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.hpux - Perl version 5 on Hewlett-Packard Unix (HP-UX) systems
11 This document describes various features of HP's Unix operating system
12 (HP-UX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) is
15 =head2 Using perl as shipped with HP-UX
17 As of application release September 2001, HP-UX 11.00 is shipped with
18 perl-5.6.1 in /opt/perl. The first occurrence is on CD 5012-7954 and
19 can be installed using
21 swinstall -s /cdrom perl
23 assuming you have mounted that CD on /cdrom. In this version the
24 following modules are installed:
26 ActivePerl::DocTools-0.04 HTML::Parser-3.19 XML::DOM-1.25
27 Archive::Tar-0.072 HTML::Tagset-3.03 XML::Parser-2.27
28 Compress::Zlib-1.08 MIME::Base64-2.11 XML::Simple-1.05
29 Convert::ASN1-0.10 Net-1.07 XML::XPath-1.09
30 Digest::MD5-2.11 PPM-2.1.5 XML::XSLT-0.32
31 File::CounterFile-0.12 SOAP::Lite-0.46 libwww-perl-5.51
32 Font::AFM-1.18 Storable-1.011 libxml-perl-0.07
33 HTML-Tree-3.11 URI-1.11 perl-ldap-0.23
35 The build is a portable hppa-1.1 multithread build that supports large
36 files compiled with gcc-2.9-hppa-991112
38 If you perform a new installation, then Perl will be installed
41 =head2 Using perl from HP's porting centre
43 HP porting centre tries very hard to keep up with customer demand and
44 release updates from the Open Source community. Having precompiled
45 Perl binaries available is obvious.
47 The HP porting centres are limited in what systems they are allowed
48 to port to and they usually choose the two most recent OS versions
49 available. This means that at the moment of writing, there are only
50 HPUX-11.00 and 11-20/22 (IA64) ports available on the porting centres.
52 HP has asked the porting centre to move Open Source binaries
53 from /opt to /usr/local, so binaries produced since the start
54 of July 2002 are located in /usr/local.
56 One of HP porting centres URL's is http://hpux.connect.org.uk/
57 The port currently available is built with GNU gcc.
59 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on HP-UX
61 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. The C compiler
62 that ships with all HP-UX systems is a K&R compiler that should only be
63 used to build new kernels.
65 Perl can be compiled with either HP's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. The
66 former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
67 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
68 require the use of HP compiler-specific command-line flags.
70 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
71 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
76 HP's current Unix systems run on its own Precision Architecture
77 (PA-RISC) chip. HP-UX used to run on the Motorola MC68000 family of
78 chips, but any machine with this chip in it is quite obsolete and this
79 document will not attempt to address issues for compiling Perl on the
82 The most recent version of PA-RISC at the time of this document's last
85 A complete list of models at the time the OS was built is in the file
86 /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models. The first column corresponds to the last
87 part of the output of the "model" command. The second column is the
88 PA-RISC version and the third column is the exact chip type used.
89 (Start browsing at the bottom to prevent confusion ;-)
