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 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship
18 an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of
19 gcc for AIX are widely available.
21 At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
22 for which you have to pay: B<xlc> and B<VAC>. If you decide to use either
23 of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
24 upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
27 vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.0
29 Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
30 The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
31 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
32 require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags.
34 The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler
35 optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c,
36 respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch
37 levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files.
38 Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended.
40 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
41 complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-specific
42 details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development
47 Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
48 level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
49 show the base, but is not always complete:
53 # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
54 bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
55 bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
58 As a side note, perl cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls installed
60 # lslpp -l | grep syscalls
61 bos.adt.syscalls 4.3.3.50 COMMITTED System Calls Application
64 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
66 AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
67 Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
68 misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
69 For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
72 Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
73 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
74 called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
75 used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
76 earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
77 modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
78 more compliant with other applications like Apache/modperl which are
79 using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
80 code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
81 was not possible using the emulated interface.
83 =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
85 All defaults for Configure can be used.
87 If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
88 will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0.
90 Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
91 level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
92 versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups
93 are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches
94 in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the
95 `base' is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are
98 vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed)
99 xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available)
101 # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com
102 Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com.
103 : welcome message ...
104 Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous
105 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password.
107 ... accepted login stuff
108 ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/
109 ftp> dir other other.ll
110 output to local-file: other.ll? y
111 200 PORT command successful.
112 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
113 226 Transfer complete.
115 output to local-file: xlc.ll? y
116 200 PORT command successful.
117 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls.
118 226 Transfer complete.
122 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll
123 -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll
125 On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue:
127 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C '
128 xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
129 xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
130 # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll
131 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff
132 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
133 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff
134 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff
135 -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff
136 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff
137 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff
138 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff
139 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff
140 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff
141 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff
144 On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
146 # lslpp -l | fgrep 'vac.C '
147 vac.C 4.4.0.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
148 vac.C 4.4.0.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
149 # grep 'vac.C.4.4.0.*.bff' other.ll
150 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13466624 May 26 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.1.bff
151 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13473792 Aug 31 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.2.bff
152 -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13480960 May 19 20:32 vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
153 # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
156 Then execute the following command, and fill in its choices
158 # smit install_update
159 -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
160 * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff ]
164 Follow the messages ... and you're done.
166 =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
168 We're working on this using gcc-3.0 ... (any input highly appreciated)
170 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl
172 Should yield no problems.
176 Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when
177 threads are used in combination with 64bit configurations.
181 If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64bit
182 configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might
185 =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics
187 In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics
188 may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized.
189 In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with
190 the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library
191 has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time
192 (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and
193 therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r.
197 H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
199 Structure copied from README.hpux
203 Version 0.0.3: 12 Jul 2001