+If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
+It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
+designed to be readable as is.
+
=head1 NAME
Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
+=head1 Reporting Problems
+
+Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
+to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
+information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
+more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
+carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
+on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
+you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
+message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
+get advice.
+
+The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
+completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
+C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
+C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
+run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
+directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
+
+If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
+B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
+an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
+
+If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
+(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
+description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
+- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
+
+Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
+reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
+written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
+the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
+not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
+
+Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
+config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
+necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
+session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
+messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
+appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
+attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
+read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
+subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
+
+If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
+report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
+http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
+
=head1 SYNOPSIS
-The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
+First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
+didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
+http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
+subreleases (like 5.6.x and 5.8.x) are stable maintenance releases and
+odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
+development releases. Development releases should not be used in
+production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
+tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
+worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
+
+The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
+the defaults are:
+
+ rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
+ sh Configure -de
+ make
+ make test
+ make install
- rm -f config.sh
+Each of these is explained in further detail below.
+
+The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
+platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
+If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively and use
+
+ rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
sh Configure
make
make test
make install
-Each of these is explained in further detail below.
+ # You may also wish to add these:
+ (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
+ (installhtml --help)
+ (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
-For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
-L<"Porting Information">, below.
+or you can use some of the Configure options described below.
-=head1 DESCRIPTION
+If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
+L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
-You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
-proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
-by B<NOTE>.
+For information on what's new in this release, see the
+pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
+changes, see the Changes file.
+
+=head1 DESCRIPTION
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.
+read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
+by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
+
+ B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
+ C<code> literal code
+ L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
+ F<file> A filename
-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.
+Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
+you should probably at least skim through this document before
+proceeding.
-=head1 Space Requirements.
+In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
+your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
+instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
+system (in the hints/ directory) you should also read that hint file
+for even more information. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or
+the svr5.sh hint file.)
-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.
+For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
+L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
+directory.
-=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution.
+=head1 PRELIMINARIES
+
+=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
+
+Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
+potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
+the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
+to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
+
+=head3 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
+Perl prior to 5.9.0.
+
+If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
+using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
+those extensions.
+
+Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
+without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
+L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
+L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
+
+The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
+
+On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
+in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
+pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
+installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
+list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
+way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
+
+=head2 Space Requirements
+
+The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 60 MB of disk space.
+After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
+total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
+directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
+value is system-dependent. A perl build with debug symbols and
+-DDEBUGGING will require something on the order of 10 MB extra.
+
+=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
with the command
+ make distclean
+
+or
+
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
-experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
-re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
+The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
+your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
+
+The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
+files. 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 experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
+not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
+
+ rm -f config.sh
+
+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. 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. For example, some
+Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
+it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
+might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
+compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
+the architecture name.
+
+In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
+Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
- mv config.sh config.sh.old
+If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
+installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
+using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
+settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
+also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
-Then run Configure.
+ rm -f Policy.sh
-=head1 Run Configure.
+=head1 Run Configure
Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
-you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
-is almost always ok.
+you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
+almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
+since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
+the same function.
+
+At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
+defaults from then on.
After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
-F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
+*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
+
+=head2 Common Configure options
+
+Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
-Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
-to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
+ Configure -h
+
+to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
+Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item gcc
+
+To compile with gcc you should run
sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
-If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
-with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
-
-If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
-output, you can run
-
- sh Configure -des
+=item Installation prefix
By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
-/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
-the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
-using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
-e.g.
+/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
+and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
+further details.)
+
+You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
+directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
+line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
-If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
-are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
-then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/.
+If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
+directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
+prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
+/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
+for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
+or you may experience odd test failures.
-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
-you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
+NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
+as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
+attempt infinite recursion.
-=head2 Extensions
+=item /usr/bin/perl
-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, FileHandle 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.
+It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
+find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
+/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
+careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
+vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
+on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
+configured may be found with
-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.)
+ perl -V:config_args
-In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
-to turn off each extension:
+(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
+spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
+at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
- DB_File i_db
- DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
- Fcntl (Always included by default)
- FileHandle (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
+By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
+version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
-Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
+ Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
- sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
+or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
-Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
-library.
