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 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
26 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
28 For information on what's new in this release, see the
29 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
30 changes, see the Changes file.
32 IMPORTANT NOTE: 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
33 global symbols anymore. This means most CPAN modules probably won't
34 build under this release without adding '-DPERL_POLLUTE' to ccflags
35 in config.sh. This is not the default because we want the modules
36 to get fixed *before* the 5.006 release. pod/perldelta.pod contains
37 additional notes about this.
41 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
42 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
43 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
44 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
46 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
48 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
50 You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
53 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
54 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
55 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
57 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
58 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
59 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
61 =head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with Perl 5.004.
63 Starting with Perl 5.004_50 there were many deep and far-reaching changes
64 to the language internals. If you have dynamically loaded extensions
65 that you built under perl 5.003 or 5.004, you can continue to use them
66 with 5.004, but you will need to rebuild and reinstall those extensions
67 to use them 5.005. See the discussions below on
68 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
69 L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> for more details.
71 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
73 In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the
74 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
75 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
78 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
80 If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
81 GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
82 Another alternative may be to use a tool like C<ansi2knr> to convert the
83 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
84 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
85 in the Perl sources. C<ansi2knr> is usually found as part of the freely
86 available C<Ghostscript> distribution. Another similar tool is
87 C<unprotoize>, distributed with GCC. Since C<unprotoize> requires GCC to
88 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
89 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
91 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
92 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
93 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
95 =head1 Space Requirements
97 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 15 MB of disk space. The
98 complete tree after completing make takes roughly 20 MB, though the
99 actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
100 directories need something on the order of 15 MB, though again that
101 value is system-dependent.
103 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
105 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
114 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
115 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
117 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
118 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
119 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
120 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
121 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
123 mv config.sh config.sh.old
125 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
126 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
127 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
128 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
129 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
130 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
131 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
132 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
133 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
135 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
136 (such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486, i586, or i686.
137 If you pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
139 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
140 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
142 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your
143 particular installation choices, then you can probably achieve the
144 same effect by using the new Policy.sh file. See the section on
145 L<"Site-wide Policy settings"> below.
149 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
150 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
151 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
152 is almost always okay. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
153 and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
155 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
156 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
158 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
159 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
160 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
162 To compile with gcc, for example, you should run
164 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
166 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
167 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
169 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
170 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
172 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
173 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
174 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
177 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
178 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
179 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
181 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
183 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
184 are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
185 then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
186 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
188 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
189 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
190 attempt infinite recursion.
192 It may seem obvious to say, but Perl is useful only when users can
193 easily find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
194 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
195 careful, however, of overwriting a version of perl supplied by your
196 vendor. In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
197 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
198 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
199 obvious and convenient place.
201 You can use "Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl" which causes installperl
202 to skip installing perl also as /usr/bin/perl.
204 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
205 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
206 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
207 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
209 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
214 For my Solaris system, I usually use
216 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
218 =head2 GNU-style configure
220 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
221 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
223 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
225 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
228 ./configure.gnu --help
232 Cross compiling is not supported.
234 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
235 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
237 =head2 Installation Directories
239 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
240 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
241 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
243 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
244 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
245 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure
246 will use the defaults from then on.
248 By default, Configure will use the following directories for library files
249 for 5.005 (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined by Configure).
251 Configure variable Default value
252 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
253 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
254 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
255 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
257 $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
258 $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
260 The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
263 The directories under site_perl are empty, but are intended to be used
264 for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl will automatically
265 look in these directories.
267 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
268 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
271 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
272 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
275 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
276 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
277 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
279 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
280 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
281 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults for 5.005 are
283 Configure variable Default value
284 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005/archname
285 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.005
286 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005/archname
287 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.005
289 $man1dir /opt/perl/man/man1
290 $man3dir /opt/perl/man/man3
296 By default, Configure will use the following directories for manual pages:
298 Configure variable Default value
299 $man1dir /usr/local/man/man1
300 $man3dir /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
302 (Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
303 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
306 The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
307 they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
308 and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
309 systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
310 page, rather than the less program. (This default location will likely
311 change to /usr/local/man/man3 in a future release of perl.)
313 Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
314 /usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
316 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
318 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
320 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
324 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
327 =head2 Changing the installation directory
329 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
330 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
331 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
332 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
333 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
334 packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
335 use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
336 This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
337 an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
339 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
340 can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
341 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. Or, you can automate this
342 process by placing the following lines in a file config.over before you
343 run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice):
345 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
346 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
347 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
348 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
349 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
350 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
351 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
352 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
353 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
354 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
364 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
365 extensions, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
366 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
369 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
371 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
372 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
373 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
374 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
375 Here's one way to do that:
377 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
378 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
379 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
382 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
384 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
385 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
386 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
387 # everywhere in those files.)
