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 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
23 L<"Porting information"> below.
25 For information on what's new in this release, see the
26 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
27 changes, see the Changes file.
29 IMPORTANT NOTE: 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
30 global symbols anymore. This means most CPAN modules probably won't
31 build under this release without adding '-DPERL_POLLUTE' to ccflags
32 in config.sh. This is not the default because we want the modules
33 to get fixed *before* the 5.006 release. pod/perldelta.pod contains
34 additional notes about this.
38 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
39 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
40 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
41 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
43 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
45 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
47 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
50 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
51 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
52 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
54 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
55 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
56 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
58 =head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
60 Starting with Perl 5.004_50 there were many deep and far-reaching changes
61 to the language internals. If you have dynamically loaded extensions
62 that you built under perl 5.003 or 5.004, you can continue to use them
63 with 5.004, but you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions
64 to use them 5.005. See the discussions below on
65 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
66 L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> for more details.
68 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
70 In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
71 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
72 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
75 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
77 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
78 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
79 Another alternative may be to use a tool like C<ansi2knr> to convert the
80 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
81 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
82 in the Perl sources. C<ansi2knr> is usually found as part of the freely
83 available C<Ghostscript> distribution. Another similar tool is
84 C<unprotoize>, distributed with GCC. Since C<unprotoize> requires GCC to
85 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
86 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
88 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
89 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
90 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
92 =head1 Space Requirements
94 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 10 MB of disk space. The
95 complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
96 actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
97 directories need something on the order of 10 MB, though again that
98 value is system-dependent.
100 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
102 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
111 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
112 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
114 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
115 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
116 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
117 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
118 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
120 mv config.sh config.sh.old
122 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
123 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
124 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
125 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
126 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
127 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
128 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
129 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
130 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
132 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
133 (such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486, i586, or i686.
134 If you pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
136 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
137 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
139 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
140 particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
141 same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
142 L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
146 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
147 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
148 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
149 is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
150 and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
152 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
153 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
155 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
156 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
157 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
159 To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
161 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
163 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
164 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
166 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
167 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
169 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
170 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
171 the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
172 using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
175 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
177 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
178 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
179 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
180 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
182 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is below
183 your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will attempt
186 It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
187 easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
188 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
189 careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
190 vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
191 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
192 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
193 obvious and convenient place.
195 You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
196 to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl.
198 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
199 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
200 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
201 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
203 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
208 For my Solaris system, I usually use
210 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
212 =head2 GNU-style configure
214 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
215 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
217 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
219 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
222 ./configure.gnu --help
226 Cross compiling is not supported.
228 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
229 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
233 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
234 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
235 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
236 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
237 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
238 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
239 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
240 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
241 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
242 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
244 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
245 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
248 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
249 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
250 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
252 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
253 to turn off each extension:
255 B (Always included by default)
257 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
258 Fcntl (Always included by default)
260 IO (Always included by default)
264 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
268 attrs (Always included by default)
270 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
272 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
274 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
277 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
278 the extensions you want.
280 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
281 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
282 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
284 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
285 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
286 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
289 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
290 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
291 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
292 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
294 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
296 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
297 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
298 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
299 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
300 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
301 how to obtain the libraries.
303 Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
304 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
305 include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
306 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
307 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
308 include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
309 Configure. See the examples below.
315 =item gdbm in /usr/local
317 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
318 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
319 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
320 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
321 necessary steps out automatically.
323 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
324 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
326 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
329 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
330 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
333 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
334 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
335 messages, then you can just run
339 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
341 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
342 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
344 =item gdbm in /usr/you
346 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
347 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
348 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
349 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
350 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
351 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
352 /usr/you/lib to the list.
354 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
358 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
359 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
361 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
362 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
364 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
365 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
366 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
367 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
370 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
371 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
375 =head2 Installation Directories
377 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
378 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
379 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
381 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
382 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
383 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
384 will use the defaults from then on.