+In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
+(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
+into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
+obvious and convenient place.
-Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
-the Extensions you want.
+=item Building a development release.
-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.
+For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
+use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
+because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
+Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
+sanity check.
-=head2 GNU-style configure
+=back
-If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
-use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
+If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
+output, you can run
- CC=gcc ./configure
+ sh Configure -des
-The B<configure> script emulates several of the more common configure
-options. Try
+For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
- ./configure --help
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
-for a listing.
+=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
-Cross compiling is currently not supported.
+For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
+be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
+have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
+after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
+For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
+invocations:
-=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
+ sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
-Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
-dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
-Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
-automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
-are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
-how to obtain the libraries.
+For more help on Configure switches, run
-I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
-directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
-include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
-Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
-normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
-include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
-Configure. See the examples below.
+ sh Configure -h
-=head2 Examples
+=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
-=over 4
+There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
+system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
+Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
+some of the main things you can change.
-=item gdbm in /usr/local.
+=head3 Threads
-Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
-GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
-installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
-F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
-necessary steps out automatically.
+On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
+enable this, run
-Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
-your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads
-When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
-C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
+Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
+line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
-If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
-linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
-C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
+The default is to compile without thread support.
-Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
-defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
-messages, then you can just run
+Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
+model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since
+5.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one
+interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The 5.005
+version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and unmaintained.
- sh Configure -des
+By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
-and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
+However, if you insist, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
-This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
-(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
-=item gdbm in /usr/you
+The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
+'Thread' module offers an interface to either 5005threads or ithreads
+(whichever has been configured).
-Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
-but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
-have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
-still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
-an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
-Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
-F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
+When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
+the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
+This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
+fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
+PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
+way to do this is to run Configure with
+C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
-It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
-line):
+=head3 Large file support.
- sh Configure -des \
- -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
- -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
+Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
+2 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
+support is on by default.
-C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
-Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
+This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
+seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
+using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
+be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
+parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
+will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
+Apache extension mod_perl.
-C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
-Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
-you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
-F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
+There's also one known limitation with the current large files
+implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
+section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
+like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
- sh Configure -des \
- -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
- -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
+=head3 64 bit support.
-=back
+If your platform does not have run natively at 64 bits, but can
+simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
+you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
-=head2 Installation Directories.
+There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
+using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
+-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
+the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
-The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
-appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
-installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
+The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
+64-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
+longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
+your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
+does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
+might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
+you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
-By default, Configure uses the following directories for
-library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
-by Configure)
+The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
+integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
+create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
+resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
+have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
+aware.
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.002
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
+Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
+nor -Duse64bitall.
-and the following directories for manual pages:
+ NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
+ Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
+ LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
+ APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
- /usr/local/man/man1
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
+=head3 Long doubles
-(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
-/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
-instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
-they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
-and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
-systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
-page, rather than the B<less> program.
+In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
+range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
+(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
+this support (if it is available).
-If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
-directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure
-with -Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
-
- /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.002
- /opt/perl/lib
- /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
- /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
-
- /opt/perl/man/man1
- /opt/perl/man/man3
-
-The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
-above.
-
-The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
-intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
-will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
-just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
-
-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.
+=head3 "more bits"
-Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
-Configure.
+You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
+and the long double support.
-=head2 Changing the installation directory
+=head3 Selecting File IO mechanisms
-Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
-associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
-will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
-sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
-However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
-packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
-use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
-This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
-an option C<-Dinstallprefix=/foo> to simplify this.
-
-Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
-You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
-point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
-also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
-automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
-F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
-directory of your choice):
-
- installprefix=/tmp/perl5
- test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
- test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
- installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
- installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
-
-Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
-
- sh Configure -des
- make
- make test
- make install
+Executive summary: as of Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
+as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
-=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
+In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
+mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
+introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
+until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
+and the only supported mechanism.
+
+Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
+abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
+instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
+implementations.
