3 Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
7 First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8 you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9 <URL:http://www.cpan.org/src/>.
11 The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12 with all the defaults are:
14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
25 Each of these is explained in further detail below.
27 B<NOTE>: starting from the release 5.6.0 Perl will use a version
28 scheme where even-numbered subreleases (like 5.6) are stable
29 maintenance releases and odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7) are
30 unstable development releases. Development releases should not be
31 used in production environments. Fixes and new features are first
32 carefully tested in development releases and only if they prove
33 themselves to be worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance
36 The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
37 on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
39 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
45 For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on L<"Porting
48 If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
49 similar, you may be on case-preserving filesystems such as Mac's HFS+
50 and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion brought to you
51 by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
53 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
54 L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
56 For information on what's new in this release, see the
57 pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
58 changes, see the Changes file.
62 This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
63 structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
64 read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
65 by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
67 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
69 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
71 Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
72 you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
75 If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
76 the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
77 provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
79 If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
80 should also read that hint file for specific information for your
81 system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
82 there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
83 that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
85 =head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
87 5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
88 global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
89 extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
92 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
94 Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
95 building perl itself with:
97 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
99 pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
101 =head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
103 Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
104 a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
106 However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
107 -Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
108 the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
109 circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
110 built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
111 those extensions to use them with 5.6.
113 Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
114 without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
115 L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
116 L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
118 The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
120 On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
121 changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
122 pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
123 what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
124 file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
125 Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
126 currently installed modules.
128 =head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
130 Most C compilers are now ANSI-compliant. However, a few current
131 computers are delivered with an older C compiler expressly for
132 rebuilding the system kernel, or for some other historical reason.
133 Alternatively, you may have an old machine which was shipped before
134 ANSI compliance became widespread. Such compilers are not suitable
137 If you find that your default C compiler is not ANSI-capable, but you
138 know that an ANSI-capable compiler is installed on your system, you
139 can tell F<Configure> to use the correct compiler by means of the
140 C<-Dcc=> command-line option -- see L<"gcc">.
142 If do not have an ANSI-capable compiler there are several avenues open
149 You may try obtaining GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide,
150 listed at <URL:http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html>. If, rather than
151 building gcc from source code, you locate a binary version configured
152 for your platform, be sure that it is compiled for the version of the
153 operating system that you are using.
157 You may purchase a commercial ANSI C compiler from your system
158 supplier or elsewhere. (Or your organization may already have
159 licensed such software -- ask your colleagues to find out how to
160 access it.) If there is a README file for your system in the Perl
161 distribution (for example, F<README.hpux>), it may contain advice on
166 Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
167 sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
168 you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
169 in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
170 available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
171 unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
172 run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
173 the sources back to the platform without GCC.
175 If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
176 form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.org to let us know the steps you
177 followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
181 Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
182 does not work with some C++ compilers.
184 =head1 Space Requirements
186 The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 35 MB of disk space.
187 After completing make, it takes up roughly 50 MB, though the actual
188 total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
189 directories need something on the order of 30 MB, though again that
190 value is system-dependent.
192 =head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
194 If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
203 The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
204 your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
206 The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
207 files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
208 change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
209 you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
210 not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
214 If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
215 version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
216 the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
217 includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
218 name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
219 Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
220 probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
221 Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
222 numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
224 Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
225 Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
226 it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
227 might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
228 compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
229 the architecture name.
231 In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
232 Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
234 If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
235 installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
236 using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
237 settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
238 also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
244 Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
245 things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
246 you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
247 almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
248 since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
251 At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
252 defaults from then on.
254 After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
255 *.SH files and offer to run make depend.
257 =head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
259 For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
260 also has several convenient options which are all described below.
261 However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
262 you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
263 run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
264 a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
266 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
268 For more help on Configure switches, run:
272 =head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
274 Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
275 where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
276 read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
279 Starting from Perl 5.6.1 you can do this (if your file system supports
282 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
283 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
284 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
286 This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
287 pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
288 unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
292 and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
294 =head2 Common Configure options
296 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
297 get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
298 Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
304 To compile with gcc you should run
306 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
308 This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
309 compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
311 =item Installation prefix
313 By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
314 /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
315 and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
318 You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
319 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
320 line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
322 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
324 If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
325 directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
326 prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
327 /opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
330 NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
331 as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
332 attempt infinite recursion.
336 It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
337 find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
338 /usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
339 careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
340 vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
342 By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
343 the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
345 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
347 or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
349 In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
350 put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
351 into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
352 obvious and convenient place.
