3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
9 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
20 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
22 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
23 on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
25 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
31 Full configuration instructions can be found in the INSTALL file.
33 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
34 L<"Porting information"> below.
36 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
37 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
39 For information on what's new in this release, see the
40 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
41 changes, see the Changes file.
43 IMPORTANT NOTE: 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
44 global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
45 extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
48 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
50 Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
51 building perl itself with:
53 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
55 pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
59 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
61 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
68 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
71 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
72 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
73 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
75 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
76 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
77 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
78 there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
79 that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
81 =head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
83 Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
84 a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
86 However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
87 -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
88 the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
89 circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
90 built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
91 those extensions to use them with 5.6.
93 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
94 without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
95 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
96 L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
98 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
100 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
101 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
102 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
103 what's changed. See also your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
104 file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
105 Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
106 currently installed modules.
108 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
110 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
111 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
112 Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
113 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
114 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
115 in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
116 available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
117 unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
118 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
119 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
121 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
122 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
123 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
125 =head1 Space Requirements
127 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 15 MB of disk space.
128 After completing make, it takes up roughly 20 MB, though the actual
129 total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
130 directories need something on the order of 15 MB, though again that
131 value is system-dependent.
133 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
135 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
144 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
145 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
147 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
148 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
149 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
150 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
151 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
155 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
156 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
157 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
158 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
159 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
160 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
161 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
162 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
163 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
165 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
166 Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
167 it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
168 might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
169 compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
170 the architecture name.
172 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
173 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
175 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
176 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
177 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
178 settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
179 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
185 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
186 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
187 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
188 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
189 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
192 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
193 defaults from then on.
195 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
196 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
198 =head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
200 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
201 also has several convenient options which are all described below.
202 However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
203 you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
204 run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
205 a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
207 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
209 For more help on Configure switches, run:
213 =head2 Common Configure options
215 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
216 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
217 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
223 To compile with gcc you should run
225 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
227 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
228 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
230 =item Installation prefix
232 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
233 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
234 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
237 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
238 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
239 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
241 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
243 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
244 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
245 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
246 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
249 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
250 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
251 attempt infinite recursion.
255 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
256 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
257 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
258 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
259 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
261 By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
262 the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
264 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
266 or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
268 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
269 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
270 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
271 obvious and convenient place.
273 =item Overriding an old config.sh
275 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
276 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
280 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
285 For my Solaris system, I usually use
287 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
289 =head2 GNU-style configure
291 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
292 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
294 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
296 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
299 ./configure.gnu --help
303 Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
305 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
306 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
308 =head2 Installation Directories
310 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
311 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
312 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
313 Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
314 directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
315 be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
317 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
318 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
319 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
320 the defaults from then on.
322 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
323 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
324 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
325 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
326 you can safely skip the next section.
328 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
332 =item Directories for the perl distribution
334 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.
335 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
336 5.6 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
337 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
338 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
340 Configure variable Default value
343 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
344 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
345 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
346 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
347 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
351 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
352 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
353 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
354 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
355 the common style is shown here.
357 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
359 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
360 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
361 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts. $apiversion
362 is the perl version number (without subversion), e.g. 5.6.
364 Configure variable Default value
366 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
367 $sitescriptdir $siteprefix/bin
368 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/
369 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$apiversion/$archname
370 $siteman1dir $siteprefix/man/man1
371 $siteman3dir $siteprefix/man/man3
375 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
376 modules into $sitelib/$apiversion and architecture-dependent modules
379 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
381 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
382 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
383 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
385 Configure variable Default value
387 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
388 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
389 $vendorscriptdir $vendorprefix/bin
390 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/
391 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$apiversion/$archname
392 $vendorman1dir $vendorprefix/man/man1
393 $vendorman3dir $vendorprefix/man/man3
394 $vendorhtml1dir (none)
395 $vendorhtml3dir (none)
397 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
398 a vendor might choose the following settings:
401 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
402 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
404 This would have the effect of setting the following:
408 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
409 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
410 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
411 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
413 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
414 $sitescriptdir /usr/local/bin
415 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
416 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$apiversion/$archname
417 $siteman1dir /usr/local/man/man1
418 $siteman3dir /usr/local/man/man3
421 $vendorscriptdir /usr/bin
422 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/
423 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$apiversion/$archname
424 $vendorman1dir /usr/man/man1
425 $vendorman3dir /usr/man/man3
427 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
428 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
429 the /usr/local hierarchy. Note too how the vendor-supplied
430 directories track $apiversion, rather than $version, to ease upgrading
431 between maintenance subversions. See L<"Coexistence with earlier
432 versions of perl5"> below for more details.