386 By default, Configure will use the following directories for library files
387 for 5.005 (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined by Configure).
389 Configure variable Default value
390 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
391 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
392 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
393 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
395 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
396 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
399 By default, Configure will use the following directories for manual pages:
401 Configure variable Default value
402 $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
403 $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
405 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
406 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
409 The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
410 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
411 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
412 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
413 page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
414 change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
416 Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
417 /usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
419 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
421 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
423 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
425 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
426 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
427 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults for 5.005 are
429 Configure variable Default value
430 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005/archname
431 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005
432 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005/archname
433 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005
435 $man1dir /opt/perl/man/man1
436 $man3dir /opt/perl/man/man3
438 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
441 The directories under site_perl are empty, but are intended to be used
442 for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl will automatically
443 look in these directories.
445 In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.005 after
446 a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
447 stored in a version-specific directory, such as
448 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.005/.
450 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
451 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
452 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
454 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
457 =head2 Changing the installation directory
459 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
460 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
461 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
462 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
463 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
464 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
465 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
466 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
467 an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
469 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
470 can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
471 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
472 process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
473 run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
475 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
476 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
477 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
478 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
479 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
480 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
481 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
482 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
483 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
484 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
485 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
487 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
494 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
495 extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
496 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
499 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
501 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
502 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
503 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
504 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
505 Here's one way to do that:
507 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
508 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
509 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
512 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
514 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
515 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
516 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
517 # everywhere in those files.)
518 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
519 # #!/wherever/perl line.
520 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
521 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
522 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
523 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
525 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
527 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
528 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
529 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
530 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
531 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
532 hint file for your system.
534 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
539 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
541 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
543 =head2 Configure-time Options
545 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
546 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
547 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
548 some of the main things you can change.
552 On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled to use threads. To
553 enable this, read the file README.threads, and then try
555 sh Configure -Dusethreads
557 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
558 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
560 The default is to compile without thread support.
562 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
564 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
565 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
566 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
567 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
569 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
572 sh Configure -Duseperlio
574 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
576 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
577 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
578 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
585 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
586 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
587 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
588 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
589 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
590 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
592 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
593 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
595 You select this option by
597 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
599 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
600 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
603 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
604 to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
605 Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
608 You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
609 script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
610 portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
615 main() { printf("42\n"); }
617 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
619 if test X$val = X42; then
620 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
622 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
625 If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
626 and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
628 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
633 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
634 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
635 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
638 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
640 You select this option via:
642 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
644 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
645 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
649 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
651 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
652 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
653 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
656 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
657 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
658 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
659 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
660 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
661 can share the same library.
663 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
664 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
665 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
668 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
669 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
670 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
673 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
674 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
675 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
676 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
677 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
678 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
680 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
681 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
683 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
685 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
687 To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
688 LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
691 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
693 for Bourne-style shells, or
695 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
697 for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
698 Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
699 LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
701 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
702 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
703 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
704 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
705 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
706 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
707 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
708 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
709 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
710 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
711 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
712 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
713 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
714 to point to the perl build directory.
716 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
717 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
718 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
719 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
720 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
724 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
725 perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
726 the malloc function on your system.
728 The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast but
729 somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's malloc
730 function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal. However,
731 as of 5.004_68, perl's malloc has been optimized for the typical
732 requests from perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and
735 For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
736 the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
737 with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
738 (e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
739 if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
740 third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
741 your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags
744 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
746 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
748 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
750 Note that Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
751 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). The names do not clash
752 with the system versions of these functions. See -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
753 below if you want to do that for some reason.
755 =head2 Malloc Performance Flags
757 If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or more of the following
758 items to your ccflags config.sh variable to change its behavior. You can
759 find out more about these and other flags by reading the commentary near
760 the top of the malloc.c source. The defaults should be fine for
765 =item -DNO_FANCY_MALLOC
767 Undefined by default. Defining it returns malloc to the version used
772 Undefined by default. Defining it in addition to NO_FANCY_MALLOC returns
773 malloc to the version used in Perl version 5.000.