354 =item Overriding an old config.sh
356 If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
357 with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
361 If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
366 Note: for development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.7, as opposed
367 to maintenance releases which have even subreleases, like 5.6)
368 if you want to use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel
369 to Configure, because the default answer to the question "do you really
370 want to Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel
371 skips that sanity check.
373 For example for my Solaris system, I usually use
375 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
377 =head2 GNU-style configure
379 If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
380 use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
382 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
384 The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
387 ./configure.gnu --help
391 Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
393 (The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
394 that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
396 =head2 Installation Directories
398 The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
399 appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
400 installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
401 Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
402 directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
403 be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
405 I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
406 everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
407 process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
408 the defaults from then on.
410 The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
411 people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
412 distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
413 need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
414 you can safely skip the next section.
416 The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
420 =item Directories for the perl distribution
422 By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
423 $version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
424 5.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
425 determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
426 variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
428 Configure variable Default value
431 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
432 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
433 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
434 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
435 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
439 Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
440 /usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
441 instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
442 directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
443 the common style is shown here.
445 =item Directories for site-specific add-on files
447 After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
448 CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
449 be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
451 Configure variable Default value
453 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
454 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
455 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
456 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
457 $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
458 $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
462 By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
463 modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
465 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will use $sitelib and $sitearch,
466 but will not use the other site-specific directories. Volunteers to
469 =item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
471 Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
472 distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
473 for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
475 Configure variable Default value
477 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
478 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
479 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
480 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
481 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
482 $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
483 $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
487 These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
488 a vendor might choose the following settings:
491 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
492 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
494 This would have the effect of setting the following:
498 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
499 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
500 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
501 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
503 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
504 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
505 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
506 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
507 $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
508 $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
511 $vendorscript /usr/bin
512 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
513 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
514 $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
515 $vendorman3 /usr/man/man3
517 Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
518 /usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
519 the /usr/local hierarchy.
521 NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker does not use these directories.
522 Volunteers to fix this are needed.
524 The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
525 version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
526 However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
527 installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
528 See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
529 on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
531 Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
532 example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
533 are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
534 site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
535 network. One way to do that would be something like
537 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
541 As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
542 variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
543 directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
544 Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
545 version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
549 There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
550 that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
551 separated list of directories, like this
553 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
555 The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
556 ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
557 modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
558 touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
559 version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
560 present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
561 directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
562 run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
566 In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
567 pages in a version-specific directory, such as
568 /usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
569 after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
570 without resetting MANPATH.
572 You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
574 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
576 Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
578 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
580 Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
585 As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
586 anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
587 Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
588 html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
589 specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
590 but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
595 Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
596 to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
599 Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
600 directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
603 Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
604 development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
605 discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
607 If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
608 library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
609 suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
611 Thus, for example, if you Configure with
612 -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
614 Configure variable Default value
615 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
616 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
617 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
618 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
620 =head2 Changing the installation directory
622 Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
623 associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
624 will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
625 sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
626 However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
627 packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
628 wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
629 management software to move perl to its final destination. This
630 section describes how to do that.
632 Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
633 could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
634 /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
635 following command line:
637 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
639 (replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
641 Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
642 modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
643 follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
646 =head2 Creating an installable tar archive
648 If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
649 convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
650 installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
651 create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
652 Here's one way to do that:
654 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
655 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
656 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
659 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
661 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
662 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
663 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
664 # everywhere in those files.)
665 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
666 # #!/wherever/perl line.
667 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
668 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
669 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
670 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
672 =head2 Site-wide Policy settings
674 After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
675 answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
676 person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
677 system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
678 to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
679 hint file for your system.
681 Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
686 to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
688 Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
690 If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
691 to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
692 platform-specific hints files.
694 Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
695 new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
696 set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
697 interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
699 =head2 Configure-time Options
701 There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
702 system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
703 Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
704 some of the main things you can change.
708 On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
709 experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
710 README.threads, and then try:
712 sh Configure -Dusethreads
714 Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
715 line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
717 The default is to compile without thread support.
719 As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
720 The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
721 (ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
722 ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
723 5005threads behavior instead by either
725 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
728 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
730 Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
731 and these options may disappear as well.
733 =head2 Large file support.
735 Since Perl 5.6.0 Perl has supported large files (files larger than
736 2 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
737 support is on by default.