-If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
-convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
-installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
+This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
+are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
+line with
- # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
- # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
- sh Configure -des
- make
- make test
- make install
- cd /tmp/perl5
- tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
- # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
- cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
- tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
+ sh Configure -Uuseperlio
-=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library.
+or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
+
+With the PerlIO abstraction layer, there is another possibility for
+the underlying IO calls, AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance
+to stdio.h in many cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline"
+modules ("Native" PerlIO has them too). 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.
+The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
+
+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.
+
+Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
+detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
+this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
+Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
+_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
+your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
+
+=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
+
+In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
+Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
+enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
+a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
+and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
+
+In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
+create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
+the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
+in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
+data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
+certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
+
+In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
+elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
+basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
+then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
+adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
+existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
+specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
+data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
+randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
+is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
+
+One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
+vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
+variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
+is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
+example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
+which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
+variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
+the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
+
+B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
+ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
+5. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
+be, affected by the insertion order. It is likely that Perl 5.10 and
+Perl 6 will randomise all hashes. Note that because of this
+randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
+between different runs of Perl since Data::Dumper by default dumps
+hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
+recommended.
+
+=head3 SOCKS
+
+Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
+TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
+access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
+Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
+
+=head3 Dynamic Loading
+
+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
+you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
+
+=head3 Building a shared Perl library
Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
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
+mechanism 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
results.
The default name for the shared library is typically something like
-libperl.so.3.2 (for perl5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
+libperl.so.6.2 (for Perl 5.6.2), or libperl.so.602, 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
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
+To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
+library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
+NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
+for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
+the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
+be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
+library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
+variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
+
+ grep ldlibpthname config.sh
+
+However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
+shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
+something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
+./perl:
+
+ cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
+or
+ ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
+
+then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
+You can do this with
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
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.
+for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
+unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
+again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
+
+You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
+messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
+for example:
+18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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 perl5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
-try to build perl5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
+install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
+try to build Perl 5.8.0 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
+libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? 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.
+with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
+LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
+Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
+_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
+
+In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
+with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
+previous build.
+
+A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
+architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
+You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
+point to your new architecture-dependent library.
+
+=head3 Environment access
+
+Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
+is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
+leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
+to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
+whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
+but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
+embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
+by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
+use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
+C<perl_construct()> call.
+
+=head2 Installation Directories
-=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
+The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
+appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
+installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
+Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
-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.
+I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
+everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
+process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
+the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
-This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
-line with
+ grep '^install' config.sh
- sh Configure -Duseperlio
+after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
-or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
+The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
+people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
+distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
+need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
+you can safely skip the next section.
-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.
+The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
=over 4
-=item 1.
+=item Directories for the perl distribution
+
+By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.9.0.
+$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
+5.9.0 or 5.9.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
+determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
+variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $prefixexp /usr/local
+ $binexp $prefixexp/bin
+ $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
+ $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
+ $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
+ $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
+ $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
+ $html1direxp (none)
+ $html3direxp (none)
+
+$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
+directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
+file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
+variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
+
+Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
+/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
+instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
+directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
+the common style is shown here.
+
+=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
+
+After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
+CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
+be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
+ $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
+ $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
+ $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
+ $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
+ $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
+ $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
+ $sitehtml1direxp (none)
+ $sitehtml3direxp (none)
+
+By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
+modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
+
+=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
+
+Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
+distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
+for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $vendorprefixexp (none)
+ (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
+ $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
+ $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
+ $vendorlibexp
+ $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
+ $vendorarchexp
+ $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
+ $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
+ $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
+ $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
+ $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
+
+These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
+a vendor might choose the following settings:
+
+ $prefix /usr
+ $siteprefix /usr/local
+ $vendorprefix /usr
+
+This would have the effect of setting the following:
+
+ $binexp /usr/bin
+ $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
+ $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
+ $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
+ $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
+ $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
+
+ $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
+ $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
+ $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
+ $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
+ $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
+ $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
+
+ $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
+ $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
+ $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
+ $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
+ $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
+ $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
+
+Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
+/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
+the /usr/local hierarchy.