388 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
389 # #!/wherever/perl line.
390 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
391 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
392 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
393 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
395 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
397 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
398 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
399 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
400 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
401 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
402 hint file for your system.
404 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
409 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
411 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
413 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
414 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
415 platform-specific hints files.
417 =head2 Configure-time Options
419 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
420 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
421 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
422 some of the main things you can change.
426 On some platforms, perl5.005 can be compiled with experimental support
427 for threads. To enable this, read the file README.threads, and then
430 sh Configure -Dusethreads
432 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
433 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
435 The default is to compile without thread support.
437 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
439 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
440 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
441 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
442 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
444 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
447 sh Configure -Duseperlio
449 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
451 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
452 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
453 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
460 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
461 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
462 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
463 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
464 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
465 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
467 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
468 A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
470 You select this option by
472 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
474 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
475 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
478 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
479 to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
480 Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
483 You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
484 script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
485 portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
490 main() { printf("42\n"); }
492 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
494 if test X$val = X42; then
495 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
497 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
500 If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
501 and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
503 There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
508 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
509 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
510 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
513 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
515 You select this option via:
517 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
519 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
520 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
524 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
526 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
527 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
528 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
531 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
532 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
533 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
534 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
535 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
536 can share the same library.
538 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
539 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
540 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
543 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
544 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
545 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
548 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
549 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
550 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
551 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
552 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
553 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
555 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
556 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
558 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
560 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
562 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
563 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
564 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS) must be set up to include
565 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
566 be created. Configure arranges Makefile to have the correct shared
567 library search settings.
569 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
570 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
571 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
574 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
576 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
578 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
581 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
583 for Bourne-style shells, or
585 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
587 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
588 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up Makefile correctly.)
590 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
591 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
593 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
595 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
596 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
597 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
598 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
599 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
600 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
601 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
602 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
603 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
604 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
605 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
606 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
607 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
608 to point to the perl build directory.
610 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
611 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
612 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
613 variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
614 installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
618 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
619 perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
620 the malloc function on your system.
622 The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast but
623 somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's malloc
624 function may be a bit slower but also a bit more frugal. However,
625 as of 5.004_68, perl's malloc has been optimized for the typical
626 requests from perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and
629 For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
630 the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
631 with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
632 (e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
633 if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
634 third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
635 your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags
638 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
640 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
642 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
644 Note that Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
645 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). The names do not clash
646 with the system versions of these functions. See -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
647 below if you want to do that for some reason.
649 =head2 Malloc Performance Flags
651 If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or more of the following
652 items to your ccflags config.sh variable to change its behavior. You can
653 find out more about these and other flags by reading the commentary near
654 the top of the malloc.c source. The defaults should be fine for
659 =item -DNO_FANCY_MALLOC
661 Undefined by default. Defining it returns malloc to the version used
666 Undefined by default. Defining it in addition to NO_FANCY_MALLOC returns
667 malloc to the version used in Perl version 5.000.
669 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
671 Undefined by default. This is used to force Perl's malloc family of functions
672 to have the same names as the system versions. This is normally only required
673 when you have a need to replace the system versions of these functions.
674 This may be sometimes required when you have libraries that like to free()
675 data that may have been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
677 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols from
678 the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably does not
679 allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom versions.
683 =head2 Building a debugging perl
685 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
686 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
687 you probably want to do
689 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
691 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
692 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
693 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
694 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
695 system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
696 config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
697 state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
698 default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
699 reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
700 optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
701 as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
703 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
704 it's convenient to have both.
706 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
707 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
709 =head2 Other Compiler Flags
711 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
712 you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
713 by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
716 Starting from Perl 5.005_53 you no more need to replace the rand() and
717 srand() functions in the perl source by any other random number
718 generator because Configure chooses the widest one available
719 (drand48(), srandom(), or rand()).
721 You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
722 doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
723 shouldn't do that, but some might.)
727 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
728 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
729 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
730 B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
731 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
732 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
733 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
734 the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
735 built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
736 useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
738 You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
739 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
742 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
743 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
744 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
746 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
747 to turn off each extension:
749 B (Always included by default)
751 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
752 Fcntl (Always included by default)
754 IO (Always included by default)
758 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
762 attrs (Always included by default)
764 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
766 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
768 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
771 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
772 the extensions you want.
774 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
775 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
776 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
777 releases of version 2.
779 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
780 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
781 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
784 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
785 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
786 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
787 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
789 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
791 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
792 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
793 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
794 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
795 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
796 how to obtain the libraries.