739 This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
740 seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad if you are interfacing Perl
741 using some extension, also the components you are connecting to must
742 be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
743 parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
744 will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
745 Apache extension mod_perl.
747 There's also one known limitation with the current large files
748 implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
749 section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer
750 formats like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
752 =head2 64 bit support.
754 If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them
755 with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>, you can build a
756 perl that uses 64 bits.
758 There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
759 using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
760 -Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
761 the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
763 The C<use64bitint> does only as much as is required to get 64-bit
764 integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long longs")
765 while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because your
766 pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint> does
767 not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it might,
768 but it doesn't have to): the C<use64bitint> means that you will be
769 able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.
771 The C<use64bitall> goes all the way by attempting to switch also
772 integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
773 create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
774 resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
775 have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
778 Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
781 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
782 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
783 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
784 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
788 In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
789 range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
790 (that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
791 this support (if it is available).
795 You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
796 and the long double support.
798 =head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
800 Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
801 stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
802 mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
803 the default and is the only supported mechanism.
805 This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
808 sh Configure -Duseperlio
810 or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
812 If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
813 (experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
814 tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
821 AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
822 cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
823 currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
824 Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
825 extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
826 configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
828 This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
829 The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
831 You select this option by
833 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
835 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
836 that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
839 Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
840 detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
841 this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
842 Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
843 _exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
844 your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
848 Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
849 abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
850 extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
853 This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
855 You select this option via:
857 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
859 If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
860 detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
866 Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
867 TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
868 access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
869 Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
871 =head2 Dynamic Loading
873 By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
874 your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
875 statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
876 you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
878 =head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
880 Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
881 linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
882 extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
885 On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
886 replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
887 several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
888 different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
889 you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
890 can share the same library.
892 The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
893 penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
894 mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
897 In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
898 test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
899 Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
902 The default name for the shared library is typically something like
903 libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
904 libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
905 based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
906 version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
907 isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
909 For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
910 for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
912 You can elect to build a shared libperl by
914 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
916 To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
917 library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
918 NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
919 for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
920 the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
921 be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
922 library search settings.
924 However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
925 shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
926 something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
929 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
931 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
933 then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
936 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
938 for Bourne-style shells, or
940 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
942 for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
943 unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
945 You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
946 messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
948 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
950 There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
951 want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
952 with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
953 install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
954 try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
955 the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
956 ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
957 libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
958 that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
959 in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
960 equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
961 with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
962 override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
963 to point to the perl build directory.
965 The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
966 directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
967 version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
968 variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
972 Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
973 so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
974 the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
975 version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
976 perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
977 than your system malloc.
979 However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
980 experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
981 that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
982 (Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
986 =item Using the system malloc
988 To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
990 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
992 or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
994 =item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
996 NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
997 asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
998 run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
999 can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
1002 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
1004 or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
1006 Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
1007 Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
1008 not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
1011 If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
1012 names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
1013 have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
1014 by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1016 Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1017 from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1018 does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1023 =head2 Building a debugging perl
1025 You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
1026 B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
1027 you probably want to do
1029 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1031 This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1032 to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1033 executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
1034 cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1035 your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1036 variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1037 internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1038 if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1039 old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1040 ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1041 L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
1043 You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1044 it's convenient to have both.
1046 If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
1047 versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
1051 Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1052 in the ext/ subdirectory.
1054 By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1055 to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1056 only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
1057 Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
1058 is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1059 set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
1060 the Configure command line.
1062 If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1063 running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1064 extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1065 it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1066 has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1067 extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1068 convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1069 you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1070 dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1072 You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
1073 documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1076 Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1077 DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
1078 version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
1080 In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
1081 to turn off various extensions. All others are included by default.
1084 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
1091 Threads use5005threads
1093 Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
1095 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
1097 Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
1100 Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1101 the extensions you want.
1103 Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1104 DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1105 this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1106 releases of version 2.
1108 If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1109 adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1110 for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1113 Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
1114 remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1115 executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1116 well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1118 =head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1120 Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1121 dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1122 Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1123 automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1124 are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1125 how to obtain the libraries.
1127 If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1128 searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1129 appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
1130 your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
1131 searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1132 the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1133 See the examples below.
1139 =item gdbm in /usr/local
1141 Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
1142 GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
1143 installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1144 /usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1145 necessary steps out automatically.
1147 Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1148 your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1150 When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1153 If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1154 linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1157 Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1158 you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1159 /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
1161 =item gdbm in /usr/you
1163 Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1164 but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1165 have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1166 still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1167 an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1168 Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1169 /usr/you/lib to the list.