+
+The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
+version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
+However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
+installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
+See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
+on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
+
+Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
+example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
+are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
+site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
+network. One way to do that would be something like
+
+ sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
+
+=item otherlibdirs
+
+As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
+variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
+directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
+Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
+version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
+
+For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
+installation, perhaps in a strange place:
-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.
+ Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
+
+=item APPLLIB_EXP
+
+There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
+that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
+separated list of directories, like this
+
+ sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
+
+The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
+ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
+modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
+touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
+version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
+present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
+directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
+run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
-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.
+=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
-You select this option by
+Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
+
+ sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
- sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
+Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
+When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
+anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
+entries to @INC.
-If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
-that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
+=item Man Pages
+
+In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
+pages in a version-specific directory, such as
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
+after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
+without resetting MANPATH.
+
+You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
+
+ sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.9.0/man/man3
+
+Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
+
+ sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
+
+Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
Configure.
-=item 2.
+=item HTML pages
+
+Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
+HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
+add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
+variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
+documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
+eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
+
+=back
+
+Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
+to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
+architectures.
+
+Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
+directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
+filesystem.
+
+Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
+development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
+discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
+
+If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
+library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
+suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
+
+Thus, for example, if you Configure with
+-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
+ $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
+ $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
+ $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
+
+=head2 Changing the installation directory
+
+Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
+associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
+will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
+sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
+However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
+packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
+wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
+management software to move perl to its final destination. This
+section describes how to do that.
+
+Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
+could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
+/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
+following command line:
+
+ sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
+
+(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
+
+Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
+modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
+follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
+that problem.
+
+=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
+
+If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
+to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
+multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
+archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
+using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
+automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
+simply do:
+
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
+ make
+ make test
+ make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
+ cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
+ tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
+
+=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
+
+After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
+answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
+person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
+system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
+to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
+hint file for your system.
+
+Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
+answers, you should
+
+ rm -f Policy.sh
+
+to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
+
+Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
+
+If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
+to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
+platform-specific hints files.
+
+=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
+
+Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
+installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
+and these will be used by the perl being built.
+See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
+
+To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
+modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
+
+ sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
+
+When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
+$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
+
+=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
+
+Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
+where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
+read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
+architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
+links) by
+
+ mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
+ cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
+ sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
+
+This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
+pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
+unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
+
+ make
+
+as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
+
+=head2 Building a debugging perl
+
+You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
+B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
+you probably want to do
+
+ sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
+
+This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
+to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
+executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
+cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
+your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
+variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
+internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
+if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
+old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
+ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
+L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
+
+You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
+it's convenient to have both.
+
+If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
+versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
+
+=head2 Extensions
+
+Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
+in the ext/ subdirectory.
+
+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.)
+Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
+is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
+set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
+
+If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
+running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
+extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
+it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
+has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
+extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
+convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
+you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
+dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
+
+If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
+is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
+
+You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
+documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
+ext/ subdirectory.
+
+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.
+
+To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
+-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
+a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
+C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
+the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
+extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
+certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
+examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
+these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
+
+Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
+the extensions you want.
+
+Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
+DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
+this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
+releases of version 2.
+
+If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
+adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
+for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
+you.
+
+Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern 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 Including locally-installed libraries
+
+Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
+dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
+Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
+automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
+are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
+how to obtain the libraries.
+
+If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
+searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
+appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
+your database libraries are not in a directory normally
+searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
+the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
+See the examples below.
+
+=head3 Examples
+
+=over 4
+
+=item gdbm in /usr/local
+
+Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
+GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
+installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
+/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
+necessary steps out automatically.
+
+Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
+your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
+
+When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
+-L/usr/local/lib.
+
+If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
+linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
+-L/usr/local/lib.
+
+Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
+you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
+/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
+
+=item gdbm in /usr/you
+
+Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
+but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
+have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
+still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
+an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
+Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
+/usr/you/lib to the list.
-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.