798 Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
799 directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
800 include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
801 Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
802 normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
803 include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
804 Configure. See the examples below.
810 =item gdbm in /usr/local
812 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
813 GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
814 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
815 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
816 necessary steps out automatically.
818 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
819 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
821 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
824 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
825 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
828 Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
829 defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
830 messages, then you can just run
834 and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
836 This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
837 (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
839 =item gdbm in /usr/you
841 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
842 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
843 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
844 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
845 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
846 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
847 /usr/you/lib to the list.
849 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
853 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
854 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
856 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
857 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
859 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
860 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
861 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
862 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
865 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
866 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
870 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
872 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
873 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
877 =item Environment variable clashes
879 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
880 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
881 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
882 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
884 =item Running Configure Interactively
886 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
887 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
890 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
891 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
892 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
893 will use the defaults from then on.
895 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
896 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
897 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
901 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
902 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
903 will offer to use that hint file.
905 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
906 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
907 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
908 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
911 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
913 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
914 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
915 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
918 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
919 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
920 Keep the recommended value? [y]
922 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
923 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
926 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
927 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
928 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
931 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
932 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
933 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
934 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
937 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
938 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
939 Keep the previous value? [y]
941 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
942 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
943 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
945 =item Changing Compilers
947 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
948 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
949 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
950 with the options you want to use.
952 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
953 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
955 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
957 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
958 them to all the .SH files by running
962 You will then have to rebuild by running
969 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
970 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
971 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
972 does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
973 L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
977 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
978 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
979 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
981 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
982 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
987 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
988 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
989 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
990 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
991 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
992 lost the next time you run Configure.
994 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
995 see the file hints/README.hints.
997 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
998 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1005 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file Porting/config_H
1006 to config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
1007 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1010 =item Porting information
1012 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1013 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1014 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1017 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1018 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1019 various other operating systems.
1025 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1026 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1027 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1028 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1029 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1030 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1032 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1037 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1039 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1041 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1042 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1043 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1044 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1050 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1051 for further tips and information.
1055 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1056 during the building of extensions, you should run
1060 to test your version of miniperl.
1064 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1065 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1066 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1067 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1068 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1069 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1071 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1072 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1075 are supported and installed on your system.
1076 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1082 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1083 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1084 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1085 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1086 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1087 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1088 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1092 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1093 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1095 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1096 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1097 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1099 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1100 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1102 =item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
1104 If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1105 Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1106 -B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
1107 $ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
1108 and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1109 Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
1110 environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1111 your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
1112 the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1114 One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1115 invoke Configure with
1117 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1119 for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1122 Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1123 include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1126 =item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1128 If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
1129 it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1130 L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
1132 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1134 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1135 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1136 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1137 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1138 of your local set-up.
1140 =item dlopen: stub interception failed
1142 The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1143 that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1144 which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1146 The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
1147 actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1148 failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1149 "/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1150 functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1154 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1155 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1158 sh Configure -Uusenm
1160 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1161 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1164 =item umask not found
1166 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1167 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1168 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1169 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1170 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1174 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1175 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1176 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1177 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1178 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1182 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1183 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1184 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1188 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1189 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1190 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1191 on L<"nm extraction">.
1193 =item __inet_* errors
1195 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1196 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1197 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1198 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1199 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1200 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1201 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1202 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1207 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1208 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1216 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1217 with B<make depend; make>.
1221 If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
1222 flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1223 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1226 =item Missing functions
1228 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1229 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1230 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1231 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1232 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1236 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1237 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1238 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1239 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1240 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1243 =item Missing dbmclose
1245 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1246 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1248 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1250 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1251 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1252 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1253 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1254 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1255 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1256 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1257 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1258 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1259 process is continuing.
1261 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1264 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1266 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1267 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1268 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1270 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1271 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1272 quite that tightly coordinated.
1274 =item sh: ar: not found
1276 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1277 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1278 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1279 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1282 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1284 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1285 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1286 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1288 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1290 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1291 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1292 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1293 to include the System V semaphores.
1295 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1297 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1298 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1299 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1300 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1305 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1307 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1309 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1311 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1313 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1314 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1315 you will get a message telling what to do.
1317 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1319 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1325 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made (you
1326 should run plain 'make' before 'make test' otherwise you won't have a
1327 complete build). If 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful"
1328 then something went wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1330 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1331 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1332 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1334 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1336 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1337 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1338 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1342 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1343 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1347 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1348 complicated constructs).
1350 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1351 comments that apply to your system.