1171 It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1175 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1176 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1178 locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1179 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1181 loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1182 Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1183 you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1184 /usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1187 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1188 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1192 =head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1194 Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1195 compile standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
1196 following instructions.
1198 Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
1199 DB1 compatibility code (needed for DB_File interface) and without
1200 links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
1201 for DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
1202 --enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1203 additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1206 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1207 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
1208 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
1209 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
1210 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
1211 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1213 Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1216 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1217 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1219 ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1222 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1223 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1225 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1227 If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1228 If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1232 =item Running Configure Interactively
1234 If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1235 Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1238 All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
1239 have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1240 flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
1241 will use the defaults from then on.
1243 If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1244 config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1245 instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1249 The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1250 in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1251 will offer to use that hint file.
1253 Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
1254 If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1255 for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1256 More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1259 =item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1261 Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
1262 4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1263 standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1266 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1267 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1268 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1270 You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1271 relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1274 If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1275 used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1276 to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1279 For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1280 and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1281 Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
1282 Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1285 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1286 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1287 Keep the previous value? [y]
1289 In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
1290 should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
1291 the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1293 =item Changing Compilers
1295 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1296 probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
1297 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1298 with the options you want to use.
1300 This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1301 gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
1303 =item Propagating your changes to config.sh
1305 If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1306 them to all the .SH files by running
1310 You will then have to rebuild by running
1317 You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1318 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1319 is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
1320 does no checking that your changes make sense.
1324 Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1325 Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1326 The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
1328 If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1329 though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
1334 If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1335 line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1336 optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1337 toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1338 can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1339 lost the next time you run Configure.
1341 To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1342 see the file hints/README.hints.
1344 To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1345 $ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1352 If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1353 Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1354 system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
1355 You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1358 =item Environment variable clashes
1360 Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1361 ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1362 unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1363 be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1365 =item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1367 In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1369 Build a threading Perl? [n]
1370 Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1372 This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1373 (even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1374 "sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1375 to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1376 being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1377 'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1378 (a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1380 =item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1382 If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1383 that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1384 HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1387 Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1388 Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1389 sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1391 and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1392 libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1394 =item Porting information
1396 Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1397 corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1398 including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
1399 subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
1401 Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1402 http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
1403 various other operating systems.
1405 If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1406 section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1407 in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1408 Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1414 suidperl is an optional component, which is built or installed by default.
1417 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1418 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1419 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1420 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1421 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1422 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1423 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1424 features of the kernel.
1426 Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1427 of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1428 software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1429 should be considered deprecated.
1430 Instead use for example 'sudo': http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/
1434 This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1435 The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1436 the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1437 makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1438 (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1439 Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
1441 Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1446 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1448 =head2 What if it doesn't work?
1450 If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
1451 If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
1452 the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1453 then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1459 If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1460 for further tips and information.
1464 If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
1465 during the building of extensions, you should run
1469 to test your version of miniperl.
1473 If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1474 them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1475 running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1476 See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1477 whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
1478 The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1480 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1481 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1484 are supported and installed on your system.
1485 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1491 If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
1492 correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1493 gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1494 in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1495 correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1496 your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
1497 See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
1501 If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
1502 numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
1504 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1505 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1506 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
1508 it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
1509 previous L<"varargs"> item.
1511 =item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
1513 If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
1514 the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1515 Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
1516 fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1517 of your local set-up.
1521 If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1522 try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1525 sh Configure -Uusenm
1527 or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1528 If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
1531 =item umask not found
1533 If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1534 is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1535 Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1536 this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1537 try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1541 If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1542 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1543 version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1544 (Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1545 d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1549 If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1550 on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1551 the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1555 If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1556 problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1557 fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1558 on L<"nm extraction">.
1560 =item __inet_* errors
1562 If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1563 referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1564 installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1565 these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1566 in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1567 newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1568 updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1569 /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1572 =item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1574 This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1575 gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1576 changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1577 rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1578 update your gcc installation.
1582 If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
1583 optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
1591 then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1592 with B<make depend; make>.
1596 If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1598 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1600 This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1601 indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1604 =item Missing functions
1606 If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1607 other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1608 there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1609 likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1610 you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1614 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1615 toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1616 allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1617 each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1618 makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
1621 =item Missing dbmclose
1623 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1624 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
1626 =item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
1628 If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1629 the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1630 then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1631 Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
1632 systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
1633 For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1634 unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
1635 they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1636 reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1637 process is continuing.