+It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
+line):
-This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
+ sh Configure -de \
+ -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
+ -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
-You select this option via :
+locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
+Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
- sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
+loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
+Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
+you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
+/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
-If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
-detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
+ sh Configure -de \
+ -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
+ -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
+
+A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
+compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
+following instructions.
+
+Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
+DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
+links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
+for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
+--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
+additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
+--prefix=/usr):
+
+ ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
+ ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
+ echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
+ echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
+ install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
+ install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
+
+Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
+for ODBM/NDBM):
+
+ ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
+ ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
+
+ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
+using DB 3.1.17:
+
+ lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
+ Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
+
+=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
+
+If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
+with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
+
+=head2 GNU-style configure
+
+If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
+use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
+
+ CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
+
+The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
+options. Try
+
+ ./configure.gnu --help
+
+for a listing.
+
+(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
+that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
+
+See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
+
+=head2 Malloc Issues
+
+Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
+so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
+the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
+version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
+perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
+than your system malloc.
+
+However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
+experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
+that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
+(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
+
+=over 4
+
+=item Using the system malloc
+
+To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
+
+ sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
+
+or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
+
+=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
+
+NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
+run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
+
+Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
+Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
+These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
+
+If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
+will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
+sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
+been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
+
+Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
+from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
+does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
+versions.
+
+=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
+
+This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
+Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
+using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
+
+ sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
+
+to enable this option.
=back
=head2 What if it doesn't work?
+If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
+If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
+
=over 4
=item Running Configure Interactively
guesses.
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 C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
+have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
+flags) you can type &-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
config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
-=item Hint files.
+=item Hint files
The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
will offer to use that hint file.
Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
-If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
-file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
-extensive example.
+If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
+for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
+More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
+file.
=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
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:
+Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and 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
+In this case, you do 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
-probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
+probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
with the options you want to use.
-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.
+This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
+gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
=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 make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
+them to all the .SH files by running
+
+ sh Configure -S
+
+You will then have to rebuild by running
make depend
make
-=item config.over
+=item config.over and config.arch
+
+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.
+This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
-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. See the section on
-L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
+There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
+config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
+architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
+hints file that creates the config.arch.
=item config.h
-Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
-F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
-The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
+Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
+Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
+The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
-If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
-though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
+If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
+though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
lost.
=item cflags
If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
-line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
-optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
-F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
-can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
-lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
+line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
+optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
+toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
+can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
+lost the next time you run Configure.
-To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
-and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
-and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
+To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
+see the file hints/README.hints.
-=item No sh.
+To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
+$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
-If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
-config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
+ sh Configure -S
+ make depend
+
+=item No sh
+
+If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
+Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
+system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
mechanism.
+=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
+
+In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
+
+Build a threading Perl? [n]
+Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
+
+This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
+(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
+"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
+to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
+being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
+'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
+(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
+
+=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
+
+If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
+that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
+HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
+fail
+
+Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
+Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
+sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
+
+and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
+libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
+
=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.
+Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
+corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
+including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
+subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
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
+http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
various other operating systems.
+If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
+section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
+in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
+Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
+
=back
+=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
+
+You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
+CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
+command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
+
+ Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
+
+or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
+then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
+The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
+This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
+extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
+extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
+
+Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
+modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
+or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
+do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
+
+Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
+dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
+For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
+library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
+headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
+process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
+
+=head2 suidperl
+
+suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
+nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
+
+ On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
+ in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
+ set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
+ a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
+ 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
+ component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
+ This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
+ features of the kernel.
+
+Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
+of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
+software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
+should be considered deprecated.
+Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
+privileges, such as B<sudo>, http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ .
+
=head1 make depend
-This will look for all the includes.
-The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
-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. (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.)
+This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
+The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
+the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
+makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads 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.
+=head2 Expected errors
+
+These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
+
+ ...
+ make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
+ ...
+ make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
+
+=head2 What if it doesn't work?
+
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.]
+the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
+then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
=over 4
-=item *
+=item hints
If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
for further tips and information.
-=item *
+=item extensions
-If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
-during the building of extensions, you should run
+If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
+during the building of extensions, run
- make minitest
+ make minitest
to test your version of miniperl.
