This document describes how to build Perl 5 on Power MachTen systems,
and discusses a few wrinkles in the implementation.
-=head2 Compiling Perl 5 on MachTen
-
-To compile perl under MachTen 4.1.4 (and probably earlier versions):
+=head2 Perl version 5.8.x and greater not supported
+
+B<Power MachTen is not supported by versions of Perl later than
+5.6.x.>
+If you wish to build a version from the 5.6 track, please
+obtain a source distribution from the archive at
+L<http://cpan.org/src/5.0/> and follow the instructions in its
+README.machten file.
+
+MachTen is no longer supported by its developers, Tenon Intersystems.
+A UNIX environment hosted on Mac OS Classic, MachTen has been
+superseded by Mac OS X and by BSD and Linux implementations for Macintosh
+hardware.
+The final version of Power MachTen, 4.1.4, lacks many features found in
+modern implementations of UNIX, and has a number of bugs.
+These shortcomings prevent recent versions of Perl from being able to use
+extensions on MachTen, and cause numerous test suite failures in the
+perl core.
+
+In September 2003, a discussion on the MachTen mailing list determined
+that there was no interest in making a later version of Perl build
+successfully on MachTen.
+Consequently, support for building Perl under MachTen has been suppressed
+in Perl distributions published after February 2004.
+The hints file, F<hints/machten.sh>, remains a part of the
+distributions for reference purposes.
+
+=head2 Compiling Perl 5.6.x on MachTen
+
+To compile perl 5.6.x under MachTen 4.1.4 (and probably earlier versions):
./Configure -de
make
For much more information on building perl -- for example, on how to
change the default installation directory -- see F<INSTALL>.
-=head2 Failures during C<make test>
+=head2 Failures during C<make test> on MachTen
=over 4
This test may fail when first run after building perl. It does not
fail subsequently. The cause is unknown.
-=item op/taint.t
-
-This test emits various complaints such as "Operation not permitted",
-but passes. The cause is an incomplete implementation of System V
-inter-process communication in MachTen 4.1.4. In versions prior to
-4.1.4, the implementation was so incomplete that the hints file
-disables its incorporation into perl; in 4.1.4, the facilities are
-useable with care.
-
=item pragma/warnings.t
Test 257 fails due to a failure to warn about attempts to read from a
=back
-=head2 Using external modules
-
-If warnings are enabled with Perl's C<-w> command-line flag, you are
-likely to see warnings when using external modules containing XS
-(compiled) code:
-
- Subroutine DynaLoader::dl_error redefined at /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/powerpc-machten/DynaLoader.pm line 93.
-
-This is a harmless consequence of the static linking used for MachTen
-perl. You can suppress the warnings by using the more modern
-C<-Mwarnings> instead of the traditional C<-w>. (See L<perllexwarn>.)
-
-=head2 Building external modules
+=head2 Building external modules on MachTen
To add an external module to perl, build in the normal way, which
is documented in L<ExtUtils::MakeMaker>, or which can be driven
automatically by the CPAN module (see L<CPAN>), which is part of the
-standard distribution. If wou want to install a
-module contains XS code (C or C++ source which compiles to object code
+standard distribution. If you want to install a module which
+contains XS code (C or C++ source which compiles to object code
for linking with perl), you will have to replace your perl binary with
a new version containing the new statically-linked object module. The
build process tells you how to do this.
=head1 DATE
-Version 1.0 2000-03-22
+Version 1.1.0 2004-02-13