1639 On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1642 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
1644 then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1645 the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1646 extension without the -lgdbm library.
1648 It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1649 this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1650 quite that tightly coordinated.
1652 =item sh: ar: not found
1654 This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1655 was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1656 make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1657 is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
1660 =item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1662 Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1663 with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1664 bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1666 =item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1668 If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1669 V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1670 also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1671 to include the System V semaphores.
1673 =item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1675 Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1676 both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1677 ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1678 with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1683 If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1684 tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1685 with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1686 may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1687 under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1688 to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1689 vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1690 Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1692 =item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1694 The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1695 make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1696 archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1697 C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1698 archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1699 incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1700 official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1701 that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1702 archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1704 =item invalid token: ##
1706 You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. See L<WARNING: This
1707 version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C>.
1711 Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1713 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1715 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1717 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
1719 FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1720 configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1721 you will get a message telling what to do.
1723 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1725 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1727 HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1728 Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1729 tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1730 break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1731 (on local filesystems utime() still works).
1735 =head2 Cross-compilation
1737 Starting from Perl 5.8 Perl has the beginnings of cross-compilation
1738 support. What is known to work is running Configure in a
1739 cross-compilation environment and building the miniperl executable.
1740 What is known not work work is building the perl executable because
1741 that would require building extensions: Dynaloader statically and
1742 File::Glob dynamically, for extensions one needs MakeMaker and
1743 MakeMaker is not yet cross-compilation aware, and neither is
1746 Since the functionality is so lacking, it must be considered
1747 highly experimental. It is so experimental that it is not even
1748 mentioned during an interactive Configure session, a direct command
1749 line invocation (detailed shortly) is required to access the
1752 NOTE: Perl is routinely built using cross-compilation
1753 in the EPOC environment but the solutions from there
1754 can't directly be used elsewhere.
1756 The one environment where cross-compilation has successfully been used
1757 as of this writing is the Compaq iPAQ running ARM Linux. The build
1758 host was Intel Linux, the networking setup was PPP + SSH. The exact
1759 setup details are beyond the scope of this document, see
1760 http://www.handhelds.org/ for more information.
1762 To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch is
1763 C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
1765 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1767 This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1768 symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
1770 During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1771 into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1772 cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1773 target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1774 transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1775 the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1776 methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1777 F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1779 To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1780 the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1781 happens), supply Configure with
1783 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1785 The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
1786 must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1787 You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
1791 but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1793 Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1794 which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1795 This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1796 In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1799 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1801 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1802 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1803 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1805 If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1806 compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1807 C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
1808 (The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1809 as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1810 will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1811 in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
1813 In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1814 choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1817 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1819 Putting it all together:
1821 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1822 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1823 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
1825 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1826 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1827 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1828 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1829 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1832 or if you are happy with the defaults
1834 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1835 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1836 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1841 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1842 'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1843 wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
1845 Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
1846 opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1847 a few tty tests will be skipped.
1849 =head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1851 If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1852 by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
1853 bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
1857 Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1858 individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
1862 (this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
1863 complicated constructs).
1865 You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1866 comments that apply to your system.
1872 Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
1873 may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
1874 B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1875 one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1876 LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
1877 are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1879 If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
1885 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1887 for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1888 make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
1889 is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
1890 shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1891 things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1892 open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1897 On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1898 of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
1899 For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1900 test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
1902 Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1904 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1906 to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1907 test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1908 tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1909 and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1911 =item Test failures from lib/ftmp-security saying "system possibly insecure"
1913 Firstly, test failures from the ftmp-security are not necessarily
1914 serious or indicative of a real security threat. That being said,
1915 they bear investigating.
1917 The tests may fail for the following reasons. Note that each of the
1918 tests is run both in the building directory and the temporary
1919 directory, as returned by File::Spec->tmpdir().