-=item *
+=item locale
-If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, say -DHIDEMYMALLOC.
+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 and the
+whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
+The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
+
+ perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
+ perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
+ LC_ALL = "En_US",
+ LANG = (unset)
+ are supported and installed on your system.
+ perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
+
+at Perl startup.
=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).
+correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
+gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
+in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
+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 *
+=item util.c
If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
-numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
+numbers and function name may 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
+ util.c: In function `Perl_form':
+ util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
+ proto.h:125: 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 *
+=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
-the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. Perl should build
+the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
+Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it 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 *
+=item nm extraction
If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
sh Configure -Uusenm
or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
-If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
+If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
config.sh.
+=item umask not found
+
+If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
+is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
+Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
+this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
+try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
+
=item vsprintf
If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
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).
+on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
+the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
-=item *
+=item do_aspawn
+
+If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
+problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
+fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
+on L<"nm extraction">.
+
+=item __inet_* errors
+
+If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
+referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
+installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
+these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
+in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
+newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
+If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
+with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
+test process to avoid the problem.
+
+=item *_r() prototype NOT found
+
+On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
+reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
+but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
+other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
+header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
+another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
+Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
+header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
+normally /usr/include).
+
+=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
+
+This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
+gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
+changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
+rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
+update your gcc installation.
+
+=item Optimizer
If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
-optimizier. Edit config.sh and change the line
+optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
optimize='-O'
-to something like
+to
optimize=' '
then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
with B<make depend; make>.
-=item *
+=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
+
+If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
+undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
+should look something like
+
+ libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
+
+The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
+need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
+will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
+need to start all over again. Run
-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.
+ make distclean
-=item Missing functions
+and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
+what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
+Configure.
+
+If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
+L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
-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.
+If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, 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 used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
+look through through config.h for likely suspects.
-=item *
+=item toke.c
-Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
-some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
-internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
-F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
-F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
+Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
+toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
+allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
+each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
+makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
specific rule.
=item Missing dbmclose
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.
-=item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
+=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
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.
+systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries 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.
+they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
+reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
+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
+ Note (probably harmless): 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
this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
quite that tightly coordinated.
-=item *
+=item sh: ar: not found
+
+This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
+was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
+make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
+is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
+directory.
+
+=item 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.
+
+=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
+
+If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
+V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
+also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
+to include the System V semaphores.
+
+=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
+
+Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
+both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
+ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
+with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
+system.
+
+=item GNU binutils
+
+If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
+tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
+with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
+may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
+under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
+to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
+vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
+Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
+
+=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
+
+The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
+make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
+archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
+C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
+archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
+incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
+official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
+that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
+archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
+
+=item invalid token: ##
+
+You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
+need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
+file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
+options.
+
+=item Miscellaneous
Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
-UTS may need one or more of B<-DCRIPPLED_CC>, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
+UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
+
+FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
+configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
+you will get a message telling you what to do.
+
+HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
+Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
+tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
+break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
+(on local filesystems utime() still works).
+
+Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
+installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
+and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
+the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
+view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
+to avoid the BIND.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Cross-compilation
+
+Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
+rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
+June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
+the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
+while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
+platforms.
+
+What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
+cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
+up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
+(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
+awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
+version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
+cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
+
+See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
+the particular platforms:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item WinCE/PocketPC
+
+README.ce
+
+=item Open Zaurus
+
+Cross/README
+
+=item EPOC
+
+README.epoc
+
+=item Symbian
-If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
+README.symbian
-Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
+=item OS/400
+
+README.os400
=back
+Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
+modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
+cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
+platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
+L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
+of files required for a functional Perl installation.
+
+For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
+C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
+directory>.
+
+About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
+work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
+building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
+building the perl executable because that would require building
+extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
+extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
+cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
+
+The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
+at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
+both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
+cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
+target system.
