gcc for AIX are widely available.
At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers,
-for which you have to pay: B<xlc> and B<VAC>. If you decide to use either
+for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either
of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to
upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently:
- xlC.C 3.1.4.0
- vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.0
+ xlC.C 3.1.4.10 or 3.6.6.0 or 4.0.2.2 or 5.0.2.9 or 6.0.0.3
+ vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.6 or 6.0.0.1
+
+note that xlC has the OS version in the name as of version 4.0.2.0, so
+you will find xlC.C for AIX-5.0 as package
+
+ xlC.aix50.rte 5.0.2.0 or 6.0.0.3
+
+subversions are not the same `latest' on all OS versions. For example,
+the latest xlC-5 on aix41 is 5.0.2.9, while on aix43, it is 5.0.2.7.
Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc.
The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no
Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the
level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will
-show the base, but is not always complete:
+show the base, but is not always complete (in this example oslevel shows
+4.3.NULL, whereas the system might run most of 4.3.THREE):
# oslevel
4.3.0.0
# lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte '
- bos.rte 4.3.2.1 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
- bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
+ bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
+ bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime
#
-=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
+The same might happen to AIX 5.1 or other OS levels. As a side note, perl
+cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls and bos.adt.libm installed
+
+ # lslpp -l | egrep "syscalls|libm"
+ bos.adt.libm 5.1.0.25 COMMITTED Base Application Development
+ bos.adt.syscalls 5.1.0.36 COMMITTED System Calls Application
+ #
-AIX supports dynamically loadable libraries (shared libraries).
-Shared libraries end with the suffix .a, which is a bit misleading,
-because *all* libraries are shared ;-).
+=head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX
-Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX
-4.3 or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface
-instead of the emulated interface that was used in Perl releases 5.6.1
-and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and earlier. This change will
-probably break backward compatibility with compiled modules.
-The change was made to make Perl more compliant with other applications
-like modperl which are using the AIX native interface.
+AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries.
+Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit
+misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members.
+For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on
+many other platforms.
+
+Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3
+or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so
+called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was
+used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and
+earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled
+modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl
+more compliant with other applications like Apache/mod_perl which are
+using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++
+code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which
+was not possible using the emulated interface.
=head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler
All defaults for Configure can be used.
If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions
-will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0.
+will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0,
+but vac 5.0.2.6 or up is highly recommended. Note that since IBM has
+removed vac 5.0.2.1 through 5.0.2.5 from the software depot, these
+versions should be considered obsolete.
Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest
level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade
On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue:
- # lslpp -l | fgrep 'vac.C '
- vac.C 4.4.0.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
- vac.C 4.4.0.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
- # grep 'vac.C.4.4.0.*.bff' other.ll
- -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13466624 May 26 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.1.bff
- -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13473792 Aug 31 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.2.bff
- -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13480960 May 19 20:32 vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
- # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff
+ # lslpp -l | grep 'vac.C '
+ vac.C 5.0.2.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ vac.C 5.0.2.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler
+ # grep 'vac.C.5.0.2.*.bff' other.ll
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13592576 Apr 16 2001 vac.C.5.0.2.0.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14133248 Apr 9 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.3.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14173184 May 20 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.4.bff
+ -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 14192640 Nov 22 2002 vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
+ # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff
#
-Then execute the following command, and fill in its choices
+Likewise on all other OS levels. Then execute the following command, and
+fill in its choices
# smit install_update
-> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software
- * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff ]
+ * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.5.0.2.6.bff ]
[ OK ]
[ OK ]
Follow the messages ... and you're done.
+If you like a more web-like approach, a good start point can be
+http://www14.software.ibm.com/webapp/download/downloadaz.jsp and click
+"C for AIX", and follow the instructions.
+
=head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl
-We're working on this using gcc-3.0 ... (any input highly appreciated)
+Using gcc-3.x (tested with 3.0.4, 3.1, and 3.2) now works out of the box,
+as do recent gcc-2.9 builds available directly from IBM as part of their
+Linux compatibility packages, available here:
+
+ http://www.ibm.com/servers/aix/products/aixos/linux/
=head2 Using Large Files with Perl
H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl>
-Structure copied from README.hpux
-
=head1 DATE
-Version 0.0.3: 12 Jul 2001
+Version 0.0.6: 23 Dec 2002
=cut