1921 (1) If the directory the tests are being run is owned by somebody else
1922 than the user running the tests, or root (uid 0). This failure can
1923 happen if the Perl source code distribution is unpacked in a way that
1924 the user ids in the distribution package are used as-is. Some tar
1927 (2) If the directory the test are being run in is writable by group
1928 or by other (remember: with UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to
1929 a directory means the right to add/remove files in that directory),
1930 and there is no sticky bit set in the directory. 'Sticky bit' is
1931 a feature used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if
1932 the bit is on a directory, no one but the owner (or the root) can remove
1933 that file even if the permissions of the directory would allow file
1934 removal by others. This failure can happen if the permissions in the
1935 directory simply are a bit too liberal for the tests' liking. This
1936 may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the permissions policy
1937 used on this particular directory/project/system/site. This failure
1938 can also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit
1939 (this is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle the
1940 File::Temp should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or
1941 if the system supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons
1942 it is not being used. This is for example the case with HP-UX: as of
1943 HP-UX release 11.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX
1944 doesn't use it on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also as with the
1945 permissions, some local policy might dictate that the stickiness is
1948 (3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
1949 any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
1950 directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
1953 See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
1954 about the various security aspects.
1960 This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1961 Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
1962 to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
1963 pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
1964 are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1965 ignore any messages about chown not working.
1967 =head2 Installing perl under different names
1969 If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1970 when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1971 indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1973 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1975 You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1976 "perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1978 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1980 This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1981 ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1982 the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1984 =head2 Installed files
1986 If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1987 anything, you can run
1989 ./perl installperl -n
1990 ./perl installman -n
1992 make install will install the following:
1997 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1998 will be a link to perl.
2000 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
2001 a2p awk-to-perl translator
2005 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2007 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2008 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2009 find2perl find-to-perl translator
2010 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
2011 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
2012 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
2013 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
2014 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
2015 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
2016 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
2022 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
2023 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
2027 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
2028 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
2032 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2034 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
2035 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2037 Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2038 in L<"Installation Directories">.
2040 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
2041 under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
2042 optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2043 program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
2045 Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2046 installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2047 perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2048 disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2049 To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2051 Configure -Dversiononly
2053 or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2054 you can just manually run
2056 ./perl installperl -v
2058 and skip installman altogether.
2059 See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2062 =head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
2064 In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
2065 5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
2066 all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2067 around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2068 For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
2069 with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
2070 top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
2071 #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
2073 Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
2074 with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
2075 (These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
2077 Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2078 searched by 5.005_03 are
2080 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2081 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2082 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2083 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2085 Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2086 fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2087 searched by version 5.6.0 will be
2089 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2090 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2091 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2092 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
2094 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2095 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2096 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2098 Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
2099 of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2100 directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
2101 to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
2102 suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
2103 present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2104 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
2105 but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
2107 The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
2108 5.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
2110 Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
2111 binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
2112 by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
2114 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
2115 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
2116 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
2117 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
2119 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2120 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
2122 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2123 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2124 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
2126 Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
2127 5.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
2128 extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2129 of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
2130 versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
2131 the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
2132 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
2133 same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
2134 version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
2136 This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2137 to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2138 versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
2140 =head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
2142 Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
2143 separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
2144 won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2145 libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2146 way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
2148 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
2150 and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
2151 may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2152 scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2154 Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
2155 (e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
2158 If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2159 seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2160 subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2163 =head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
2165 Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
2166 prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
2167 5.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
2168 you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
2169 (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
2171 See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2172 incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
2173 perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
2175 =head1 Coexistence with perl4
2177 You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2179 By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2180 they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
2182 In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
2183 perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
2184 process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2185 However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
2186 the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
2187 whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
2188 possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
2190 =head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2192 Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2193 system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2194 header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2195 by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2196 library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2198 Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2199 of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2200 hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2201 For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2204 =head1 installhtml --help
2206 Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2207 format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2208 documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2210 Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2211 html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2213 The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2218 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2220 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2221 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2222 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2223 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2224 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2227 See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2228 many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2229 see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2230 resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2231 (and would welcome patches for them).
2233 You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2234 the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2236 =head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2238 Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2239 available in TeX format. Type
2241 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2243 =head1 Reporting Problems
2245 If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
2246 helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
2247 pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
2248 to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.org with
2249 an accurate description of your problem.
2251 Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
2252 the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
2253 comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
2254 before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
2255 run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
2257 Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
2258 information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
2259 Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
2260 complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
2261 commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
2262 are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
2263 usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
2264 reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
2265 will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
2266 try to keep it brief but clear.
2268 =head1 DOCUMENTATION
2270 Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2271 is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
2272 build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
2273 can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2274 sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
2276 Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
2277 along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2280 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
2281 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
2283 This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
2284 (You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2287 Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2288 the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2293 Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2294 heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2295 feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
2297 If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2298 L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2300 =head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2302 This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
2303 the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
2304 If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
2305 a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2306 and the contact information to match your distribution.