1 If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2 It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3 designed to be readable as is.
7 README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems
11 This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating
12 system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl)
13 is compiled and/or runs.
15 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX
17 For information on compilers on older versions of AIX, see L<Compiling
18 Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3>.
20 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
21 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
22 gcc for AIX are widely available.
24 =head2 Supported Compilers
26 Currently all versions of IBM's "xlc", "xlc_r", "cc", "cc_r" or
27 "vac" ANSI/C compiler will work for building Perl if that compiler
30 If you plan to link Perl to any module that requires thread-support,
31 like DBD::Oracle, it is better to use the _r version of the compiler.
32 This will not build a threaded Perl, but a thread-enabled Perl. See
33 also L<Threaded Perl> later on.
35 As of writing (2009-08) only the IBM XL C for AIX or XL C/C++ for AIX
36 compiler is supported by IBM on AIX 5L/6.1.
38 The following compiler versions are supported by IBM:
40 XL C and XL C/C++ V7, V8, V9, V10
42 The XL C for AIX is integrated in the XL C/C++ for AIX compiler.
44 If you choose XL C/C++ V9 you need APAR IZ35785 installed
45 otherwise the integrated SDBM_File do not compile correctly due
46 to an optimization bug. You can circumvent this problem by
47 adding -qipa to the optimization flags (-Doptimize='-O -qipa').
48 The PTF for APAR IZ35785 which solves this problem is available
49 from IBM (April 2009 PTF for XL C/C++ Enterprise Edition for AIX, V9.0).
51 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
52 The former is recommended, as not only it can compile Perl with no
53 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later
54 that require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
56 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
57 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
58 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the
61 =head2 Incompatibility with AIX Toolbox lib gdbm
63 If the AIX Toolbox version of lib gdbm 1.8.x is installed on the
64 system then Perl will not work. This library contains a defect version
65 of the dbm_store() function.
67 =head2 Perl 5.10 was successfully compiled and tested on:
69 AIX Level | Compiler Level | w th | w/o th
70 --------------------------+-------------------------+------+-------
71 5.1 TL9 32 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
72 5.1 TL9 32 bit | gcc 3.2.2 | OK | OK
73 5.1 TL9 64 bit | XL C/C++ V7 | OK | OK
74 5.2 TL10 32 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
75 5.2 TL8 64 bit | VA C/C++ V6 | OK | OK
76 5.2 TL10 64 bit | XL C/C++ V8 | OK | OK
77 5.3 TL7 32 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
78 5.3 TL7 32 bit | gcc 4.2.4 | OK | OK
79 5.3 TL7 64 bit | XL C/C++ V9 + IZ35785 | OK | OK
80 6.1 TL1 32 bit | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
81 6.1 TL1 64 bit + IZ39077 | XL C/C++ V10 | OK | OK
84 w/o th = without thread
87 Successfully tested means that all "make test" runs finish with an
88 result of 100% OK. All tests were conducted with -Duseshrplib set.
90 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
92 Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x) and AIX 4.3
93 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
94 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
95 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
96 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
97 modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
98 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
99 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of
100 C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions,
101 which was not possible using the emulated interface.
103 It is highly recommended to use the new interface.
105 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
107 Should yield no problems.
111 Should yield no problems with AIX 5.1 / 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1.
113 IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.6.0 on AIX 5.1 and V5.8.2 on
114 AIX 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1) for some AIX
115 system scripts. If you switch the links in /usr/bin from the
116 AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build Perl then you
117 get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if the
118 threaded options are used.
120 The threaded Perl build works also on AIX 5.1 but the IBM Perl
121 build (Perl v5.6.0) is not threaded on AIX 5.1.
125 If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
126 configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX 6.1
127 you need a APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX functions.
128 The APAR number for this problem is IZ39077.
130 If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs you
134 default: (or your user)
135 data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte)
137 With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB.
138 The -1 removes this limit. If the "make test" fails please change
139 your /etc/security/limits as stated above.
141 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/32-bit)
143 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
144 passes all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default
145 configuration for the Perl builds that AIX ships with.
153 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
155 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
156 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
158 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (32-bit)
160 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes
161 all make tests in 32-bit mode.
168 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
170 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
171 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
173 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/64-bit)
175 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
176 passes all make tests in 64-bit mode.
178 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
187 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
189 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1(64-bit)
191 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all
192 make tests in 64-bit mode.
194 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
202 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
204 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
205 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
207 If you choose gcc to compile 64-bit Perl then you need to add the
213 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX versions up to 4.3.3
215 Due to the fact that AIX 4.3.3 reached end-of-service in December 31,
216 2003 this information is provided as is. The Perl versions prior to
217 Perl 5.8.9 could be compiled on AIX up to 4.3.3 with the following
218 settings (your mileage may vary):
220 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
221 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
222 gcc for AIX are widely available.
224 At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
225 for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
226 of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
227 upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
229 xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
230 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
232 note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
233 you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
235 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
237 subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
238 the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
240 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
241 The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
242 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
243 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
245 The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
246 optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
247 respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
248 levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
249 Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
251 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
252 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
253 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
258 Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
259 level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
260 show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
261 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
265 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
266 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
267 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
270 The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, Perl
271 cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
273 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
274 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
275 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
278 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
280 AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
281 Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
282 misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
283 For Perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
284 many other platforms.
286 Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
287 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
288 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
289 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
290 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
291 modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
292 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
293 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
294 code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions, which
295 was not possible using the emulated interface.
297 =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
299 All defaults for Configure can be used.
301 If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
302 will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
303 but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
304 removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
305 versions should be considered obsolete.
307 Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
308 level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
309 versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
310 are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
311 in the developer snapshots of Perl), or to one version up where the
312 "base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
315 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
316 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
318 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
319 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
320 : welcome message ...
321 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
322 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
324 ... accepted login stuff
325 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
326 ftp> dir other other.ll
327 output to local-file: other.ll? y
328 200 PORT command successful.
329 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
330 226 Transfer complete.
332 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
333 200 PORT command successful.
334 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
335 226 Transfer complete.
339 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
340 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
342 On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
344 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
345 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
346 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
347 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
348 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
349 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
350 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
351 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
352 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
353 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
354 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
355 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
356 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
357 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
358 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
361 On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
363 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
364 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
365 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
366 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
367 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
368 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
369 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
370 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
371 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
374 Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
377 # smit install_update
378 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
379 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
383 Follow the messages ... and you're done.
385 If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
386 http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
387 "C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
389 =head2 The usenm option
393 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
395 causes error like this
397 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
398 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
399 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
400 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
401 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
402 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
403 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
404 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information.
410 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
412 which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library
413 symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
415 Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of
416 Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used.
418 =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building Perl
420 Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
421 as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
422 Linux compatibility packages, available here:
424 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
426 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
428 Should yield no problems.
432 Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
433 threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
435 You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
437 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
439 The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
442 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
444 in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
445 is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
446 different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
447 is not really significant here.
451 If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
452 configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
455 =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
457 In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
458 may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
459 In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
460 the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
461 has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
462 (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
463 therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
467 H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
468 Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net>
472 Version 0.0.10: 07 Aug 2009