93 # grep L1000-44 /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models
98 The original version of PA-RISC, HP no longer sells any system with this chip.
100 The following systems contained PA-RISC 1.0 chips:
102 600, 635, 645, 808, 815, 822, 825, 832, 834, 835, 840, 842, 845, 850,
103 852, 855, 860, 865, 870, 890
107 An upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it shipped for many years in many different
110 The following systems contain with PA-RISC 1.1 chips:
112 705, 710, 712, 715, 720, 722, 725, 728, 730, 735, 742, 743, 744, 745,
113 747, 750, 755, 770, 777, 778, 779, 800, 801, 803, 806, 807, 809, 811,
114 813, 816, 817, 819, 821, 826, 827, 829, 831, 837, 839, 841, 847, 849,
115 851, 856, 857, 859, 867, 869, 877, 887, 891, 892, 897, A180, A180C,
116 B115, B120, B132L, B132L+, B160L, B180L, C100, C110, C115, C120,
117 C160L, D200, D210, D220, D230, D250, D260, D310, D320, D330, D350,
118 D360, D410, DX0, DX5, DXO, E25, E35, E45, E55, F10, F20, F30, G30,
119 G40, G50, G60, G70, H20, H30, H40, H50, H60, H70, I30, I40, I50, I60,
120 I70, J200, J210, J210XC, K100, K200, K210, K220, K230, K400, K410,
121 K420, S700i, S715, S744, S760, T500, T520
125 The most recent upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it added support for
128 As of the date of this document's last update, the following systems
129 contain PA-RISC 2.0 chips:
131 700, 780, 781, 782, 783, 785, 802, 804, 810, 820, 861, 871, 879, 889,
132 893, 895, 896, 898, 899, A400, A500, B1000, B2000, C130, C140, C160,
133 C180, C180+, C180-XP, C200+, C400+, C3000, C360, C3600, CB260, D270,
134 D280, D370, D380, D390, D650, J220, J2240, J280, J282, J400, J410,
135 J5000, J5500XM, J5600, J7000, J7600, K250, K260, K260-EG, K270, K360,
136 K370, K380, K450, K460, K460-EG, K460-XP, K470, K570, K580, L1000,
137 L2000, L3000, N4000, R380, R390, SD16000, SD32000, SD64000, T540,
138 T600, V2000, V2200, V2250, V2500, V2600
140 Just before HP took over Compaq, some systems were renamed. the link
141 that contained the explanation is dead, so here's a short summary:
143 HP 9000 A-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp2400 series.
144 HP 9000 L-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp5400 series.
145 HP 9000 N-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp7400.
147 rp2400, rp2405, rp2430, rp2450, rp2470, rp3410, rp3440, rp5400,
148 rp5405, rp5430, rp5450, rp5470, rp7400, rp7405, rp7410, rp7420,
149 rp8400, rp8420, Superdome
151 The current naming convention is:
154 ||||`+- 00 - 99 relative capacity & newness (upgrades, etc.)
155 |||`--- unique number for each architecture to ensure different
156 ||| systems do not have the same numbering across
158 ||`---- 1 - 9 identifies family and/or relative positioning
160 |`----- c = ia32 (cisc)
162 | x = ia-64 (Itanium & Itanium 2)
170 =head2 Itanium & Itanium 2
172 HP also ships servers with the 128-bit Itanium processor(s). As of the
173 date of this document's last update, the following systems contain
174 Itanium or Itanium 2 chips (this is very likely to be out of date):
176 rx1600, rx2600, rx2600hptc, rx4610, rx4640, rx5670, rx7620, rx8620,
179 To see all about your machine, type
182 ia64 hp server rx2600
183 # /usr/contrib/bin/machinfo
185 =head2 Portability Between PA-RISC Versions
187 An executable compiled on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform will not execute on a
188 PA-RISC 1.1 platform, even if they are running the same version of
189 HP-UX. If you are building Perl on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform and want that
190 Perl to also run on a PA-RISC 1.1, the compiler flags +DAportable and
191 +DS32 should be used.
193 It is no longer possible to compile PA-RISC 1.0 executables on either
194 the PA-RISC 1.1 or 2.0 platforms. The command-line flags are accepted,
195 but the resulting executable will not run when transferred to a PA-RISC
198 =head2 Itanium Processor Family and HP-UX
200 HP-UX also runs on the new Itanium processor. This requires the use
201 of a different version of HP-UX (currently 11.23 or 11i v1.6), and with
202 the exception of a few differences detailed below and in later sections,
203 Perl should compile with no problems.
205 Although PA-RISC binaries can run on Itanium systems, you should not
206 attempt to use a PA-RISC version of Perl on an Itanium system. This is
207 because shared libraries created on an Itanium system cannot be loaded
208 while running a PA-RISC executable.
210 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on HP-UX
212 HP-UX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared libraries).
213 Shared libraries end with the suffix .sl. On Itanium systems,
214 they end with the suffix .so.
216 Shared libraries created on a platform using a particular PA-RISC
217 version are not usable on platforms using an earlier PA-RISC version by
218 default. However, this backwards compatibility may be enabled using the
219 same +DAportable compiler flag (with the same PA-RISC 1.0 caveat
222 Shared libraries created on an Itanium platform cannot be loaded on
223 a PA-RISC platform. Shared libraries created on a PA-RISC platform
224 can only be loaded on an Itanium platform if it is a PA-RISC executable
225 that is attempting to load the PA-RISC library. A PA-RISC shared
226 library cannot be loaded into an Itanium executable nor vice-versa.