775 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
777 Undefined by default. This is used to force Perl's malloc family of functions
778 to have the same names as the system versions. This is normally only required
779 when you have a need to replace the system versions of these functions.
780 This may be sometimes required when you have libraries that like to free()
781 data that may have been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
783 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols from
784 the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably does not
785 allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom versions.
789 =head2 Building a debugging perl
791 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
792 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
793 you probably want to do
795 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
797 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
798 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
799 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
800 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
801 system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
802 config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
803 state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
804 default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
805 reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
806 optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
807 as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
809 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
810 it's convenient to have both.
812 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
813 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
815 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
817 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
818 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
819 by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
822 Starting from Perl 5.005_53 you no more need to replace the rand() and
823 srand() functions in the perl source by any other random number
824 generator because Configure chooses the widest one available
825 (drand48(), srandom(), or rand()).
827 You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
828 doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
829 shouldn't do that, but some might.)
831 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
835 =item Running Configure Interactively
837 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
838 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
841 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
842 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
843 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
844 will use the defaults from then on.
846 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
847 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
848 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
852 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
853 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
854 will offer to use that hint file.
856 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
857 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
858 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
859 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
862 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
864 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
865 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
866 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
869 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
870 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
871 Keep the recommended value? [y]
873 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
874 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
877 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
878 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
879 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
882 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
883 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
884 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
885 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
888 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
889 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
890 Keep the previous value? [y]
892 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
893 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
894 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
896 =item Changing Compilers
898 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
899 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
900 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
901 with the options you want to use.
903 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
904 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
906 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
908 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
909 them to all the .SH files by running
913 You will then have to rebuild by running
920 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
921 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
922 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
923 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
924 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
928 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
929 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
930 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
932 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
933 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
938 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
939 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
940 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
941 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
942 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
943 lost the next time you run Configure.
945 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
946 see the file hints/README.hints.
948 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
949 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
956 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
957 to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
958 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
961 =item Porting information
963 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
964 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
965 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
968 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
969 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
970 various other operating systems.
976 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
977 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
978 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
979 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
980 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
981 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
983 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
988 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
990 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
991 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
992 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
993 send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
994 perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
995 See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1001 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1002 for further tips and information.
1006 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1007 during the building of extensions, you should run
1011 to test your version of miniperl.
1015 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1016 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1017 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1018 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1019 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1020 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1022 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1023 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1026 are supported and installed on your system.
1027 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1033 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1034 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1035 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1036 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1037 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1038 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1039 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1043 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1044 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1046 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1047 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1048 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1050 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1051 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1053 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1055 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1056 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1057 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1058 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1059 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1060 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1061 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1062 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1063 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1065 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1066 invoke Configure with
1068 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1070 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1073 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1074 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1077 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1079 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1080 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1081 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1083 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1085 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1086 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1087 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1088 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1089 of your local set-up.
1091 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1093 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1094 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1095 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1097 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1098 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1099 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1100 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1101 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1105 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1106 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1109 sh Configure -Uusenm
1111 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1112 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1115 =item umask not found
1117 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1118 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1119 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1120 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1121 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1125 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1126 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1127 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1128 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1129 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1133 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1134 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1135 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1139 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1140 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1141 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1142 on L<"nm extraction">.
1144 =item __inet_* errors
1146 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1147 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1148 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1149 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1150 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1151 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1152 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1153 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1158 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1159 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1167 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1168 with B<make depend; make>.
1172 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
1173 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1174 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1177 =item Missing functions
1179 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1180 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1181 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1182 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1183 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1187 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1188 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1189 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1190 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1191 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1194 =item Missing dbmclose
1196 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1197 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1199 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1201 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1202 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1203 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1204 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1205 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1206 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1207 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1208 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1209 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1210 process is continuing.
1212 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1215 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1217 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1218 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1219 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1221 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1222 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1223 quite that tightly coordinated.