434 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
435 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
436 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
437 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
438 network. One way to do that would be something like
440 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
444 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
445 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
446 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
447 $prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
448 installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
452 In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
453 pages in a version-specific directory, such as
454 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
455 after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
456 without resetting MANPATH.
458 You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
460 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6/man/man3
462 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
464 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
466 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
471 As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
472 anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
473 Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
474 html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
475 specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
476 but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
481 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
482 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
485 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
486 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
489 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
490 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
491 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
493 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
494 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
495 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
497 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
498 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6 are
500 Configure variable Default value
501 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6
502 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6/$archname
503 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6
504 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6/$archname
506 =head2 Changing the installation directory
508 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
509 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
510 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
511 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
512 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
513 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
514 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
515 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
516 section describes how to do that.
518 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
519 could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
520 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
521 following command line:
523 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
525 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
527 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
528 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
529 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
532 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
534 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
535 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
536 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
537 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
538 Here's one way to do that:
540 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
541 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
542 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
545 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
547 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
548 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
549 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
550 # everywhere in those files.)
551 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
552 # #!/wherever/perl line.
553 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
554 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
555 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
556 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
558 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
560 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
561 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
562 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
563 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
564 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
565 hint file for your system.
567 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
572 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
574 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
576 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
577 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
578 platform-specific hints files.
580 Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6 contains a number of
581 new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
582 set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
583 interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
585 =head2 Configure-time Options
587 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
588 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
589 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
590 some of the main things you can change.
594 On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
595 experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
596 README.threads, and then try:
598 sh Configure -Dusethreads
600 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
601 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
603 The default is to compile without thread support.
605 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
607 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
608 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
609 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
610 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
612 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
615 sh Configure -Duseperlio
617 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
619 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
620 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
621 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
628 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
629 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
630 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
631 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
632 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
633 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
635 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
636 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
638 You select this option by
640 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
642 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
643 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
646 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
647 detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
648 this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
649 Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
650 _exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
651 your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
653 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
658 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
659 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
660 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
663 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
665 You select this option via:
667 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
669 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
670 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
674 =head2 Dynamic Loading
676 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
677 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
678 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
679 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
681 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
683 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
684 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
685 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
688 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
689 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
690 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
691 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
692 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
693 can share the same library.
695 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
696 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
697 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
700 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
701 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
702 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
705 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
706 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
707 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
708 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
709 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
710 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
712 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
713 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
715 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
717 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
719 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
720 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
721 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Rhapsody, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
722 HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for cygwin) must be set up to include
723 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
724 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
725 library search settings.
727 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
728 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
729 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
732 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
734 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
736 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
739 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
741 for Bourne-style shells, or
743 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
745 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
746 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
748 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
749 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
751 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
753 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
754 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
755 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
756 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
757 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
758 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
759 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
760 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
761 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
762 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
763 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
764 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
765 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
766 to point to the perl build directory.
768 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
769 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
770 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
771 variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
775 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
776 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
777 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
778 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
779 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
780 than your system malloc.
782 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
783 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
784 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
785 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
789 =item Using the system malloc
791 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
793 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
795 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
797 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
799 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
800 asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
801 run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
802 can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
805 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
807 or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
809 Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
810 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
811 not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
814 If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
815 names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
816 have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
817 by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
819 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
820 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
821 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
826 =head2 Building a debugging perl
828 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
829 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
830 you probably want to do
832 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
834 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
835 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
836 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
837 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
838 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
839 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
840 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
841 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
842 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
843 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
844 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
846 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
847 it's convenient to have both.
849 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
850 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
854 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
855 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
856 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
857 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
858 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
859 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
860 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
861 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
862 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
863 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
865 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
866 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
869 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
870 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
871 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
873 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
874 to turn off each extension:
876 B (Always included by default)
878 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
879 Fcntl (Always included by default)
881 IO (Always included by default)
885 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
889 attrs (Always included by default)
891 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
893 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
895 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
898 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
899 the extensions you want.
901 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
902 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
903 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
904 releases of version 2.