228 To create a shared library, the following steps must be performed:
230 1. Compile source modules with +z or +Z flag to create a .o module
231 which contains Position-Independent Code (PIC). The linker will
232 tell you in the next step if +Z was needed.
233 (For gcc, the appropriate flag is -fpic or -fPIC.)
235 2. Link the shared library using the -b flag. If the code calls
236 any functions in other system libraries (e.g., libm), it must
237 be included on this line.
239 (Note that these steps are usually handled automatically by the extension's
242 If these dependent libraries are not listed at shared library creation
243 time, you will get fatal "Unresolved symbol" errors at run time when the
246 You may create a shared library that refers to another library, which
247 may be either an archive library or a shared library. If this second
248 library is a shared library, this is called a "dependent library". The
249 dependent library's name is recorded in the main shared library, but it
250 is not linked into the shared library. Instead, it is loaded when the
251 main shared library is loaded. This can cause problems if you build an
252 extension on one system and move it to another system where the
253 libraries may not be located in the same place as on the first system.
255 If the referred library is an archive library, then it is treated as a
256 simple collection of .o modules (all of which must contain PIC). These
257 modules are then linked into the shared library.
259 Note that it is okay to create a library which contains a dependent
260 library that is already linked into perl.
262 Some extensions, like DB_File and Compress::Zlib use/require prebuilt
263 libraries for the perl extensions/modules to work. If these libraries
264 are built using the default configuration, it might happen that you
265 run into an error like "invalid loader fixup" during load phase.
266 HP is aware of this problem. Search the HP-UX cxx-dev forums for
267 discussions about the subject. The short answer is that B<everything>
268 (all libraries, everything) must be compiled with C<+z> or C<+Z> to be
269 PIC (position independent code). (For gcc, that would be
270 C<-fpic> or C<-fPIC>). In HP-UX 11.00 or newer the linker
271 error message should tell the name of the offending object file.
273 A more general approach is to intervene manually, as with an example for
274 the DB_File module, which requires SleepyCat's libdb.sl:
276 # cd .../db-3.2.9/build_unix
278 ... add +Z to all cflags to create shared objects
279 CFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
280 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
281 CXXFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
282 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
289 # ld -b -o libdb-3.2.sl *.o
290 # mv libdb-3.2.sl /usr/local/lib
294 # ln -s libdb-3.2.sl libdb.sl
296 # cd .../DB_File-1.76
303 It is no longer possible to link PA-RISC 1.0 shared libraries (even
304 though the command-line flags are still present).
306 PA-RISC and Itanium object files are not interchangeable. Although
307 you may be able to use ar to create an archive library of PA-RISC
308 object files on an Itanium system, you cannot link against it using
309 an Itanium link editor.
311 =head2 The HP ANSI C Compiler
313 When using this compiler to build Perl, you should make sure that the
314 flag -Aa is added to the cpprun and cppstdin variables in the config.sh
315 file (though see the section on 64-bit perl below). If you are using a
316 recent version of the Perl distribution, these flags are set automatically.
318 =head2 The GNU C Compiler
320 When you are going to use the GNU C compiler (gcc), and you don't have
321 gcc yet, you can either build it yourself from the sources (available
322 from e.g. http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/software/gcc/releases.html) or fetch
323 a prebuilt binary from the HP porting center. There are two places where
324 gcc prebuilds can be fetched; the first and best (for HP-UX 11 only) is
325 http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSoftwareDetailPage_IDX/1,1703,547,00.html
326 the second is http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Gnu/ where you can also
327 find the GNU binutils package. (Browse through the list, because there
328 are often multiple versions of the same package available).
330 Above mentioned distributions are depots. H.Merijn Brand has made prebuilt
331 gcc binaries available on http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/ and/or
332 http://www.cmve.net/~merijn/ for HP-UX 10.20, HP-UX 11.00, and HP-UX 11.11
333 (HP-UX 11i) in both 32- and 64-bit versions. These are bzipped tar archives
334 that also include recent GNU binutils and GNU gdb. Read the instructions
335 on that page to rebuild gcc using itself.