1357 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1358 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1359 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1360 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1361 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1362 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1364 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1370 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1372 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1373 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1374 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1375 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1376 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1377 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1382 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1383 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1384 Specifically, in perl5.004_64, tests 74 and 78 have been reported to
1385 fail on some systems. On my SparcStation IPC with 8 MB of RAM, test 78
1386 will fail if the system is running any other significant tasks at the
1389 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1391 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1393 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1394 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1395 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1396 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1402 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1403 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1404 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1405 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1406 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1407 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1409 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1411 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1412 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1413 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1415 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1417 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1418 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1420 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1422 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1423 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1424 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1426 =head2 Installed files
1428 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1429 anything, you can run
1431 ./perl installperl -n
1432 ./perl installman -n
1434 make install will install the following:
1437 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1438 will be a link to perl.
1440 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1441 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1442 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1444 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1445 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1446 find2perl find-to-perl translator
1447 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
1448 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
1449 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
1450 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
1451 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
1452 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
1453 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1456 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
1458 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1459 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1460 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1461 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1462 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1463 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1464 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1466 Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1467 $sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
1469 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1470 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1472 where archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1473 will be used for installing extensions.
1475 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1476 under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1477 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1478 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
1480 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
1482 WARNING: The upgrade from 5.004_0x to 5.005 is going to be a bit
1483 tricky. See L<"Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005"> below.
1485 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
1486 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1487 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1488 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1489 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
1490 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
1491 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1492 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1494 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1495 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1496 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1498 The directories searched by version 5.005 will be
1500 Configure variable Default value
1501 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005/archname
1502 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.005
1503 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1504 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1506 while the directories searched by version 5.005_01 will be
1508 $archlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501/archname
1509 $privlib /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00501
1510 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/archname
1511 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1513 When you install an add-on extension, it gets installed into $sitelib (or
1514 $sitearch if it is architecture-specific). This directory deliberately
1515 does NOT include the sub-version number (01) so that both 5.005 and
1516 5.005_01 can use the extension. Only when a perl version changes to
1517 break backwards compatibility will the default suggestions for the
1518 $sitearch and $sitelib version numbers be increased.
1520 However, if you do run into problems, and you want to continue to use the
1521 old version of perl along with your extension, move those extension files
1522 to the appropriate version directory, such as $privlib (or $archlib).
1523 (The extension's .packlist file lists the files installed with that
1524 extension. For the Tk extension, for example, the list of files installed
1525 is in $sitearch/auto/Tk/.packlist.) Then use your newer version of perl
1526 to rebuild and re-install the extension into $sitelib. This way, Perl
1527 5.005 will find your files in the 5.005 directory, and newer versions
1528 of perl will find your newer extension in the $sitelib directory.
1529 (This is also why perl searches the site-specific libraries last.)
1531 Alternatively, if you are willing to reinstall all your extensions
1532 every time you upgrade perl, then you can include the subversion
1533 number in $sitearch and $sitelib when you run Configure.
1535 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
1537 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1538 separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1539 using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1541 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
1543 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
1544 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1545 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1547 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1548 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1551 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1552 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1553 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1556 =head2 Upgrading from 5.004 to 5.005
1558 Extensions built and installed with versions of perl prior to 5.004_50
1559 will need to be recompiled to be used with 5.004_50 and later. You will,
1560 however, be able to continue using 5.004 even after you install 5.005.
1561 The 5.004 binary will still be able to find the extensions built under
1562 5.004; the 5.005 binary will look in the new $sitearch and $sitelib
1563 directories, and will not find them.
1565 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
1567 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1569 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1570 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
1572 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1573 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1574 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1575 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1576 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
1577 (or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1578 for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
1580 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1582 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1583 the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1584 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
1585 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent library
1586 ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
1588 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1589 conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1590 to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1591 correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1594 =head1 installhtml --help
1596 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1597 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
1598 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
1600 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
1605 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1607 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1608 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1609 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1610 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1611 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1614 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1615 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1616 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1617 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1618 (and would welcome patches for them).
1620 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1621 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1623 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1625 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1626 available in TeX format. Type
1628 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1630 =head1 Reporting Problems
1632 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1633 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1634 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1635 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1636 an accurate description of your problem.
1638 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1639 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1640 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1641 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
1642 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
1644 You might also find helpful information in the Porting directory of the
1647 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
1649 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1650 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1651 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1652 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1653 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1655 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1656 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1659 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
1660 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
1662 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
1663 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1666 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1667 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1672 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1673 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1674 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
1676 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1677 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1679 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1681 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
1682 the same terms as perl itself.
1684 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
1685 a larger package) please do modify these installation instructions and
1686 the contact information to match your distribution.
1688 =head1 LAST MODIFIED
1690 $Id: INSTALL,v 1.48 1999/03/19 17:00:49 doughera Exp $