2 This document is written in pod format hence there are punctuation
3 characters in odd places. Do not worry, you've apparently got
4 the ASCII->EBCDIC translation worked out correctly. You can read
5 more about pod in pod/perlpod.pod or the short summary in the
10 README.os390 - building and installing Perl for OS/390.
14 This document will help you Configure, build, test and install Perl
15 on OS/390 Unix System Services.
19 This is a fully ported Perl for OS/390 Version 2 Release 3, 5, 6, 7,
20 8, and 9. It may work on other versions or releases, but those are
21 the ones we've tested it on.
23 You may need to carry out some system configuration tasks before
24 running the Configure script for Perl.
28 Gunzip/gzip for OS/390 is discussed at:
30 http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/bpxqp1.html
32 to extract an ASCII tar archive on OS/390, try this:
34 pax -o to=IBM-1047,from=ISO8859-1 -r < latest.tar
36 =head2 Setup and utilities
38 Be sure that your yacc installation is in place including any necessary
39 parser template files. If you have not already done so then be sure to:
41 cp /samples/yyparse.c /etc
43 This may also be a good time to ensure that your /etc/protocol file
44 and either your /etc/resolv.conf or /etc/hosts files are in place.
45 The IBM document that described such USS system setup issues was
46 SC28-1890-07 "OS/390 UNIX System Services Planning", in particular
47 Chapter 6 on customizing the OE shell.
49 GNU make for OS/390, which is recommended for the build of perl (as well as
50 building CPAN modules and extensions), is available from:
52 http://www.mks.com/s390/gnu/index.htm
54 Some people have reported encountering "Out of memory!" errors while
55 trying to build Perl using GNU make binaries. If you encounter such
56 trouble then try to download the source code kit and build GNU make
57 from source to eliminate any such trouble. You might also find GNU make
58 (as well as Perl and Apache) in the red-piece/book "Open Source Software
59 for OS/390 UNIX", SG24-5944-00 from IBM.
61 If instead of the recommended GNU make you would like to use the system
62 supplied make program then be sure to install the default rules file
63 properly via the shell command:
65 cp /samples/startup.mk /etc
67 and be sure to also set the environment variable _C89_CCMODE=1 (exporting
68 _C89_CCMODE=1 is also a good idea for users of GNU make).
70 You might also want to have GNU groff for OS/390 installed before
71 running the `make install` step for Perl.
73 There is a syntax error in the /usr/include/sys/socket.h header file
74 that IBM supplies with USS V2R7, V2R8, and possibly V2R9. The problem with
75 the header file is that near the definition of the SO_REUSEPORT constant
76 there is a spurious extra '/' character outside of a comment like so:
78 #define SO_REUSEPORT 0x0200 /* allow local address & port
81 You could edit that header yourself to remove that last '/', or you might
82 note that Language Environment (LE) APAR PQ39997 describes the problem
83 and PTF's UQ46272 and UQ46271 are the (R8 at least) fixes and apply them.
84 If left unattended that syntax error will turn up as an inability for Perl
85 to build its "Socket" extension.
87 For successful testing you may need to turn on the sticky bit for your
88 world readable /tmp directory if you have not already done so (see man chmod).
92 Once you've unpacked the distribution, run "sh Configure" (see INSTALL
93 for a full discussion of the Configure options). There is a "hints" file
94 for os390 that specifies the correct values for most things. Some things
95 to watch out for include:
101 A message of the form:
103 (I see you are using the Korn shell. Some ksh's blow up on Configure,
104 mainly on older exotic systems. If yours does, try the Bourne shell instead.)
106 is nothing to worry about at all.
110 Some of the parser default template files in /samples are needed in /etc.
111 In particular be sure that you at least copy /samples/yyparse.c to /etc
112 before running Perl's Configure. This step ensures successful extraction
113 of EBCDIC versions of parser files such as perly.c, perly.h, and x2p/a2p.c.
114 This has to be done before running Configure the first time. If you failed
115 to do so then the easiest way to re-Configure Perl is to delete your
116 misconfigured build root and re-extract the source from the tar ball.
117 Then you must ensure that /etc/yyparse.c is properly in place before
118 attempting to re-run Configure.
122 This port will support dynamic loading, but it is not selected by
123 default. If you would like to experiment with dynamic loading then
124 be sure to specify -Dusedl in the arguments to the Configure script.
125 See the comments in hints/os390.sh for more information on dynamic loading.
126 If you build with dynamic loading then you will need to add the
127 $archlibexp/CORE directory to your LIBPATH environment variable in order
128 for perl to work. See the config.sh file for the value of $archlibexp.