906 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
907 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
908 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
911 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
912 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
913 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
914 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
916 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
918 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
919 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
920 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
921 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
922 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
923 how to obtain the libraries.
925 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
926 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
927 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
928 your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
929 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
930 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
931 See the examples below.
937 =item gdbm in /usr/local
939 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
940 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
941 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
942 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
943 necessary steps out automatically.
945 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
946 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
948 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
951 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
952 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
955 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
956 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
957 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
959 =item gdbm in /usr/you
961 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
962 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
963 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
964 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
965 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
966 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
967 /usr/you/lib to the list.
969 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
973 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
974 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
976 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
977 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
979 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
980 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
981 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
982 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
985 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
986 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
990 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
992 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
993 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
997 =item Running Configure Interactively
999 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1000 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1003 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1004 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1005 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1006 will use the defaults from then on.
1008 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1009 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1010 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1014 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1015 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1016 will offer to use that hint file.
1018 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1019 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1020 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1021 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1024 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1026 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
1027 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1028 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1031 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1032 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1033 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1035 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1036 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1039 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1040 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1041 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1044 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1045 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1046 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1047 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1050 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1051 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1052 Keep the previous value? [y]
1054 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1055 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1056 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1058 =item Changing Compilers
1060 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1061 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1062 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1063 with the options you want to use.
1065 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1066 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1068 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1070 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1071 them to all the .SH files by running
1075 You will then have to rebuild by running
1082 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1083 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1084 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1085 does no checking that your changes make sense.
1089 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1090 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1091 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1093 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1094 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1099 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1100 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1101 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1102 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1103 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1104 lost the next time you run Configure.
1106 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1107 see the file hints/README.hints.
1109 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1110 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1117 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
1118 to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
1119 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1122 =item Environment variable clashes
1124 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1125 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1126 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1127 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1129 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1131 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1133 Build a threading Perl? [n]
1134 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1136 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1137 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1138 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1139 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1140 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1141 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1142 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1144 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1146 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1147 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1148 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1151 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1152 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1153 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1155 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1156 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1158 =item Porting information
1160 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1161 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1162 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1163 subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1165 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1166 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1167 various other operating systems.
1169 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1170 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1171 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1172 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1178 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1179 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1180 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1181 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1182 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1183 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1185 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1190 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1192 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1194 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1195 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1196 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1197 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1203 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1204 for further tips and information.
1208 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1209 during the building of extensions, you should run
1213 to test your version of miniperl.
1217 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1218 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1219 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1220 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1221 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1222 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1224 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1225 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1228 are supported and installed on your system.
1229 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1235 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1236 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1237 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1238 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1239 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1240 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1241 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1245 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1246 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1248 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1249 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1250 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1252 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1253 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1255 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1257 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1258 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1259 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1260 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1261 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1262 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1263 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1264 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1265 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1267 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1268 invoke Configure with
1270 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1272 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1275 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1276 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1279 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1281 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1282 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1283 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1285 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1287 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1288 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1289 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1290 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1291 of your local set-up.
1293 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1295 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1296 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1297 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1299 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1300 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1301 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1302 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1303 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1307 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1308 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1311 sh Configure -Uusenm
1313 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1314 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1317 =item umask not found
1319 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1320 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1321 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1322 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1323 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1327 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1328 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1329 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1330 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1331 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1335 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1336 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1337 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1341 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1342 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1343 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1344 on L<"nm extraction">.
1346 =item __inet_* errors
1348 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1349 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1350 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1351 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1352 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1353 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1354 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1355 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1358 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1360 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1361 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1362 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1363 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1364 update your gcc installation.
1368 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1369 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1377 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1378 with B<make depend; make>.
1382 If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1384 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1386 This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1387 indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1390 =item Missing functions
1392 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1393 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1394 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1395 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1396 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1400 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1401 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1402 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1403 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1404 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1407 =item Missing dbmclose
1409 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1410 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1412 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1414 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1415 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1416 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1417 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1418 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1419 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1420 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1421 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1422 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1423 process is continuing.
1425 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1428 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1430 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1431 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1432 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1434 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1435 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1436 quite that tightly coordinated.
1438 =item sh: ar: not found
1440 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1441 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1442 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1443 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1446 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1448 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1449 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1450 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1452 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1454 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1455 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1456 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1457 to include the System V semaphores.
