Each of these is explained in further detail below.
-B<NOTE>: starting from the release 5.6.0 Perl will use a version
+B<NOTE>: starting from the release 5.6.0, Perl will use a version
scheme where even-numbered subreleases (like 5.6) are stable
maintenance releases and odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7) are
unstable development releases. Development releases should not be
=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
5.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
-global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
-extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
+global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build rather old
+extensions that have not been updated for the current naming convention
with:
perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
-pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
+pod/perl56delta.pod contains more details about this.
-=head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
+=head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
+Perl prior to 5.8.0.
-Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
-a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
-
-However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
--Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
-the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
-circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
-built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
-those extensions to use them with 5.6.
+If you have built extensions (ie 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
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 (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
+pod/perldelta.pod (and the earlier pod/perl5Xdelta.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
=head1 Space Requirements
-The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 40 MB of disk space.
-After completing make, it takes up roughly 60 MB, though the actual
+The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 50 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 35 MB, though again that
+directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
value is system-dependent.
=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
-probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
+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.
Starting from Perl 5.6.1 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 ...
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.
+for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
+or you may experience odd test failures.
NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
-be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
+be sufficient to put everything where you want it. Do not include
+trailing slashes on directory names.
I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
-NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will use $sitelib and $sitearch,
-but will not use the other site-specific directories. Volunteers to
-fix this are needed.
-
=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
the /usr/local hierarchy.
-NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker does not use these directories.
-Volunteers to fix this are needed.
-
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
On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
-README.threads, and then try:
+ext/threads/threads.pm, and then try:
sh Configure -Dusethreads
By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
+(You need to use also the PerlIO layer, explained later, if you decide
+to use ithreads, to guarantee the good interworking of threads and I/O.)
+
However, you can select the old 5005threads behavior
sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
=head2 Large file support.
-Since Perl 5.6.0 Perl has supported large files (files larger than
+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.
This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
-seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad if you are interfacing Perl
-using some extension, also the components you are connecting to must
+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
=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
-Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
-stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allowed alternate IO
-mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
-the default and is the only supported mechanism.
+Executive summary: in Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
+as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
-Starting from Perl 5.8 the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
+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.
-This PerlIO abstraction can be disabled either on the Configure
-command line with
+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
sh Configure -Uuseperlio
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 else than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
+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),
=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
-NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
-asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
-run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
-can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
-running:
-
- sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
+NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
+run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
-or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
+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.
-Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
-Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
-not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
-these functions.
-
-If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
-names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
-have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
-by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
+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
You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
mechanism.
-=item Environment variable clashes
-
-Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
-ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
-unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
-be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
-
=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
=item Porting information
-Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
+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. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
with B<make depend; make>.
-=item CRIPPLED_CC
-
-If you still can't compile successfully, try:
-
- sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
-
-This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
-indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
-compiled right!)
-
=item Missing functions
If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
-UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
+UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
-configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
+configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
you will get a message telling what to do.
-If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
-
-Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
-
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
./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
-(For csh-like shells on UNIX, adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
+(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:
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 return quickly enough,
-these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again with
-the system under a lighter load. These tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
-F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, and F<lib/Benchmark.t>.
+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
the user ids in the distribution package are used as-is. Some tar
programs do this.
-(2) If the directory the test are being run in is writable by group
-or by other (remember: with UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to
+(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group
+or by others (remember: with UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to
a directory means the right to add/remove files in that directory),
and there is no sticky bit set in the directory. 'Sticky bit' is
a feature used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if
may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the permissions policy
used on this particular directory/project/system/site. 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 the
+(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
+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.
make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
-This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
-ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
-the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
+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 Installed files
=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
+Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
+In other words, you have to recompile your XS modules.
+
In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
5.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
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.
projects / p5sagit/p5-mst-13.2.git / blobdiff