3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
17 (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23 L<"Porting Information"> below.
27 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
28 proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
31 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
33 read it as is with any pager or editor.
35 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
36 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
37 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
39 =head1 Space Requirements
41 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
42 The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
43 15 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
44 system-dependent. The installation directories need something
45 on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
47 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
49 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
54 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
55 you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
56 systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
57 experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
58 re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
60 mv config.sh config.sh.old
62 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
63 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
64 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
65 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
66 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
67 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
68 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
69 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
70 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
72 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
73 call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
74 precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
76 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
77 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
81 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
82 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
83 you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
86 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
87 F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
89 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
90 to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
94 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
95 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
97 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
98 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
100 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
105 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
106 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
107 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
108 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
111 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
113 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
114 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
115 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
116 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
118 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
119 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
120 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
121 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
123 =head2 GNU-style configure
125 If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
126 use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
130 The B<configure> script emulates a few of the more common configure
137 Cross compiling is not supported.
139 For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
140 "configure", Perl includes a copy of B<configure> named
145 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
146 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
147 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
148 DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
149 not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
150 by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
151 Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
152 Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
153 by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
154 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
156 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
157 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
158 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
160 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
161 to turn off each extension:
164 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
165 Fcntl (Always included by default)
167 IO (Always included by default)
171 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
175 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
177 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
179 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
182 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
183 the extensions you want.
185 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
186 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
187 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
188 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
190 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
192 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
193 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
194 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
195 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
196 are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
197 how to obtain the libraries.
199 I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
200 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
201 include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
202 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
203 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
204 include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
205 Configure. See the examples below.
211 =item gdbm in /usr/local
213 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
214 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
215 installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
216 F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
217 necessary steps out automatically.
219 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
220 your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
222 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
225 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
226 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
229 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
230 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
231 messages, then you can just run
235 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
237 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
238 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
240 =item gdbm in /usr/you
242 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
243 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
244 have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
245 still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
246 an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
247 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
248 F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
250 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
254 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
255 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
257 C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
258 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
260 C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
261 Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
262 you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
263 F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
266 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
267 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
271 =head2 Installation Directories
273 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
274 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
275 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
277 By default, Configure uses the following directories for
278 library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
282 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
286 and the following directories for manual pages:
289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
291 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
292 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
293 instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
294 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
295 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
296 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
297 page, rather than the B<less> program.
299 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
300 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure
301 with -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
303 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
305 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
306 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
311 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
314 The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
315 intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
316 will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
317 just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
319 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
320 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
321 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
323 files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
324 not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
325 the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
326 can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
328 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
331 =head2 Changing the installation directory
333 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
334 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
335 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
336 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
337 However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
338 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
339 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
340 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
341 an option C<-Dinstallprefix=/foo> to simplify this.
343 Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
344 You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
345 point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
346 also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
347 automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
348 F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
349 directory of your choice):
351 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
352 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
353 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
354 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
356 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
358 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
359 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
360 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
361 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
363 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
370 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
372 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
373 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
374 installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
376 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
377 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
383 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
384 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
385 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
386 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
388 =head2 Configure-time Options
390 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
391 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
392 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
393 some of the main things you can change.
395 =head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
397 If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
398 perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
399 need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
401 Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
402 been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
403 may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
404 collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
405 installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
406 re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
407 (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
408 automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
409 -DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
411 Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
412 been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
413 complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
414 Perl for such a site, then when B<Configure> asks if you want binary
415 compatibility, answer "y".
417 On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
418 and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
419 answer "n" when B<Configure> asks if you want binary compatibility.
421 The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
422 appropriate for almost everyone.
424 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
426 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
427 <stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
428 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
429 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
431 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
434 sh Configure -Duseperlio
436 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
438 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
439 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
440 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
447 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
448 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
449 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
450 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
451 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
452 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
454 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
455 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
456 it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
458 You select this option by
460 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
462 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
463 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
468 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
469 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
470 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
473 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
475 You select this option via:
477 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
479 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
480 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
484 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
486 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
487 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
488 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
491 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
492 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
493 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
494 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
495 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
496 can share the same library.
498 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
499 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
500 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
503 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
504 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
505 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
508 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
509 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
510 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
511 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
512 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
513 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
515 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
516 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
518 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
520 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
522 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
523 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
526 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
528 for Bourne-style shells, or
530 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
532 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
533 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
534 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
536 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
537 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
538 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
539 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
540 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
541 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
542 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
543 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
544 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
545 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
546 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
547 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
549 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
550 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
551 version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
552 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
553 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
555 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
557 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
558 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
559 by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
562 For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
563 perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
566 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
568 or by adding C<-Drand=random> and C<-Dsrandom=srandom> to your ccflags
569 at the appropriate Configure prompt. (You may also have to adjust
570 Configure's guess for 'randbits' as well.)
572 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
576 =item Running Configure Interactively
578 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
579 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
582 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
583 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
584 flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
585 will use the defaults from then on.
587 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
588 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
589 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
593 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
594 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
595 will offer to use that hint file.