337 On PA-RISC you need a different compiler for 32-bit applications and for
338 64-bit applications. On PA-RISC, 32-bit objects and 64-bit objects do
339 not mix. period. There is no different behaviour for HP C-ANSI-C or GNU
340 gcc. So if you require your perl binary to use 64-bit libraries, like
341 Oracle-64bit, you MUST build a 64-bit perl.
343 Building a 64-bit capable gcc on PA-RISC from source is possible only when
344 you have the HP C-ANSI C compiler or an already working 64-bit binary of
345 gcc available. Best performance for perl is achieved with HP's native
348 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl on HP-UX
350 Beginning with HP-UX version 10.20, files larger than 2GB (2^31 bytes)
351 may be created and manipulated. Three separate methods of doing this
352 are available. Of these methods, the best method for Perl is to compile
353 using the -Duselargefiles flag to Configure. This causes Perl to be
354 compiled using structures and functions in which these are 64 bits wide,
355 rather than 32 bits wide. (Note that this will only work with HP's ANSI
356 C compiler. If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have to get
357 a version of the compiler that supports 64-bit operations. See above for
360 There are some drawbacks to this approach. One is that any extension
361 which calls any file-manipulating C function will need to be recompiled
362 (just follow the usual "perl Makefile.PL; make; make test; make install"
365 The list of functions that will need to recompiled is:
366 creat, fgetpos, fopen,
367 freopen, fsetpos, fstat,
368 fstatvfs, fstatvfsdev, ftruncate,
371 open, prealloc, stat,
372 statvfs, statvfsdev, tmpfile,
373 truncate, getrlimit, setrlimit
375 Another drawback is only valid for Perl versions before 5.6.0. This
376 drawback is that the seek and tell functions (both the builtin version
377 and POSIX module version) will not perform correctly.
379 It is strongly recommended that you use this flag when you run
380 Configure. If you do not do this, but later answer the question about
381 large files when Configure asks you, you may get a configuration that
382 cannot be compiled, or that does not function as expected.
384 =head2 Threaded Perl on HP-UX
386 It is possible to compile a version of threaded Perl on any version of
387 HP-UX before 10.30, but it is strongly suggested that you be running on
388 HP-UX 11.00 at least.
390 To compile Perl with threads, add -Dusethreads to the arguments of
391 Configure. Verify that the -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L compiler flag is
392 automatically added to the list of flags. Also make sure that -lpthread
393 is listed before -lc in the list of libraries to link Perl with. The
394 hints provided for HP-UX during Configure will try very hard to get
397 HP-UX versions before 10.30 require a separate installation of a POSIX
398 threads library package. Two examples are the HP DCE package, available
399 on "HP-UX Hardware Extensions 3.0, Install and Core OS, Release 10.20,
400 April 1999 (B3920-13941)" or the Freely available PTH package, available
401 though worldwide HP-UX mirrors of precompiled packages
402 (e.g. http://hpux.tn.tudelft.nl/hppd/hpux/)
404 If you are going to use the HP DCE package, the library used for threading
405 is /usr/lib/libcma.sl, but there have been multiple updates of that
406 library over time. Perl will build with the first version, but it
407 will not pass the test suite. Older Oracle versions might be a compelling
408 reason not to update that library, otherwise please find a newer version
409 in one of the following patches: PHSS_19739, PHSS_20608, or PHSS_23672
413 d3:/usr/lib 106 > what libcma-*.1
415 HP DCE/9000 1.5 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
416 Date: Apr 29 1996 22:11:24
418 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_19739-40 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
419 Date: Sep 4 1999 01:59:07
421 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_20608 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
422 Date: Dec 8 1999 18:41:23
424 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_23672 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
425 Date: Apr 9 2001 10:01:06
429 =head2 64-bit Perl on HP-UX
431 Beginning with HP-UX 11.00, programs compiled under HP-UX can take
432 advantage of the LP64 programming environment (LP64 means Longs and
433 Pointers are 64 bits wide).
435 Work is being performed on Perl to make it 64-bit compliant on all
436 versions of Unix. Once this is complete, scalar variables will be able
437 to hold numbers larger than 2^32 with complete precision.
439 As of the date of this document, Perl is fully 64-bit compliant on
440 HP-UX 11.00 and up for both cc- and gcc builds. If you are about to
441 build a 64-bit perl with GNU gcc, please read the gcc section carefully.
443 Should a user wish to experiment with compiling Perl in the LP64
444 environment, use the -Duse64bitall flag to Configure. This will force
445 Perl to be compiled in a pure LP64 environment (with the +DD64 flag for
446 HP C-ANSI-C, with no additional options for GNU gcc 64-bit on PA-RISC,
447 and with -mlp64 for GNU gcc on Itanium).