1459 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1461 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1462 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1463 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1464 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1469 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1470 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1471 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1472 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1473 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1474 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1475 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1476 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1480 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1482 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1484 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1486 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1488 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1489 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1490 you will get a message telling what to do.
1492 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1494 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1496 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1497 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1498 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1499 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1500 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1506 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1507 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1508 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1510 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1511 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1512 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1514 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1516 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1517 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1518 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1522 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1523 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1527 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1528 complicated constructs).
1530 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1531 comments that apply to your system.
1537 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1538 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1539 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1540 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1541 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1542 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1544 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1550 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1552 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1553 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1554 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1555 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1556 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1557 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1562 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1563 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1564 Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1565 fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1566 will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1569 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1571 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1573 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1574 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1575 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1576 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1582 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1583 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1584 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1585 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1586 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1587 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1589 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1591 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1592 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1593 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1595 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1597 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1598 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1600 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1602 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1603 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1604 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1606 =head2 Installed files
1608 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1609 anything, you can run
1611 ./perl installperl -n
1612 ./perl installman -n
1614 make install will install the following:
1617 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1618 will be a link to perl.
1620 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1621 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1622 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1624 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1625 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1626 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1627 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1628 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1629 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1630 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1631 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1632 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1633 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1636 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1637 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
1639 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1640 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1641 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1643 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
1644 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1646 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1647 in L<"Installation Directories">.
1649 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1650 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
1651 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1652 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1654 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1656 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1657 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1658 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1659 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1660 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1661 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1662 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1663 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1665 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1666 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1667 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1669 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1670 searched by 5.005_03 are
1672 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1673 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1674 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1675 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1677 Now, suppose you install version 5.6. The directories searched by
1680 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6/$archname
1681 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6
1682 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6/$archname
1683 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6
1685 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1686 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1688 Notice the last two entries -- Perl understands the default structure
1689 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1690 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
1691 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6. Further,
1692 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
1693 present only in 5.6. That new module will get installed into
1694 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6 and will be available to 5.6,
1695 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
1697 Also, by default, 5.6 will look in
1699 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1701 for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
1703 Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1. The directories
1704 searched by 5.6.1 will be
1706 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1707 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
1708 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6/$archname
1709 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6
1711 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1712 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1713 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1715 When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1716 $sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1717 does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.6 and
1718 5.6.1 can use the extension.
1720 However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1721 old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1722 to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1723 (The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1724 extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1725 is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1726 to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
1727 5.6 will find your files in the 5.6 directory, and newer versions
1728 of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1729 (This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1731 Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your modules
1732 every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1733 number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
1735 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1737 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1738 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
1739 won't interfere with another version. One convenient way to do this
1740 is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1742 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1744 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1745 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1746 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1748 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1749 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1752 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1753 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1754 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1757 =head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6
1759 Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.005_50
1760 will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.005_50 and later. You will,
1761 however, be able to continue using 5.005 even after you install 5.6.
1762 The 5.005 binary will still be able to find the modules built under
1763 5.005; the 5.6 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1764 directories, and will not find them. See also your installed copy
1765 of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally
1766 installed modules. Note that you want perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod
1767 for installed module information.
1769 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1771 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1773 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1774 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1776 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1777 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1778 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1779 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1780 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1781 whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1782 possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1784 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1786 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1787 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1788 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1789 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1790 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1792 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1793 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1794 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1795 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1798 =head1 installhtml --help
1800 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1801 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1802 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1804 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1805 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1807 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1812 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1814 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1815 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1816 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1817 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1818 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1821 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1822 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1823 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1824 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1825 (and would welcome patches for them).
1827 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1828 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1830 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1832 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1833 available in TeX format. Type
1835 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1837 =head1 Reporting Problems
1839 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1840 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1841 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1842 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1843 an accurate description of your problem.
1845 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1846 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1847 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1848 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1849 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1851 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1852 information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1853 Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1854 complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
1855 commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
1856 are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1857 usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1858 reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1859 will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1860 try to keep it brief but clear.
1862 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1864 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1865 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1866 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1867 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1868 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1870 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1871 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1874 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1875 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1877 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1878 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1881 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1882 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1887 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1888 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1889 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1891 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1892 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1894 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1896 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1897 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
1898 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1899 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1900 and the contact information to match your distribution.
1902 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1904 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $