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 Application release September 2001, HP-UX 11.00 is the first to ship
18 with Perl. By the time it was perl-5.6.1 in /opt/perl. The first
19 occurrence is on CD 5012-7954 and 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 were 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 was 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 More recent (preinstalled) HP-UX systems have more recent versions of
42 Perl and the updated modules.
44 =head2 Using perl from HP's porting centre
46 HP porting centre tries very hard to keep up with customer demand and
47 release updates from the Open Source community. Having precompiled
48 Perl binaries available is obvious.
50 The HP porting centres are limited in what systems they are allowed
51 to port to and they usually choose the two most recent OS versions
52 available. This means that at the moment of writing, there are only
53 HP-UX 11.11 (pa-risc 2.0) and HP-UX 11.23 (Itanium 2) ports available
54 on the porting centres.
56 HP has asked the porting centre to move Open Source binaries
57 from /opt to /usr/local, so binaries produced since the start
58 of July 2002 are located in /usr/local.
60 One of HP porting centres URL's is http://hpux.connect.org.uk/
61 The port currently available is built with GNU gcc.
63 =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on HP-UX
65 When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. The C compiler
66 that ships with all HP-UX systems is a K&R compiler that should only be
67 used to build new kernels.
69 Perl can be compiled with either HP's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. The
70 former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
71 difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that
72 require the use of HP compiler-specific command-line flags.
74 If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and
75 complete, and be sure to read the Perl INSTALL file for more gcc-specific
80 HP's current Unix systems run on its own Precision Architecture
81 (PA-RISC) chip. HP-UX used to run on the Motorola MC68000 family of
82 chips, but any machine with this chip in it is quite obsolete and this
83 document will not attempt to address issues for compiling Perl on the
86 The most recent version of PA-RISC at the time of this document's last
87 update is 2.0. HP PA-RISC systems are usually refered to with model
88 description "HP 9000".
90 A complete list of models at the time the OS was built is in the file
91 /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models. The first column corresponds to the last
92 part of the output of the "model" command. The second column is the
93 PA-RISC version and the third column is the exact chip type used.
94 (Start browsing at the bottom to prevent confusion ;-)
98 # grep L1000-44 /usr/sam/lib/mo/sched.models
101 =head2 Portability Between PA-RISC Versions
103 An executable compiled on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform will not execute on a
104 PA-RISC 1.1 platform, even if they are running the same version of
105 HP-UX. If you are building Perl on a PA-RISC 2.0 platform and want that
106 Perl to also run on a PA-RISC 1.1, the compiler flags +DAportable and
107 +DS32 should be used.
109 It is no longer possible to compile PA-RISC 1.0 executables on either
110 the PA-RISC 1.1 or 2.0 platforms. The command-line flags are accepted,
111 but the resulting executable will not run when transferred to a PA-RISC
116 The original version of PA-RISC, HP no longer sells any system with this chip.
118 The following systems contained PA-RISC 1.0 chips:
120 600, 635, 645, 808, 815, 822, 825, 832, 834, 835, 840, 842, 845, 850,
121 852, 855, 860, 865, 870, 890
125 An upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it shipped for many years in many different
128 The following systems contain with PA-RISC 1.1 chips:
130 705, 710, 712, 715, 720, 722, 725, 728, 730, 735, 742, 743, 744, 745,
131 747, 750, 755, 770, 777, 778, 779, 800, 801, 803, 806, 807, 809, 811,
132 813, 816, 817, 819, 821, 826, 827, 829, 831, 837, 839, 841, 847, 849,
133 851, 856, 857, 859, 867, 869, 877, 887, 891, 892, 897, A180, A180C,
134 B115, B120, B132L, B132L+, B160L, B180L, C100, C110, C115, C120,
135 C160L, D200, D210, D220, D230, D250, D260, D310, D320, D330, D350,
136 D360, D410, DX0, DX5, DXO, E25, E35, E45, E55, F10, F20, F30, G30,
137 G40, G50, G60, G70, H20, H30, H40, H50, H60, H70, I30, I40, I50, I60,
138 I70, J200, J210, J210XC, K100, K200, K210, K220, K230, K400, K410,
139 K420, S700i, S715, S744, S760, T500, T520
143 The most recent upgrade to the PA-RISC design, it added support for
146 As of the date of this document's last update, the following systems
147 contain PA-RISC 2.0 chips:
149 700, 780, 781, 782, 783, 785, 802, 804, 810, 820, 861, 871, 879, 889,
150 893, 895, 896, 898, 899, A400, A500, B1000, B2000, C130, C140, C160,
151 C180, C180+, C180-XP, C200+, C400+, C3000, C360, C3600, CB260, D270,
152 D280, D370, D380, D390, D650, J220, J2240, J280, J282, J400, J410,
153 J5000, J5500XM, J5600, J7000, J7600, K250, K260, K260-EG, K270, K360,
154 K370, K380, K450, K460, K460-EG, K460-XP, K470, K570, K580, L1000,
155 L2000, L3000, N4000, R380, R390, SD16000, SD32000, SD64000, T540,
156 T600, V2000, V2200, V2250, V2500, V2600
158 Just before HP took over Compaq, some systems were renamed. the link
159 that contained the explanation is dead, so here's a short summary:
161 HP 9000 A-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp2400 series.
162 HP 9000 L-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp5400 series.
163 HP 9000 N-Class servers, now renamed HP Server rp7400.
165 rp2400, rp2405, rp2430, rp2450, rp2470, rp3410, rp3440, rp4410,
166 rp4440, rp5400, rp5405, rp5430, rp5450, rp5470, rp7400, rp7405,
167 rp7410, rp7420, rp8400, rp8420, Superdome
169 The current naming convention is:
172 ||||`+- 00 - 99 relative capacity & newness (upgrades, etc.)
173 |||`--- unique number for each architecture to ensure different
174 ||| systems do not have the same numbering across
176 ||`---- 1 - 9 identifies family and/or relative positioning
178 |`----- c = ia32 (cisc)
180 | x = ia-64 (Itanium & Itanium 2)
188 =head2 Itanium Processor Family and HP-UX
190 HP-UX also runs on the new Itanium processor. This requires the use
191 of a different version of HP-UX (currently 11.23 or 11i v2), and with
192 the exception of a few differences detailed below and in later sections,
193 Perl should compile with no problems.
195 Although PA-RISC binaries can run on Itanium systems, you should not
196 attempt to use a PA-RISC version of Perl on an Itanium system. This is
197 because shared libraries created on an Itanium system cannot be loaded
198 while running a PA-RISC executable.
200 HP Itanium 2 systems are usually refered to with model description
203 =head2 Itanium & Itanium 2
205 HP also ships servers with the 128-bit Itanium processor(s). As of the
206 date of this document's last update, the following systems contain
207 Itanium or Itanium 2 chips (this is very likely to be out of date):
209 rx1600, rx1620, rx2600, rx2600hptc, rx2620, rx4610, rx4640, rx5670,
210 rx7620, rx8620, rx9610
212 To see all about your machine, type
215 ia64 hp server rx2600
216 # /usr/contrib/bin/machinfo
218 =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on HP-UX
220 HP-UX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared libraries).
221 Shared libraries end with the suffix .sl. On Itanium systems,
222 they end with the suffix .so.
224 Shared libraries created on a platform using a particular PA-RISC
225 version are not usable on platforms using an earlier PA-RISC version by
226 default. However, this backwards compatibility may be enabled using the
227 same +DAportable compiler flag (with the same PA-RISC 1.0 caveat
230 Shared libraries created on an Itanium platform cannot be loaded on
231 a PA-RISC platform. Shared libraries created on a PA-RISC platform
232 can only be loaded on an Itanium platform if it is a PA-RISC executable
233 that is attempting to load the PA-RISC library. A PA-RISC shared
234 library cannot be loaded into an Itanium executable nor vice-versa.
236 To create a shared library, the following steps must be performed:
238 1. Compile source modules with +z or +Z flag to create a .o module
239 which contains Position-Independent Code (PIC). The linker will
240 tell you in the next step if +Z was needed.
241 (For gcc, the appropriate flag is -fpic or -fPIC.)
243 2. Link the shared library using the -b flag. If the code calls
244 any functions in other system libraries (e.g., libm), it must
245 be included on this line.
247 (Note that these steps are usually handled automatically by the extension's
250 If these dependent libraries are not listed at shared library creation
251 time, you will get fatal "Unresolved symbol" errors at run time when the
254 You may create a shared library that refers to another library, which
255 may be either an archive library or a shared library. If this second
256 library is a shared library, this is called a "dependent library". The
257 dependent library's name is recorded in the main shared library, but it
258 is not linked into the shared library. Instead, it is loaded when the
259 main shared library is loaded. This can cause problems if you build an
260 extension on one system and move it to another system where the
261 libraries may not be located in the same place as on the first system.
263 If the referred library is an archive library, then it is treated as a
264 simple collection of .o modules (all of which must contain PIC). These
265 modules are then linked into the shared library.
267 Note that it is okay to create a library which contains a dependent
268 library that is already linked into perl.
270 Some extensions, like DB_File and Compress::Zlib use/require prebuilt
271 libraries for the perl extensions/modules to work. If these libraries
272 are built using the default configuration, it might happen that you
273 run into an error like "invalid loader fixup" during load phase.
274 HP is aware of this problem. Search the HP-UX cxx-dev forums for
275 discussions about the subject. The short answer is that B<everything>
276 (all libraries, everything) must be compiled with C<+z> or C<+Z> to be
277 PIC (position independent code). (For gcc, that would be
278 C<-fpic> or C<-fPIC>). In HP-UX 11.00 or newer the linker
279 error message should tell the name of the offending object file.
281 A more general approach is to intervene manually, as with an example for
282 the DB_File module, which requires SleepyCat's libdb.sl:
284 # cd .../db-3.2.9/build_unix
286 ... add +Z to all cflags to create shared objects
287 CFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
288 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
289 CXXFLAGS= -c $(CPPFLAGS) +Z -Ae +O2 +Onolimit \
290 -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include/X11R6
297 # ld -b -o libdb-3.2.sl *.o
298 # mv libdb-3.2.sl /usr/local/lib
302 # ln -s libdb-3.2.sl libdb.sl
304 # cd .../DB_File-1.76
311 As of db-4.2.x it is no longer needed to do this by hand. Sleepycat
312 has changed the configuration process to add +z on HP-UX automatically.
314 # cd .../db-4.2.25/build_unix
315 # env CFLAGS=+DA2.0w LDFLAGS=+DA2.0w ../dist/configure
317 should work to generate 64bit shared libraries for HP-UX 11.00 and 11i.
319 It is no longer possible to link PA-RISC 1.0 shared libraries (even
320 though the command-line flags are still present).
322 PA-RISC and Itanium object files are not interchangeable. Although
323 you may be able to use ar to create an archive library of PA-RISC
324 object files on an Itanium system, you cannot link against it using
325 an Itanium link editor.
327 =head2 The HP ANSI C Compiler
329 When using this compiler to build Perl, you should make sure that the
330 flag -Aa is added to the cpprun and cppstdin variables in the config.sh
331 file (though see the section on 64-bit perl below). If you are using a
332 recent version of the Perl distribution, these flags are set automatically.
334 =head2 The GNU C Compiler
336 When you are going to use the GNU C compiler (gcc), and you don't have
337 gcc yet, you can either build it yourself from the sources (available
338 from e.g. http://www.gnu.ai.mit.edu/software/gcc/releases.html) or fetch
339 a prebuilt binary from the HP porting center. There are two places where
340 gcc prebuilds can be fetched; the first and best (for HP-UX 11 only) is
341 http://h21007.www2.hp.com/dspp/tech/tech_TechSoftwareDetailPage_IDX/1,1703,547,00.html
342 the second is http://hpux.cs.utah.edu/hppd/hpux/Gnu/ where you can also
343 find the GNU binutils package. (Browse through the list, because there
344 are often multiple versions of the same package available).
346 Above mentioned distributions are depots. H.Merijn Brand has made prebuilt
347 gcc binaries available on http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/ and/or
348 http://www.cmve.net/~merijn/ for HP-UX 10.20, HP-UX 11.00, and HP-UX 11.11
349 (HP-UX 11i) in both 32- and 64-bit versions. These are bzipped tar archives
350 that also include recent GNU binutils and GNU gdb. Read the instructions
351 on that page to rebuild gcc using itself.
353 On PA-RISC you need a different compiler for 32-bit applications and for
354 64-bit applications. On PA-RISC, 32-bit objects and 64-bit objects do
355 not mix. period. There is no different behaviour for HP C-ANSI-C or GNU
356 gcc. So if you require your perl binary to use 64-bit libraries, like
357 Oracle-64bit, you MUST build a 64-bit perl.
359 Building a 64-bit capable gcc on PA-RISC from source is possible only when
360 you have the HP C-ANSI C compiler or an already working 64-bit binary of
361 gcc available. Best performance for perl is achieved with HP's native
364 =head2 Using Large Files with Perl on HP-UX
366 Beginning with HP-UX version 10.20, files larger than 2GB (2^31 bytes)
367 may be created and manipulated. Three separate methods of doing this
368 are available. Of these methods, the best method for Perl is to compile
369 using the -Duselargefiles flag to Configure. This causes Perl to be
370 compiled using structures and functions in which these are 64 bits wide,
371 rather than 32 bits wide. (Note that this will only work with HP's ANSI
372 C compiler. If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have to get
373 a version of the compiler that supports 64-bit operations. See above for
376 There are some drawbacks to this approach. One is that any extension
377 which calls any file-manipulating C function will need to be recompiled
378 (just follow the usual "perl Makefile.PL; make; make test; make install"
381 The list of functions that will need to recompiled is:
382 creat, fgetpos, fopen,
383 freopen, fsetpos, fstat,
384 fstatvfs, fstatvfsdev, ftruncate,
387 open, prealloc, stat,
388 statvfs, statvfsdev, tmpfile,
389 truncate, getrlimit, setrlimit
391 Another drawback is only valid for Perl versions before 5.6.0. This
392 drawback is that the seek and tell functions (both the builtin version
393 and POSIX module version) will not perform correctly.
395 It is strongly recommended that you use this flag when you run
396 Configure. If you do not do this, but later answer the question about
397 large files when Configure asks you, you may get a configuration that
398 cannot be compiled, or that does not function as expected.
400 =head2 Threaded Perl on HP-UX
402 It is possible to compile a version of threaded Perl on any version of
403 HP-UX before 10.30, but it is strongly suggested that you be running on
404 HP-UX 11.00 at least.
406 To compile Perl with threads, add -Dusethreads to the arguments of
407 Configure. Verify that the -D_POSIX_C_SOURCE=199506L compiler flag is
408 automatically added to the list of flags. Also make sure that -lpthread
409 is listed before -lc in the list of libraries to link Perl with. The
410 hints provided for HP-UX during Configure will try very hard to get
413 HP-UX versions before 10.30 require a separate installation of a POSIX
414 threads library package. Two examples are the HP DCE package, available
415 on "HP-UX Hardware Extensions 3.0, Install and Core OS, Release 10.20,
416 April 1999 (B3920-13941)" or the Freely available PTH package, available
417 on H.Merijn's site (http://mirrors.develooper.com/hpux/).
419 If you are going to use the HP DCE package, the library used for threading
420 is /usr/lib/libcma.sl, but there have been multiple updates of that
421 library over time. Perl will build with the first version, but it
422 will not pass the test suite. Older Oracle versions might be a compelling
423 reason not to update that library, otherwise please find a newer version
424 in one of the following patches: PHSS_19739, PHSS_20608, or PHSS_23672
428 d3:/usr/lib 106 > what libcma-*.1
430 HP DCE/9000 1.5 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
431 Date: Apr 29 1996 22:11:24
433 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_19739-40 Module: libcma.sl (Export)
434 Date: Sep 4 1999 01:59:07
436 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_20608 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
437 Date: Dec 8 1999 18:41:23
439 HP DCE/9000 1.5 PHSS_23672 Module: libcma.1 (Export)
440 Date: Apr 9 2001 10:01:06
443 For building perl to support Oracle, it needs to be linked with libcl
444 and libpthread. So even if your perl is an unthreaded build, these
445 libraries might be required. See "Oracle on HP-UX" below.
447 =head2 64-bit Perl on HP-UX
449 Beginning with HP-UX 11.00, programs compiled under HP-UX can take
450 advantage of the LP64 programming environment (LP64 means Longs and
451 Pointers are 64 bits wide).
453 Work is being performed on Perl to make it 64-bit compliant on all
454 versions of Unix. Once this is complete, scalar variables will be able
455 to hold numbers larger than 2^32 with complete precision.
457 As of the date of this document, Perl is fully 64-bit compliant on
458 HP-UX 11.00 and up for both cc- and gcc builds. If you are about to
459 build a 64-bit perl with GNU gcc, please read the gcc section carefully.
461 Should a user wish to experiment with compiling Perl in the LP64
462 environment, use the -Duse64bitall flag to Configure. This will force
463 Perl to be compiled in a pure LP64 environment (with the +DD64 flag for
464 HP C-ANSI-C, with no additional options for GNU gcc 64-bit on PA-RISC,
465 and with -mlp64 for GNU gcc on Itanium).
466 If you want to compile Perl using gcc, you will have to get a version of
467 the compiler that supports 64-bit operations.)
469 You can also use the -Duse64bitint flag to Configure. Although there
470 are some minor differences between compiling Perl with this flag versus
471 the -Duse64bitall flag, they should not be noticeable from a Perl user's
474 In both cases, it is strongly recommended that you use these flags when
475 you run Configure. If you do not use do this, but later answer the
476 questions about 64-bit numbers when Configure asks you, you may get a
477 configuration that cannot be compiled, or that does not function as
480 =head2 Oracle on HP-UX
482 Using perl to connect to Oracle databases through DBI and DBD::Oracle
483 has caused a lot of people many headaches. Read README.hpux in the
484 DBD::Oracle for much more information. The reason to mention it here
485 is that Oracle requires a perl built with libcl and libpthread, the
486 latter even when perl is build without threads. Building perl using
487 all defaults, but still enabling to build DBD::Oracle later on can be
490 Configure -A prepend:libswanted='cl pthread ' ...
492 Do not forget the space before the trailing quote.
494 Also note that this does not (yet) work with all configurations,
495 it is known to fail with 64-bit versions of GCC.
497 =head2 GDBM and Threads on HP-UX
499 If you attempt to compile Perl with threads on an 11.X system and also
500 link in the GDBM library, then Perl will immediately core dump when it
501 starts up. The only workaround at this point is to relink the GDBM
502 library under 11.X, then relink it into Perl.
504 =head2 NFS filesystems and utime(2) on HP-UX
506 If you are compiling Perl on a remotely-mounted NFS filesystem, the test
507 io/fs.t may fail on test #18. This appears to be a bug in HP-UX and no
508 fix is currently available.
510 =head2 perl -P and // and HP-UX
512 If HP-UX Perl is compiled with flags that will cause problems if the
513 -P flag of Perl (preprocess Perl code with the C preprocessor before
514 perl sees it) is used. The problem is that C<//>, being a C++-style
515 until-end-of-line comment, will disappear along with the remainder
516 of the line. This means that common Perl constructs like
520 will turn into illegal code
524 The workaround is to use some other quoting separator than C<"/">,
525 like for example C<"!">:
529 =head2 HP-UX Kernel Parameters (maxdsiz) for Compiling Perl
531 By default, HP-UX comes configured with a maximum data segment size of
532 64MB. This is too small to correctly compile Perl with the maximum
533 optimization levels. You can increase the size of the maxdsiz kernel
534 parameter through the use of SAM.
536 When using the GUI version of SAM, click on the Kernel Configuration
537 icon, then the Configurable Parameters icon. Scroll down and select
538 the maxdsiz line. From the Actions menu, select the Modify Configurable
539 Parameter item. Insert the new formula into the Formula/Value box.
540 Then follow the instructions to rebuild your kernel and reboot your
543 In general, a value of 256MB (or "256*1024*1024") is sufficient for
544 Perl to compile at maximum optimization.
546 =head1 nss_delete core dump from op/pwent or op/grent
548 You may get a bus error core dump from the op/pwent or op/grent
549 tests. If compiled with -g you will see a stack trace much like
552 #0 0xc004216c in () from /usr/lib/libc.2
553 #1 0xc00d7550 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
554 #2 0xc00d7768 in __nss_src_state_destr () from /usr/lib/libc.2
555 #3 0xc00d78a8 in nss_delete () from /usr/lib/libc.2
556 #4 0xc01126d8 in endpwent () from /usr/lib/libc.2
557 #5 0xd1950 in Perl_pp_epwent () from ./perl
558 #6 0x94d3c in Perl_runops_standard () from ./perl
559 #7 0x23728 in S_run_body () from ./perl
560 #8 0x23428 in perl_run () from ./perl
561 #9 0x2005c in main () from ./perl
563 The key here is the C<nss_delete> call. One workaround for this
564 bug seems to be to create add to the file F</etc/nsswitch.conf>
565 (at least) the following lines
570 Whether you are using NIS does not matter. Amazingly enough,
571 the same bug also affects Solaris.
575 Jeff Okamoto <okamoto@corp.hp.com>
576 H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@xs4all.nl>
578 With much assistance regarding shared libraries from Marc Sabatella.
582 Version 0.7.4: 2005-06-02