=head1 SYNOPSIS
-The basic steps to build and install perl5 are:
+The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
rm -f config.sh
sh Configure
make
make test
make install
+ # possibly add these:
+ (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
+ cd pod; make html && mv *.html <www home dir> && cd ..
+ cd pod; make tex && <process the latex files> && cd ..
+
Each of these is explained in further detail below.
-=head1 BUILDING PERL5
+For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
+L<"Porting Information">, below.
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
+
+You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
+proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
+by B<NOTE>.
+
+This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
+structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
+read it as is with any pager or editor.
+
+If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
+the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
+provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
+
+=head1 Space Requirements.
+
+The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
+The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
+15 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
+system-dependent. The installation directories need something
+on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution.
+If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
+with the command
+
+ make realclean
+
The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
mv config.sh config.sh.old
-Then run Configure.
+If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
+version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
+the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
+includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
+name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
+Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
+probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
+Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
+numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
+
+Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
+call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
+precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
+
+In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
+Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
=head1 Run Configure.
By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading, if
your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
-statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or by
-using the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
+statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
+you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
+
+=head2 Extensions
+
+By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
+to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
+only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
+DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
+not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
+by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
+Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
+Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
+by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
+useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
+
+Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
+DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
+version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
+
+In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
+to turn off each extension:
+
+ DB_File i_db
+ DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
+ Fcntl (Always included by default)
+ GDBM_File i_gdbm
+ IO (Always included by default)
+ NDBM_File i_ndbm
+ ODBM_File i_dbm
+ POSIX useposix
+ SDBM_File (Always included by default)
+ Opcode useopcode
+ Socket d_socket
+
+Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
+
+ sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
+
+Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
+library.
+
+Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
+the Extensions you want.
+
+Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
+remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
+executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
+well build all the ones that will work on your system.
=head2 GNU-style configure
/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002
/usr/local/lib/perl5/
- /usr/local/lib/site_perl/archname
- /usr/local/lib/site_perl
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
and the following directories for manual pages:
In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.002 after
a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
stored in a version-specific directory, such as
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002/. In 5.000 and 5.001, these files
-were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will not be
-using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from the
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions can
-be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
+files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
+not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
+the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
+can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
Configure.
cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
+=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library.
+
+Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
+linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
+extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
+such as -lm.
+
+On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
+replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
+several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
+different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
+you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
+can share the same library.
+
+The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
+penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
+meachanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
+and upgrades.
+
+In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
+test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
+Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
+results.
+
+The default name for the shared library is typically something like
+libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
+libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
+based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
+version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
+isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
+
+For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
+for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
+
+You can elect to build a shared libperl by
+
+ sh Configure -Duseshrplib
+
+To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
+LD_LIBRARY_PATH environtment variable before running make. You can do
+this with
+
+ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
+
+for Bourne-style shells, or
+
+ setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
+
+for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
+Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
+LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
+
+There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
+want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
+with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
+install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
+try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
+the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
+ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
+libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
+that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
+in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
+equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
+with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
+
+The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
+directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
+version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
+variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
+installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
+
+=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
+
+Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
+<stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
+mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
+the default and is the only supported mechanism.
+
+This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
+line with
+
+ sh Configure -Duseperlio
+
+or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
+
+If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
+(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
+tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
+everywhere.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item 1.
+
+AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
+cases, and is extensible by the use of "disipline" modules. Sfio
+currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
+Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
+extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
+configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
+
+This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
+A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
+it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
+
+You select this option by
+
+ sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
+
+If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
+that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
+Configure.
+
+=item 2.
+
+Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
+abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
+extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
+abstraction.
+
+This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
+
+You select this option via :
+
+ sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
+
+If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
+detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
+
+=back
+
=head2 What if it doesn't work?
=over 4
All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler &
-flags) you can type '&-d' at the next Configure prompt and Configure
+flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
will use the defaults from then on.
If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
extensive example.
+=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
+
+Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
+4.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
+standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
+will see a message:
+
+ *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
+ The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
+ Keep the recommended value? [y]
+
+You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
+relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
+overriding it.