129 If in trying to use Perl you see an error message similar to:
131 CEE3501S The module libperl.dll was not found.
132 From entry point __dllstaticinit at compile unit offset +00000194 at
134 then your LIBPATH does not have the location of libperl.x and either
135 libperl.dll or libperl.so in it. Add that directory to your LIBPATH and
140 Do not turn on the compiler optimization flag "-O". There is
141 a bug in either the optimizer or perl that causes perl to
142 not work correctly when the optimizer is on.
146 Some of the configuration files in /etc used by the
147 networking APIs are either missing or have the wrong
148 names. In particular, make sure that there's either
149 an /etc/resolv.conf or an /etc/hosts, so that
150 gethostbyname() works, and make sure that the file
151 /etc/proto has been renamed to /etc/protocol (NOT
152 /etc/protocols, as used by other Unix systems).
153 You may have to look for things like HOSTNAME and DOMAINORIGIN
154 in the "//'SYS1.TCPPARMS(TCPDATA)'" PDS member in order to
155 properly set up your /etc networking files.
159 =head2 Build, test, install
167 if everything looks ok (see the next section for test/IVP diagnosis) then:
171 this last step may or may not require UID=0 privileges depending
172 on how you answered the questions that Configure asked and whether
173 or not you have write access to the directories you specified.
175 =head2 build anomalies
177 "Out of memory!" messages during the build of Perl are most often fixed
178 by re building the GNU make utility for OS/390 from a source code kit.
180 Another memory limiting item to check is your MAXASSIZE parameter in your
181 'SYS1.PARMLIB(BPXPRMxx)' data set (note too that as of V2R8 address space
182 limits can be set on a per user ID basis in the USS segment of a RACF
183 profile). People have reported successful builds of Perl with MAXASSIZE
184 parameters as small as 503316480 (and it may be possible to build Perl
185 with a MAXASSIZE smaller than that).
187 Within USS your /etc/profile or $HOME/.profile may limit your ulimit
188 settings. Check that the following command returns reasonable values:
192 To conserve memory you should have your compiler modules loaded into the
193 Link Pack Area (LPA/ELPA) rather than in a link list or step lib.
195 If the c89 compiler complains of syntax errors during the build of the
196 Socket extension then be sure to fix the syntax error in the system
197 header /usr/include/sys/socket.h.
199 =head2 testing anomalies
201 The `make test` step runs a Perl Verification Procedure, usually before
202 installation. You might encounter STDERR messages even during a successful
203 run of `make test`. Here is a guide to some of the more commonly seen
210 A message of the form:
212 comp/cpp.............ERROR CBC3191 ./.301989890.c:1 The character $ is not a
213 valid C source character.
214 FSUM3065 The COMPILE step ended with return code 12.
215 FSUM3017 Could not compile .301989890.c. Correct the errors and try again.
218 indicates that the t/comp/cpp.t test of Perl's -P command line switch has
219 passed but that the particular invocation of c89 -E in the cpp script does
220 not suppress the C compiler check of source code validity.
224 A message of the form:
226 io/openpid...........CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
227 CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
228 CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
231 indicates that the t/io/openpid.t test of Perl has passed but done so
232 with extraneous messages on stderr from CEE.
236 A message of the form:
238 lib/ftmp-security....File::Temp::_gettemp: Parent directory (/tmp/) is not safe
239 (sticky bit not set when world writable?) at lib/ftmp-security.t line 100
240 File::Temp::_gettemp: Parent directory (/tmp/) is not safe (sticky bit not
241 set when world writable?) at lib/ftmp-security.t line 100
244 indicates a problem with the permissions on your /tmp directory within the HFS.
245 To correct that problem issue the command:
249 from an account with write access to the directory entry for /tmp.
255 Recent perl test suite is quite memory hunrgy. In addition to the comments
256 above on memory limitations it is also worth checking for _CEE_RUNOPTS
257 in your environment. Perl now has (in miniperlmain.c) a C #pragma
258 to set CEE run options, but the enviroment variable wins.
262 #pragma runopts(HEAP(2M,500K,ANYWHERE,KEEP,8K,4K) STACK(,,ANY,) ALL31(ON))
264 The important parts of that are the second argument (the increment) to HEAP,
265 and allowing the stack to be "Above the (16M) line". If the heap
266 increment is too small then when perl (for example loading unicode/Name.pl) trys
267 to create a "big" (400K+) string it cannot fit in a single segement
268 and you get "Out of Memory!" - even if there is still plenty of memory
271 A related issue is use with perl's malloc. Perl's malloc uses C<sbrk()>
272 to get memory, and C<sbrk()> is limited to the first allocation so in this
275 HEAP(8M,500K,ANYWHERE,KEEP,8K,4K)
277 is needed to get through the test suite.
