4 Copyright (c) 1989,1990,1991,1992,1993,1994 Larry Wall
7 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
8 it under the terms of either:
10 a) the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
11 Software Foundation; either version 1, or (at your option) any
14 b) the "Artistic License" which comes with this Kit.
16 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
17 but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
18 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See either
19 the GNU General Public License or the Artistic License for more details.
21 You should have received a copy of the Artistic License with this
22 Kit, in the file named "Artistic". If not, I'll be glad to provide one.
24 You should also have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
25 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
26 Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
28 For those of you that choose to use the GNU General Public License,
29 my interpretation of the GNU General Public License is that no Perl
30 script falls under the terms of the GPL unless you explicitly put
31 said script under the terms of the GPL yourself. Furthermore, any
32 object code linked with perl does not automatically fall under the
33 terms of the GPL, provided such object code only adds definitions
34 of subroutines and variables, and does not otherwise impair the
35 resulting interpreter from executing any standard Perl script. I
36 consider linking in C subroutines in this manner to be the moral
37 equivalent of defining subroutines in the Perl language itself. You
38 may sell such an object file as proprietary provided that you provide
39 or offer to provide the Perl source, as specified by the GNU General
40 Public License. (This is merely an alternate way of specifying input
41 to the program.) You may also sell a binary produced by the dumping of
42 a running Perl script that belongs to you, provided that you provide or
43 offer to provide the Perl source as specified by the GPL. (The
44 fact that a Perl interpreter and your code are in the same binary file
45 is, in this case, a form of mere aggregation.) This is my interpretation
46 of the GPL. If you still have concerns or difficulties understanding
47 my intent, feel free to contact me. Of course, the Artistic License
48 spells all this out for your protection, so you may prefer to use that.
50 --------------------------------------------------------------------------
52 Perl is a language that combines some of the features of C, sed, awk
53 and shell. See the manual page for more hype. There are also two Nutshell
54 Handbooks published by O'Reilly & Assoc. See pod/perlbook.pod
57 Please read all the directions below before you proceed any further, and
58 then follow them carefully.
60 After you have unpacked your kit, you should have all the files listed
65 1) Run Configure. This will figure out various things about your
66 system. Some things Configure will figure out for itself, other
67 things it will ask you about. If the test scripts and programs
68 run ok, the defaults will usually be right. It will then proceed to
69 make config.h, config.sh, and Makefile. You may have to explicitly
70 say sh Configure to ensure that Configure is run under sh.
71 If you're a hotshot, run Configure -d to take all the defaults and
72 then edit config.sh to patch up any flaws and run Configure -S.
74 Configure supports a number of useful options. Run Configure -h
75 to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
76 Configure -Dcc=gcc, or answer 'gcc' at the cc prompt. This is the
77 preferred way to invoke an alternate compiler, since the hints
78 files can then set appropriate defaults.
80 If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
81 probably _not_ re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
82 rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old.
84 By default, perl will be installed in /usr/local/{bin, lib, man}.
85 You can specify a different prefix for the default installation
86 directory, when Configure prompts you or by using something like
87 Configure -Dprefix=/whatever.
89 You can also supply a file config.over to over-ride Configure's
90 guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before
93 You might possibly have to trim # comments from the front of Configure
94 if your sh doesn't handle them, but all other # comments will be taken
97 (If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config.H to
98 config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.)
100 2) Glance through config.h to make sure system dependencies are correct.
101 Most of them should have been taken care of by running the Configure script.
103 If you have any additional changes to make to the C definitions, they
104 can be done in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the optimizer
105 on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for toke.c and
106 put the command optimize='-g' before the ;;. To change the C flags
107 for all the files, edit config.sh and change either $ccflags or $optimize.
111 This will look for all the includes and modify Makefile accordingly.
112 Configure will offer to do this for you.
116 This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
118 If you can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC flag.
119 (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
120 This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that
121 get indigestion easily. If that has no effect, try turning off
122 optimization. If you have missing routines, you probably need to
123 add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature that
124 Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete.
126 Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
127 some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
128 internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
129 cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
130 Makefile.SH, since a default rule only takes effect in the
131 absence of a specific rule.
133 Many of the following hints are now done automatically by Configure.
134 Some of the hints here were for Perl 4, and are probably obsolete.
135 They're left here for the moment just to give you some ideas for
136 what to try if you're having trouble.
138 AIX/RT may need a -a switch and -DCRIPPLED_CC.
139 Ultrix 3.[01] on MIPS needs to undefine WAITPID--the system call is busted.
140 MIPS machines may need to undef d_volatile.
141 MIPS machines may need to turn off -O on some files.
142 Some MIPS machines may need to undefine CASTNEGFLOAT.
143 Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
144 NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
145 A/UX may appear to work with -O -B/usr/lib/big/ optimizer flags.
146 A/UX may need -lposix to find rewinddir.
147 A/UX may need -ZP -DPOSIX, and -g if big cc is used.
148 UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
149 If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
150 Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
151 SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
152 that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
153 If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
154 If you get duplicate function definitions (a perl function has the
155 same name as another function on your system) try -DEMBED.
156 If you get varags problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
157 correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
158 and i_varags='undef' in config.sh.
159 If you wish to use dynamic loading on SunOS or Solaris, and you
160 have GNU as and GNU ld installed, you may need to add -B/bin/ to
161 your $ccflags and $ldflags so that the system's versions of as
166 This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made.
167 If it doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong.
168 See the README in the t subdirectory. Note that you can't run it
169 in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty. If "make test"
170 bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run TEST by hand to see if
171 it makes any difference. If individual tests bomb, you can run
172 them by hand, e.g., ./perl op/groups.t
176 This will put perl into a public directory (such as /usr/local/bin).
177 It will also try to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not
178 nroff the man page, however. You may need to be root to do this. If
179 you are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
180 ignore any messages about chown not working.
182 make install will also install the following:
184 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
185 will be a link to perl.
187 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
188 a2p awk-to-perl translator
189 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
191 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
192 s2p sed-to-perl translator
193 find2perl find-to-perl translator
194 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
195 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
196 pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
199 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
200 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
201 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
202 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
204 Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also
205 installed under $archlib so that you may later build new
206 extensions even if the Perl source is no longer available.
208 make install may also offer to install perl in a "standard" location.
210 Most of the documentation in the pod/ directory is also available
212 cd pod; make html; cd ..
213 to generate the html versions.
215 7) Read the manual entries before running perl.
217 8) IMPORTANT! Help save the world! Communicate any problems and suggested
218 patches to me, lwall@netlabs.com (Larry Wall), so we can
219 keep the world in sync. If you have a problem, there's someone else
220 out there who either has had or will have the same problem.
222 If possible, send in patches such that the patch program will apply them.
223 Context diffs are the best, then normal diffs. Don't send ed scripts--
224 I've probably changed my copy since the version you have. It's also
225 helpful if you send the output of "uname -a".
227 Watch for perl patches in comp.lang.perl. Patches will generally be
228 in a form usable by the patch program. If you are just now bringing up
229 perl and aren't sure how many patches there are, write to me and I'll
230 send any you don't have. Your current patch level is shown in patchlevel.h.
233 Just a personal note: I want you to know that I create nice things like this
234 because it pleases the Author of my story. If this bothers you, then your
235 notion of Authorship needs some revision. But you can use perl anyway. :-)