+
+If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
+used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
+to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
+system.
+
+For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
+and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
+Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
+Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
+
+ *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
+ The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
+ Keep the previous value? [y]
+
+In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
+should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
+the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
+
=item Changing Compilers
If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
-=item Propagating your changes
+=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
+
+If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
+them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
+then have to rebuild by running
-If you later make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
-them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>.
+ make depend
+ make
=item config.over
You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
-does no checking that your changes make sense.
+does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
+L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
=item config.h
You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
mechanism.
+=item Porting information
+
+Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, and VMS ports are in the
+corresponing subdirectories. Additional information, including
+a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
+subdirectory.
+
+Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
+L<"http:/www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
+various other operating systems.
+
=back
+=head1 Binary Compatibility With Perl 5.003
+
+Perl 5.003 turned on the EMBED feature by default, which tries to
+avoid possible symbol name conflict by prefixing all global symbols
+with "Perl_". However, its list of global symbols was incomplete.
+This error has been rectified in Perl 5.004.
+
+However, some sites may need to maintain complete binary compatibility
+with Perl 5.003. If you are building Perl for such a site, then when
+B<Configure> asks if you want binary compatibility, answer "y".
+
=head1 make depend
This will look for all the includes.
F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
-F<makefile> first.
+F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
+a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
+if in doubt.)
Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
explicitly above.
This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
+If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
+the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
+send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
+perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
+Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
+that comes with the distribution.
+
+[The B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution is
+useful for sending in such reports, but you need to have
+perl compiled and installed before you can use it.]
=over 4
=item *
-If you can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC> flag.
-(Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
-This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that
-get indigestion easily. If that has no effect, try turning off
-optimization. If you have missing routines, you probably need to
-add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature that
-Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete.
+If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
+during the building of extensions, you should run
+
+ make minitest
+
+to test your version of miniperl.
+
+=item locale
+
+If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
+unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
+while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
+locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
+
+=item *
+
+If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
+
+=item varargs
+
+If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
+correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
+and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
+running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
+forget to propagate your changes (see
+L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
+See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
+
+=item *
+
+If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
+numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
+
+ util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
+ util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
+ proto.h:45: prototype declaration
+
+it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
+previous L<"varargs"> item.
+
+=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
+
+If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
+Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
+B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
+$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
+and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
+environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
+your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
+the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
+
+=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
+
+If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
+it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
+L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
+
+=item *
+
+If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
+the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
+fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
+of your local set-up.
+
+=item dlopen: stub interception failed
+
+The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
+that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
+which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
+
+The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
+actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
+failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
+"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
+functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
+
+=item *
+
+If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
+try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
+with
+
+ sh Configure -Uusenm
+
+or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
+If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
+config.sh.
+
+=item vsprintf
+
+If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
+problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
+version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
+(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
+d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
+
+ d_vprintf='define'
+
+If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
+on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
+re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
+
+=item *
+
+If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
+optimizier. Edit config.sh and change the line
+
+ optimize='-O'
+
+to something like
+
+ optimize=' '
+
+then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
+with B<make depend; make>.
+
+=item *
+
+If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
+flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
+This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
+indigestion easily.
+
+=item Missing functions
+
+If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
+other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
+there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
+likely suspects.
=item *
F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
specific rule.
-=item *
+=item Missing dbmclose
-If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
-during the building of extensions, you should run
+SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
+that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
- make minitest
+=item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
-to test your version of miniperl.
+If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
+the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
+then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
+Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
+systems; few systems will need all the possible libries listed.
+For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
+unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
+they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
+reassure you that the process is continuing.
+
+On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
+message
+
+ Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
+
+then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
+the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
+extension without the -lgdbm library.
+
+It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
+this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
+quite that tightly coordinated.
=item *
Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
-SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
-that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
-
-If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
-
-If you get duplicate function definitions (a perl function has the
-same name as another function on your system) try -DEMBED.
-
-If you get varags problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
-correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
-and i_varags='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved
-by running fixincludes correctly.