+
+To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
+has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
+
+ sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
+
+This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
+symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
+
+During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
+into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
+cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
+target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
+transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
+the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
+methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
+F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
+
+To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
+the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
+happens), supply Configure with
+
+ -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
+
+The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
+must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
+You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
+
+ -Dtargetuser=luser
+
+but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
+
+Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
+which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
+This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
+In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
+environment:
+
+ -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
+ -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
+ -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
+ -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
+ -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
+
+If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
+compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
+C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
+(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
+as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
+will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
+in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
+
+In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
+choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
+for example:
+
+ -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
+
+Putting it all together:
+
+ sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
+ -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
+ -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
+ -Dtargetuser=root \
+ -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
+ -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
+ -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
+ -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
+ -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
+ -D...
+
+or if you are happy with the defaults:
+
+ sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
+ -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
+ -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
+ -D...
+
+Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
+F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
+
+ sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
+ -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
+ -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
+ -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
+ -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
+ -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
+
=head1 make test
-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.
+This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
+'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
+wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
+
+Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
+opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
+a few tty tests will be skipped.
+
+=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
-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
+If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./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.
+Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
+individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
+
+ ./perl harness
+
+(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
+complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
+need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
+PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
+right Perl library path:
+
+ setenv PERL_CORE 1
+ ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
+ ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
-B<Note>: one possible reason for errors is that some external programs
+(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
+You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
+comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
+shared library path if you get errors like:
+
+ /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
+
+See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
+
+=over 4
+
+=item locale
+
+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
+B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
+one or more of these environment variables set: 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
+
+ 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
+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: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
+open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
+external program.
+
+=item Timing problems
+
+Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
+sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
+If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
+these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
+with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
+and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
+F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
+F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
+
+=item Out of memory
+
+On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
+of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
+For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
+test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
+
+Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
+
+ cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
+
+to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
+test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
+tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
+and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
+
+=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
+
+First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
+real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
+
+Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
+directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
+systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
+run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
+test').
+
+The tests may fail for the following reasons:
+
+(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
+other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
+
+This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
+unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
+are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
+
+(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
+by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
+UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
+add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
+used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
+set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
+file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
+others.)
+
+This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
+permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
+also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
+is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
+should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
+supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
+used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
+11.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
+on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
+local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
+
+(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
+any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
+directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
+(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
+building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
+module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
+
+See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
+about the various security aspects of temporary files.
+
+=back
=head1 make install
This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
-B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
+Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
-page, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
-are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
-ignore any messages about chown not working.
+pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
+are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
+in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
+
+If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
+similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
+and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
+by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
+
+=head2 Installing perl under different names
+
+If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
+when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
+indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
+
+ make install PERLNAME=myperl
+
+You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
+"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
+
+ make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
-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.)
+This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
+avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
+Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
+
+=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
+
+You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
+the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
+
+ make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
+
+DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
+the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
+
+
+=head2 Installed files
If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
anything, you can run
./perl installperl -n
./perl installman -n
-B<make install> will install the following:
+make install will install the following:
+
+ binaries
perl,
perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
suidperl,
sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
a2p awk-to-perl translator
+
+ scripts
+
cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
read from stdin.
c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
s2p sed-to-perl translator
find2perl find-to-perl translator
+ h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
+ pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
- pod2latex, and to other useful formats.
- pod2man
-
- library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
+ pod2latex, to other useful formats.
+ pod2man,
+ pod2text,
+ pod2checker,
+ pod2select,
+ pod2usage
+ splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
+ dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
+
+ library files
+
+ in $privlib and $archlib specified to
Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
- man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
- something like /usr/local/man/man1.
- module in the location specified to Configure, usually
- man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
+
+ documentation
+
+ man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
+ module man
+ pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
-Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
-$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
- /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.
+Installperl will also create the directories listed above
+in L<"Installation Directories">.
-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
+Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
+under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, 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
+Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
+installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
+perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
+disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
+To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
- cd pod; make html; cd ..
+ Configure -Dversiononly
-to generate the html versions, and
+or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
+you can just manually run
- cd pod; make tex; cd ..
+ ./perl installperl -v
-to generate the LaTeX versions.