448 If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have to get a version of
449 the compiler that supports 64-bit operations.)
451 You can also use the -Duse64bitint flag to Configure. Although there
452 are some minor differences between compiling Perl with this flag versus
453 the -Duse64bitall flag, they should not be noticeable from a Perl user's
456 In both cases, it is strongly recommended that you use these flags when
457 you run Configure. If you do not use do this, but later answer the
458 questions about 64-bit numbers when Configure asks you, you may get a
459 configuration that cannot be compiled, or that does not function as
462 =head2 Oracle on HP-UX
464 Using perl to connect to Oracle databases through DBI and DBD::Oracle
465 has caused a lot of people many headaches. Read README.hpux in the
466 DBD::Oracle for much more information. The reason to mention it here
467 is that Oracle requires a perl built with libcl and libpthread, the
468 latter even when perl is build without threads. Building perl using
469 all defaults, but still enabling to build DBD::Oracle later on can be
472 Configure -A prepend:libswanted='cl pthread ' ...
474 Do not forget the space before the trailing quote.
476 Also note that this does not (yet) work with all configurations,
477 it is known to fail with 64-bit versions of GCC.
479 =head2 GDBM and Threads on HP-UX
481 If you attempt to compile Perl with threads on an 11.X system and also
482 link in the GDBM library, then Perl will immediately core dump when it
483 starts up. The only workaround at this point is to relink the GDBM
484 library under 11.X, then relink it into Perl.
486 =head2 NFS filesystems and utime(2) on HP-UX
488 If you are compiling Perl on a remotely-mounted NFS filesystem, the test
489 io/fs.t may fail on test #18. This appears to be a bug in HP-UX and no
490 fix is currently available.
492 =head2 perl -P and // and HP-UX
494 If HP-UX Perl is compiled with flags that will cause problems if the
495 -P flag of Perl (preprocess Perl code with the C preprocessor before
496 perl sees it) is used. The problem is that C<//>, being a C++-style
497 until-end-of-line comment, will disappear along with the remainder
498 of the line. This means that common Perl constructs like
502 will turn into illegal code
506 The workaround is to use some other quoting separator than C<"/">,
507 like for example C<"!">:
511 =head2 HP-UX Kernel Parameters (maxdsiz) for Compiling Perl
513 By default, HP-UX comes configured with a maximum data segment size of
514 64MB. This is too small to correctly compile Perl with the maximum
515 optimization levels. You can increase the size of the maxdsiz kernel
516 parameter through the use of SAM.
518 When using the GUI version of SAM, click on the Kernel Configuration
519 icon, then the Configurable Parameters icon. Scroll down and select
520 the maxdsiz line. From the Actions menu, select the Modify Configurable
521 Parameter item. Insert the new formula into the Formula/Value box.
522 Then follow the instructions to rebuild your kernel and reboot your
525 In general, a value of 256MB (or "256*1024*1024") is sufficient for
526 Perl to compile at maximum optimization.
528 =head1 nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
530 You may get a bus error core dump from the op/pwent or op/grent
531 tests. If compiled with -g you will see a stack trace much like
534 #0 0xc004216c in () from /usr/lib/libc.2
535 #1 0xc00d7550 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
536 #2 0xc00d7768 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
537 #3 0xc00d78a8 in nss_delete () from /usr/lib/libc.2
538 #4 0xc01126d8 in endpwent () from /usr/lib/libc.2
539 #5 0xd1950 in Perl_pp_epwent () from ./perl
540 #6 0x94d3c in Perl_runops_standard () from ./perl
541 #7 0x23728 in S_run_body () from ./perl
542 #8 0x23428 in perl_run () from ./perl
543 #9 0x2005c in main () from ./perl
545 The key here is the C<nss_delete> call. One workaround for this
546 bug seems to be to create add to the file F</etc/nsswitch.conf>
547 (at least) the following lines
552 Whether you are using NIS does not matter. Amazingly enough,
553 the same bug also affects Solaris.
557 Jeff Okamoto <okamoto@corp.hp.com>
558 H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
560 With much assistance regarding shared libraries from Marc Sabatella.
564 Version 0.7.0: 2004-06-09