-
-If you wish to use dynamic loading on SunOS or Solaris, and you
-have GNU as and GNU ld installed, you may need to add B<-B/bin/> to
-your $ccflags and $ldflags so that the system's versions of as
-and ld are used.
-
-If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
-the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
-fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
-of your local set-up.
+db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55: Old versions of the DB library
+(including the DB library which comes with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken
+handling of recno databases with modified bval settings. Upgrade your
+DB library or OS.
=back
This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run it
-in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty. If B<make test>
-bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run B<TEST> by hand
-to see if it makes any difference.
-If individual tests bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
+in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
+
+If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
+B<TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
+bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
./perl op/groups.t
+You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
+comments that apply to your system.
+
+B<Note>: one possible reason for errors is that some external programs
+may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
+C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
+one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
+LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
+are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
+
+If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
+C<setenv LC_ALL C> (for C shell) or <LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL> (for
+Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
+test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
+is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
+shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
+things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
+C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
+external program.
+
=head1 INSTALLING PERL5
=head1 make install
are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
ignore any messages about chown not working.
+You may see some harmless error messages and warnings from pod2man.
+You may safely ignore them. (Yes, they should be fixed, but they
+didn't seem important enough to warrant holding up the entire release.)
+
If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
anything, you can run
s2p sed-to-perl translator
find2perl find-to-perl translator
h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
+ perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
- /usr/local/lib/site_perl/
- /usr/local/lib/site_perl/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
will be used for installing extensions.
-Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also
-installed under $archlib so that any user may later build new
-extensions even if the Perl source is no longer available.
-
-The libperl.a library is only needed for building new
-extensions and linking them statically into a new perl executable.
-If you will not be doing that, then you may safely delete
-$archlib/libperl.a after perl is installed.
-
-make install may also offer to install perl in a "standard" location.
+Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
+under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
+optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
+program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
Most of the documentation in the pod/ directory is also available
in HTML and LaTeX format. Type
to generate the LaTeX versions.
+=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
+
+Some of the perl library files need to be able to obtain information from
+the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
+header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
+by perl. These files will be placed in architectural library directory
+you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
+F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
+(such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
+building (for example, C<5.003>).
+
+B<NOTE:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion of
+the header files in not perfect. You may have to hand edit some of the
+converted files to get them to parse correctly. For example, it breaks
+spectacularly on type casting and certain structures.
+
=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.
-You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run
-scripts under the old binaries. Instead of starting your script with
-#!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.001
-(or whatever version you want to run.)
+You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
+under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
+starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
+#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
+If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
+need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
+since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
+in incompatible ways.
The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.002>) so that
-they are still accessible. I<Note:> perl5.000 and perl5.001 did not
+they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
files.
The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
-should be useable by all versions of perl5.
+should be usable by all versions of perl5.
-Most extensions will not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
+Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
-F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.002>. Then perl5.002 will find your
+F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.002>. Then Perl 5.002 will find your
files in the 5.002 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
newer extension in the site_perl directory.
+Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
+separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
+using a separate prefix for each version, such as
+
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.002
+
+and adding /opt/perl5.002/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
+may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
+scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
+
+B<NOTE>: Starting with Perl 5.002_01, all functions in the perl C source
+code are protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that
+you may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
+collisons. This breaks compatability with
+version 5.002, so once you install 5.002_01 (or higher) you will
+need to re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable
+extensions. (The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
+automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
+-DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
+
+In the future, we certainly hope that most extensions won't need to be
+recompiled for use with a newer version of perl.
+
=head1 Coexistence with perl4
You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
-(or whatever the appropriate pathname is).
+(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
+for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
=head1 DOCUMENTATION
can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
+Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
+along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
+and running (either):
+
+ ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
+ ./roffitall -psroff # Otherwise
+
+This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
+
+Note that you must have performed the installation already before
+running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
+generate the documentation.
+
=head1 AUTHOR
Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
from the original README by Larry Wall.
-18 October 1995
+=head1 LAST MODIFIED
+
+16 January 1997
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