282 =head2 installation anomalies
284 The installman script will try to run on OS/390. There will be fewer errors
285 if you have a roff utility installed. You can obtain GNU groff from the
286 Redbook SG24-5944-00 ftp site.
290 When using perl on OS/390 please keep in mind that the EBCDIC and ASCII
291 character sets are different. See perlebcdic.pod for more on such character
292 set issues. Perl builtin functions that may behave differently under
293 EBCDIC are also mentioned in the perlport.pod document.
295 Open Edition (UNIX System Services) from V2R8 onward does support
296 #!/path/to/perl script invocation. There is a PTF available from
297 IBM for V2R7 that will allow shell/kernel support for #!. USS
298 releases prior to V2R7 did not support the #! means of script invocation.
299 If you are running V2R6 or earlier then see:
301 head `whence perldoc`
303 for an example of how to use the "eval exec" trick to ask the shell to
304 have Perl run your scripts on those older releases of Unix System Services.
306 If you are having trouble with square brackets then consider switching your
307 rlogin or telnet client. Try to avoid older 3270 emulators and ISHELL for
308 working with Perl on USS.
310 =head2 Floating point anomalies
312 There appears to be a bug in the floating point implementation on S/390
313 systems such that calling int() on the product of a number and a small
314 magnitude number is not the same as calling int() on the quotient of
315 that number and a large magnitude number. For example, in the following
319 my $y = int($x * 1e-5) * 1e5; # '0'
320 my $z = int($x / 1e+5) * 1e5; # '100000'
321 print "\$y is $y and \$z is $z\n"; # $y is 0 and $z is 100000
323 Although one would expect the quantities $y and $z to be the same and equal
324 to 100000 they will differ and instead will be 0 and 100000 respectively.
326 The problem can be further examined in a roughly equivalent C program:
340 printf("y is %e and z is %e\n",y*1e5,z*1e5);
341 /* y is 0.000000e+00 and z is 1.000000e+05 (with c89) */
344 =head2 Modules and Extensions
346 Pure pure (that is non xs) modules may be installed via the usual:
353 If you built perl with dynamic loading capability then that would also
354 be the way to build xs based extensions. However, if you built perl with
355 the default static linking you can still build xs based extensions for OS/390
356 but you will need to follow the instructions in ExtUtils::MakeMaker for
357 building statically linked perl binaries. In the simplest configurations
358 building a static perl + xs extension boils down to:
365 make -f Makefile.aperl inst_perl MAP_TARGET=perl
367 In most cases people have reported better results with GNU make rather
368 than the system's /bin/make program, whether for plain modules or for
371 If the make process encounters trouble with either compilation or
372 linking then try setting the _C89_CCMODE to 1. Assuming sh is your
373 login shell then run:
377 If tcsh is your login shell then use the setenv command.
381 David Fiander and Peter Prymmer with thanks to Dennis Longnecker
382 and William Raffloer for valuable reports, LPAR and PTF feedback.
383 Thanks to Mike MacIsaac and Egon Terwedow for SG24-5944-00.
384 Thanks to Ignasi Roca for pointing out the floating point problems.
385 Thanks to John Goodyear for dynamic loading help.
389 L<INSTALL>, L<perlport>, L<perlebcdic>, L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>.
391 http://www.mks.com/s390/gnu/index.htm
393 http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg245944.html
395 http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/bpxa1ty1.html#opensrc
397 http://www.s390.ibm.com/products/oe/portbk/bpxacenv.html
399 http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl-mvs/
401 http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/ceea3030/
403 http://publibz.boulder.ibm.com:80/cgi-bin/bookmgr_OS390/BOOKS/CBCUG030/
407 The Perl Institute (http://www.perl.org/) maintains a perl-mvs
408 mailing list of interest to all folks building and/or
409 using perl on all EBCDIC platforms (not just OS/390).
410 To subscribe, send a message of:
414 to majordomo@perl.org. See also:
416 http://lists.perl.org/showlist.cgi?name=perl-mvs
418 There are web archives of the mailing list at:
420 http://www.xray.mpe.mpg.de/mailing-lists/perl-mvs/
421 http://archive.develooper.com/perl-mvs@perl.org/
425 This document was originally written by David Fiander for the 5.005
428 This document was podified for the 5.005_03 release of Perl 11 March 1999.
430 Updated 12 November 2000 for the 5.7.1 release of Perl.
432 Updated 15 January 2001 for the 5.7.1 release of Perl.
434 Updated 24 January 2001 to mention dynamic loading.
436 Updated 12 March 2001 to mention //'SYS1.TCPPARMS(TCPDATA)'.