942 F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
1946 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1947 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1948 For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1949 test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
1951 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1953 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1955 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1956 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1957 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1958 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1960 =item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1962 First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1963 real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1965 Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1966 directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1967 systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1968 run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1971 The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1973 (1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1974 other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1976 This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
1977 unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
1978 are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1980 (2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1981 by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
1982 UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
1983 add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
1984 used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
1985 set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
1986 file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
1989 This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
1990 permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
1991 also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
1992 is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
1993 should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
1994 supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
1995 used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
1996 11.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
1997 on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
1998 local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
2000 (3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2001 any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2002 directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
2003 (2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2004 building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2005 module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
2007 See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
2008 about the various security aspects of temporary files.
2014 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
2015 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
2016 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
2017 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
2018 are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2019 in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2021 If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2022 similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2023 and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2024 by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
2026 =head2 Installing perl under different names
2028 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2029 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2030 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2032 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2034 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2035 "perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2037 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2039 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2040 avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2041 Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
2043 =head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2045 You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2046 the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2048 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2050 DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2051 the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2053 =head2 Installed files
2055 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2056 anything, you can run
2058 ./perl installperl -n
2059 ./perl installman -n
2061 make install will install the following:
2066 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
2067 will be a link to perl.
2069 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
2070 a2p awk-to-perl translator
2074 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2076 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2077 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2078 find2perl find-to-perl translator
2079 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
2080 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
2081 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
2082 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
2083 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
2084 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
2085 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
2091 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
2092 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
2096 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
2097 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
2101 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2103 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
2104 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2106 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2107 in L<"Installation Directories">.
2109 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
2110 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
2111 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2112 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
2114 Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2115 installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2116 perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2117 disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2118 To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2120 Configure -Dversiononly
2122 or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2123 you can just manually run
2125 ./perl installperl -v
2127 and skip installman altogether.
2128 See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2131 =head1 Reporting Problems
2133 Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2134 to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2135 information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2136 more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2137 carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2138 on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2139 you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2140 message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2143 The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2144 completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2145 C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2146 C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2147 run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2148 directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2150 If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2151 B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2152 an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2154 If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2155 (needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2156 description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2157 - for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2159 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2160 reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2161 written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
2162 the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2163 not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2165 Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2166 config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2167 necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2168 session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2169 messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2170 appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
2171 attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2172 read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2173 subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2175 If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2176 report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2177 http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2179 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
2181 Perl 5.10 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
2182 In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
2184 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
2185 5.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
2186 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2187 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2188 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
2189 with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
2190 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
2191 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
2193 Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2194 used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
2195 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
2197 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2198 searched by 5.005_03 are
2200 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2201 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2202 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2203 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2205 Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2206 fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2207 searched by version 5.6.0 will be
2209 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2210 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2211 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2212 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
2214 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2215 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2216 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2218 Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
2219 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2220 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
2221 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
2222 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
2223 present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2224 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
2225 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
2227 The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
2228 5.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
2230 Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2231 with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
2232 Configure defaults) will be:
2234 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2235 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2236 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2237 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
2239 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
2241 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2243 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2245 Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2246 modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2248 Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
2249 5.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
2250 extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2251 of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2252 newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2253 compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2254 installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
2255 5.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
2256 5.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2257 install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
2258 5.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
2260 This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2261 to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2262 versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
2264 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
2266 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
2267 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
2268 won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2269 libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2270 way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
2272 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
2274 and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
2275 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2276 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2278 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
2279 (e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
2282 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2283 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2284 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2287 =head2 Upgrading from 5.8.x or earlier
2289 B<Perl 5.10.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x and any earlier
2290 Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2291 (meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
2292 used with 5.10.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
2293 5.10.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
2294 installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2297 See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2298 incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
2299 perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
2301 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2303 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2304 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2305 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2306 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2307 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2309 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2310 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2311 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2312 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2315 =head1 installhtml --help
2317 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2318 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2319 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2321 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2322 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2324 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2329 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2331 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2332 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2333 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2334 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2335 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2338 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2339 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2340 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2341 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2342 (and would welcome patches for them).
2344 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2345 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2347 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2349 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2350 available in TeX format. Type
2352 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2354 =head1 Starting all over again
2356 If you wish to re-build perl from the same build directory, you should
2357 clean it out with the command
2365 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2366 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2368 If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2369 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2370 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
2371 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it:
2375 If you wish to re-use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
2376 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
2377 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
2378 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
2379 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
2380 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Similarly, if you used
2381 a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will probably
2382 want to adjust them as well.
2384 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
2385 Linux distributions use i386, but Configure uses the output of the arch
2386 command, which might be i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled
2387 binary, or compile extensions on different systems, they might not all
2388 agree on the architecture name.
2390 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
2391 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
2393 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2394 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2395 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2396 settings"> above. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
2397 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
2401 =head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2403 The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2404 Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2405 operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2407 Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
2408 Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2409 space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2410 Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
2411 programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2412 depends on what do you need to do.
2414 In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2415 recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2416 depends on what you need.
2418 Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2422 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2426 in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
2429 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2430 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2431 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2432 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2433 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2435 Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
2436 size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
2441 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2442 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2443 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2444 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2445 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2446 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2447 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2448 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2449 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2450 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2451 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2452 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2453 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2454 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2455 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2456 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2457 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2458 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2459 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2460 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2461 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2462 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2463 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2464 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2465 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2466 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2481 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2482 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2483 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2484 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
2485 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
2486 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2487 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
2488 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
2489 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
2490 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
2492 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2493 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2494 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2495 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2496 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2497 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2498 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2499 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2500 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2501 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2502 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2503 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2504 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2505 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2506 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2507 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2508 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2509 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2510 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2511 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2512 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2513 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2514 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2515 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2516 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2517 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2518 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2519 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2520 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2521 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2522 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2523 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2524 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2525 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2526 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
2528 A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2529 need to run a Perl program is
2531 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
2533 (this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2534 it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2535 use something like the below
2537 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2539 (The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2542 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
2544 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2545 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
2546 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
2547 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2548 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
2550 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
2551 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2554 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
2555 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
2557 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
2558 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2561 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2562 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2567 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2568 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2569 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
2571 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2572 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2574 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2576 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
2577 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
2578 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
2579 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2580 and the contact information to match your distribution.