+and skip installman altogether.
+See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
+approach.
-=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
+=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
+
+Perl 5.9 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
+In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
+
+In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
+5.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
+all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
+around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
+For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
+with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
+top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
+#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
+
+Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
+with a newer version of Perl Here is how it is supposed to work.
+(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
+
+Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
+searched by 5.005_03 are
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+
+Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
+fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
+searched by version 5.6.0 will be
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
-Some of the perl library files need to be able to obtain information from
-the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
-header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
-by perl. These files will be placed in architectural library directory
-you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
-F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
-(such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
-building (for example, C<5.003>).
-
-B<NOTE:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion of
-the header files in not perfect. You may have to hand edit some of the
-converted files to get them to parse correctly. For example, it breaks
-spectacularly on type casting and certain structures.
-
-=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5.
-
-You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
-under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
-starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
-#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
-If you want to retain a version of perl5 prior to perl5.003, you'll
-need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
-since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
-in incompatible ways.
-
-The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
-directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.002>) so that
-they are still accessible. I<Note:> perl5.000 and perl5.001 did not
-put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
-directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$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 usable by all versions of perl5.
-
-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
-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
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
+
+Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
+of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
+directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
+to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
+suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
+present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
+but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
+
+The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
+5.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
+
+Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
+with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
+Configure defaults) will be:
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
+
+ /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
+
+Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
+modules from earlier versions will still be found.
+
+Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
+5.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
+extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
+of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
+newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
+compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
+installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
+5.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
+5.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
+install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
+5.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
+
+This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
+to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
+versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
+
+=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
+
+Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
+separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
+won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
+libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
+way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
+
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
+
+and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/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 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.
+Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
+(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
+each major version.
+
+If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
+seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
+subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
+yet.
+
+=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
-In the future, we certainly hope that most extensions won't need to be
-recompiled for use with a newer version of perl.
+B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
+and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
+(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
+used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
+5.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
+installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
+above.)
+
+See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
+incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
+perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
=head1 Coexistence with perl4
You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
-By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
-they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
+By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
+they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
-F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
+perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
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). See pod/perltrap.pod
-for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
+the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
+whatever the appropriate pathname is). See L<perltrap> for
+possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
+
+=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
+
+Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
+system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
+header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
+by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
+library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
+
+Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
+of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
+hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
+For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
+structures.
+
+=head1 installhtml --help
+
+Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
+format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
+documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
+
+Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
+html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
+
+The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
+perl documentation:
+
+ ./installhtml \
+ --podroot=. \
+ --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
+ --recurse \
+ --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
+ --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
+ --splithead=pod/perlipc \
+ --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
+ --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
+ --verbose
+
+See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
+many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
+see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
+resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
+(and would welcome patches for them).
+
+You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
+the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
+
+=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
+
+Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
+available in TeX format. Type
+
+ (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
+
+=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
+
+The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
+Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
+operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
+
+Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
+Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
+space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
+Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
+programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
+depends on what do you need to do.
+
+In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
+recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
+depends on what you need.
+
+Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
+
+ use strict;
+ use warnings;
+ foreach my $f (</*>) {
+ print("$f\n");
+ }
+
+in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
+
+ ./bin/perl
+ ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
+ ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
+ ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
+ ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
+ ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
+
+Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
+size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
+
+ /usr/bin/perl
+ /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
+ /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
+ /usr/share/doc/perl-base
+ /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
+ /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
+ /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
+ /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
+ /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
+ /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
+ /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
+
+A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
+need to run a Perl program is
+
+ perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
+
+(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
+it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
+use something like the below
+
+ strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
+
+(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
+and 'ktrace'.)
=head1 DOCUMENTATION
-Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
-in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
+Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
+is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
-can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
-is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
+can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied 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 table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
+running (either):
+
+ ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
+ ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
+
+This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
+(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
+set-up.)
+
+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.
+Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
+heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
+feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
+
+If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
+L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
-=head1 LAST MODIFIED
+=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
-8 October 1996
+This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
+the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
+If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
+a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
+and the contact information to match your distribution.