597 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
598 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
599 file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
602 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
604 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
605 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
606 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
609 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
610 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
611 Keep the recommended value? [y]
613 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
614 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
617 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
618 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
619 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
622 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
623 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
624 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
625 Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
627 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
628 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
629 Keep the previous value? [y]
631 In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
632 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
633 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
635 =item Changing Compilers
637 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
638 probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
639 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
640 with the options you want to use.
642 This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
643 B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
645 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
647 If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
648 them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
649 then have to rebuild by running
656 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
657 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
658 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
659 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
660 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
664 Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
665 F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
666 The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
668 If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
669 though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
674 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
675 line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
676 optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
677 F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
678 can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
679 lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
681 To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
682 and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
683 and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
687 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
688 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
689 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
692 =item Porting information
694 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports are in the
695 corresponding subdirectories. Additional information, including
696 a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
699 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
700 L<"http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
701 various other operating systems.
707 This will look for all the includes.
708 The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
709 F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
710 F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
711 F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
712 F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
713 a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
716 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
721 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
723 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
724 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
725 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
726 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
727 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
728 See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
734 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
735 for further tips and information.
739 If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
740 during the building of extensions, you should run
744 to test your version of miniperl.
748 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
749 unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
750 while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
751 locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
755 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al,
756 add -DHIDEMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
760 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
761 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
762 and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
763 running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
764 forget to propagate your changes (see
765 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
766 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
770 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
771 numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
773 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
774 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
775 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
777 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
778 previous L<"varargs"> item.
780 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
782 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
783 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
784 B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
785 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
786 and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
787 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
788 your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
789 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
791 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
793 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
794 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
795 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
799 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
800 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
801 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
802 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
803 of your local set-up.
805 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
807 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
808 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
809 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
811 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
812 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
813 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
814 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
815 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
819 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
820 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
825 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
826 If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
831 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
832 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
833 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
834 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
835 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
839 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
840 on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
841 re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
845 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
846 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
854 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
855 with B<make depend; make>.
859 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
860 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
861 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
864 =item Missing functions
866 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
867 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
868 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
873 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
874 some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
875 internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
876 F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
877 F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
880 =item Missing dbmclose
882 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
883 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
885 =item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
887 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
888 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
889 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
890 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
891 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
892 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
893 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
894 they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
895 reassure you that the process is continuing.
897 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
900 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
902 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
903 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
904 extension without the -lgdbm library.
906 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
907 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
908 quite that tightly coordinated.
910 =item sh: ar: not found
912 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
913 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
914 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
915 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the F</usr/ccs/bin>
918 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
920 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
921 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
922 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
926 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
928 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
930 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
932 UTS may need one or more of B<-DCRIPPLED_CC>, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
934 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
936 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
942 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
943 doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
944 file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
945 tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
947 If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
948 F<./TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
949 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
953 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
954 individual subtests is to B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
958 (this assumes that I<most> tests succeed, since F<harness> uses
959 complicated constructs).
961 You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
962 comments that apply to your system.
964 B<Note>: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
965 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
966 C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
967 one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
968 LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
969 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
971 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
977 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
979 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
980 test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
981 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
982 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
983 things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
984 C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
989 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
990 B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
991 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
992 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
993 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
994 ignore any messages about chown not working.
996 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
997 anything, you can run
999 ./perl installperl -n
1000 ./perl installman -n
1002 B<make install> will install the following:
1005 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1006 will be a link to perl.
1008 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1009 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1010 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1012 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1013 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1014 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1015 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1016 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1017 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1018 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1019 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1020 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1021 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1024 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1026 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1027 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1028 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1029 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1030 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1031 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1032 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1034 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1035 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1036 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1037 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
1038 where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1039 will be used for installing extensions.
1041 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1042 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1043 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1044 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1046 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1048 You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
1049 under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
1050 starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
1051 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
1052 If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
1053 need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1054 since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1055 in incompatible ways.
1057 The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1058 directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.004>) so that
1059 they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
1060 put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1061 directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1062 you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1065 The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
1066 should be usable by all versions of perl5.
1068 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
1069 version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1070 to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1071 those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1072 F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003>. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
1073 files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
1074 newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1076 Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1077 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1078 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1080 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1082 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1083 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1084 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1086 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1088 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1090 By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1091 they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1093 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1094 F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1095 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1096 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1097 the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
1098 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1099 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1101 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1103 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1104 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1105 header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1106 by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1107 you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1108 F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1109 (such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1110 building (for example, C<5.004>).
1112 B<Note:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1113 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1114 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1115 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1118 =head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
1120 Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1121 available in HTML format. Type
1123 cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
1125 where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
1127 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1129 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1130 available in TeX format. Type
1132 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1134 =head1 Reporting Problems
1136 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1137 file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1138 manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1139 message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1140 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1142 Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
1143 that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1144 B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution,
1145 but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1147 You might also find helpful information in the F<Porting>
1148 directory of the perl distribution.
1150 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1152 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1153 in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1154 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1155 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1156 is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1158 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
1159 along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1160 and running (either):
1162 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1163 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1165 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1166 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1169 Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1170 running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1171 generate the documentation.
1175 Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1176 from the original README by Larry Wall.
1178 =head1 LAST MODIFIED