1225 =item sh: ar: not found
1227 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1228 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1229 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1230 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1233 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1235 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1236 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1237 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1239 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1241 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1242 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1243 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1244 to include the System V semaphores.
1246 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1248 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1249 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1250 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1251 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1256 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1258 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1260 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1262 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1264 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1265 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1266 you will get a message telling what to do.
1268 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1270 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1276 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1277 should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1278 complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1279 then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1281 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1282 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1283 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1285 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1287 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1288 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1289 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1293 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1294 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1298 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1299 complicated constructs).
1301 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1302 comments that apply to your system.
1308 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1309 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1310 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1311 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1312 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1313 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1315 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1321 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1323 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1324 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1325 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1326 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1327 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1328 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1333 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1334 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1335 Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1336 fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1337 will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1340 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1342 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1344 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1345 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1346 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1347 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1353 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1354 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1355 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1356 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1357 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1358 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1360 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1362 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1363 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1364 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1366 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1368 =head2 Installed files
1370 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1371 anything, you can run
1373 ./perl installperl -n
1374 ./perl installman -n
1376 make install will install the following:
1379 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1380 will be a link to perl.
1382 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1383 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1384 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1386 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1387 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1388 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1389 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1390 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1391 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1392 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1393 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1394 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1395 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1398 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1400 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1401 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1402 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1403 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1404 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1405 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1406 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1408 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1409 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1411 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1412 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1414 where archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1415 will be used for installing extensions.
1417 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1418 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1419 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1420 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1422 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1424 WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1425 tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1427 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1428 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1429 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1430 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1431 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1432 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1433 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1434 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1436 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1437 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1438 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1440 The directories searched by version 5.005 will be
1442 Configure variable Default value
1443 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
1444 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
1445 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1446 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1448 while the directories searched by version 5.005_01 will be
1450 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501/archname
1451 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501
1452 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1453 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1455 When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1456 $sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1457 does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.005 and
1458 5.005_01 can use the extension. Only when a perl version changes to
1459 break backwards compatibility will the default suggestions for the
1460 $sitearch and $sitelib version numbers be increased.
1462 However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1463 old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1464 to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1465 (The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1466 extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1467 is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1468 to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
1469 5.005 will find your files in the 5.005 directory, and newer versions
1470 of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1471 (This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1473 Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your extensions
1474 every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1475 number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
1477 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1479 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1480 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1481 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1483 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1485 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1486 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1487 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1489 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1490 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1493 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1494 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1495 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1498 =head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1500 Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50
1501 will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later. You will,
1502 however, be able to continue using 5.004 even after you install 5.005.
1503 The 5.004 binary will still be able to find the extensions built under
1504 5.004; the 5.005 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1505 directories, and will not find them.
1507 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1509 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1511 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1512 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1514 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1515 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1516 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1517 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1518 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
1519 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1520 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1522 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1524 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1525 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1526 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1527 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent library
1528 ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1530 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1531 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1532 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1533 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1536 =head1 installhtml --help
1538 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1539 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1540 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1542 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1547 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1549 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1550 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1551 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1552 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1553 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1556 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1557 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1558 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1559 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1560 (and would welcome patches for them).
1562 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1563 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1565 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1567 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1568 available in TeX format. Type
1570 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1572 =head1 Reporting Problems
1574 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1575 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1576 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1577 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1578 an accurate description of your problem.
1580 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1581 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1582 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1583 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1584 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1586 You might also find helpful information in the Porting directory of the
1589 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1591 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1592 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1593 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1594 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1595 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1597 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1598 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1601 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1602 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1604 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1605 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1608 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1609 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1614 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1615 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1616 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1618 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1619 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1621 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1623 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1624 the same terms as perl itself.
1626 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1627 a larger package) please do modify these installation instructions and
1628 the contact information to match your distribution.
1630 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1632 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.42 1998/07/15 18:04:44 doughera Released $