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
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 (2008-11) 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 will be available
49 in 1Q 2009. IBM does provide an emergency fix for this problem.
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 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
63 Starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.x / 5.10.x) and AIX 4.3
64 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
65 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
66 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
67 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
68 modules from earlier Perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
69 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
70 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of
71 C++ code with static constructors and destructors in Perl extensions,
72 which was not possible using the emulated interface.
74 It is highly recommended to use the new interface.
76 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
78 Should yield no problems.
82 Should yield no problems with AIX 5.2 / 5.3 and 6.1.
84 IBM uses the AIX system Perl (V5.8.2 as of writing) for some AIX
85 system scripts. If you switches the links in /usr/bin from the
86 AIX system Perl (/usr/opt/perl5) to the newly build Perl then you
87 get the same features as with the IBM AIX system Perl if the
88 threaded options are used.
92 If your AIX system is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
93 configurations to work. If you want to use 64-bit Perl on AIX 6.1
94 you need a APAR for a libc.a bug which affects (n)dbm_XXX functions.
95 The APAR number for this problem is currently not yet available. If
96 the fileset bos.rte.libc is at level 6.1.1.2 or lower then the problem
97 is no fixed on your system.
99 If you need more memory (larger data segment) for your Perl programs you
103 default: (or your user)
104 data = -1 (default is 262144 * 512 byte)
106 With the default setting the size is limited to 128MB.
107 The -1 removes this limit.
109 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/32-bit)
111 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
112 passes all make tests in threaded 32-bit mode, which is the default
113 configuration for the perl builds that AIX ships with.
121 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
123 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
124 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
126 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (32-bit)
128 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes
129 all make tests in 32-bit mode.
136 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_32
138 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
139 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
141 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1 (threaded/64-bit)
143 With the following options you get a threaded Perl version which
144 passes all make tests in 64-bit mode.
146 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
155 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
157 =head2 Recommended Options AIX 5.1/5.2/5.3 and 6.1(64-bit)
159 With the following options you get a Perl version which passes all
160 make tests in 64-bit mode.
162 export OBJECT_MODE=64 / setenv OBJECT_MODE 64 (depending on your shell)
170 -Dprefix=/usr/opt/perl5_64
172 The -Dprefix option will install Perl in a directory parallel to the
173 IBM AIX system Perl installation.
175 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on older AIX
177 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
178 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
179 gcc for AIX are widely available.
181 At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
182 for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
183 of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
184 upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
186 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
187 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
189 note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
190 you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
192 xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
194 subversions are not the same "latest" on all OS versions. For example,
195 the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
197 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
198 The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
199 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
200 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
202 The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
203 optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
204 respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
205 levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
206 Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
208 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
209 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
210 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
215 Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
216 level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
217 show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
218 4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
222 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
223 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
224 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
227 The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl
228 cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
230 # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
231 bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
232 bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
235 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
237 AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
238 Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
239 misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
240 For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
241 many other platforms.
243 Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
244 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
245 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
246 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
247 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
248 modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
249 more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
250 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
251 code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
252 was not possible using the emulated interface.
254 =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
256 All defaults for Configure can be used.
258 If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
259 will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
260 but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
261 removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
262 versions should be considered obsolete.
264 Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
265 level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
266 versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
267 are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
268 in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the
269 "base" is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
272 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
273 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
275 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
276 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
277 : welcome message ...
278 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
279 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
281 ... accepted login stuff
282 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
283 ftp> dir other other.ll
284 output to local-file: other.ll? y
285 200 PORT command successful.
286 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
287 226 Transfer complete.
289 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
290 200 PORT command successful.
291 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
292 226 Transfer complete.
296 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
297 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
299 On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
301 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
302 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
303 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
304 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
305 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
306 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
307 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
308 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
309 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
310 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
311 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
312 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
313 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
314 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
315 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
318 On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
320 # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
321 vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
322 vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
323 # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
324 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
325 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
326 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
327 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
328 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
331 Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
334 # smit install_update
335 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
336 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
340 Follow the messages ... and you're done.
342 If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
343 http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
344 "C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
346 =head2 The usenm option
350 cc -o miniperl ... miniperlmain.o opmini.o perl.o ... -lm -lc ...
352 causes error like this
354 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .aintl
355 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .copysignl
356 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .syscall
357 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .eaccess
358 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresuid
359 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setresgid
360 ld: 0711-317 ERROR: Undefined symbol: .setproctitle
361 ld: 0711-345 Use the -bloadmap or -bnoquiet option to obtain more information.
367 ./Configure -Dusenm ...
369 which makes Configure to use the C<nm> tool when scanning for library
370 symbols, which usually is not done in AIX.
372 Related to this, you probably should not use the C<-r> option of
373 Configure in AIX, because that affects of how the C<nm> tool is used.
375 =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
377 Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
378 as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
379 Linux compatibility packages, available here:
381 http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
383 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
385 Should yield no problems.
389 Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
390 threads are used in combination with 64-bit configurations.
392 You may get a warning when doing a threaded build:
394 "pp_sys.c", line 4640.39: 1506-280 (W) Function argument assignment between types "unsigned char*" and "const void*" is not allowed.
396 The exact line number may vary, but if the warning (W) comes from a line
399 hent = PerlSock_gethostbyaddr(addr, (Netdb_hlen_t) addrlen, addrtype);
401 in the "pp_ghostent" function, you may ignore it safely. The warning
402 is caused by the reentrant variant of gethostbyaddr() having a slightly
403 different prototype than its non-reentrant variant, but the difference
404 is not really significant here.
408 If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64-bit
409 configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
412 =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
414 In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
415 may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
416 In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
417 the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
418 has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
419 (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
420 therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
424 H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
425 Rainer Tammer <tammer@tammer.net>
429 Version 0.0.8: 01 Dec 2008