X-Git-Url: http://git.shadowcat.co.uk/gitweb/gitweb.cgi?a=blobdiff_plain;f=INSTALL;h=f96102490260957d6823cdb447313d494cb93389;hb=154d43cbcf57271c884e15f24587b4e8d54edbdb;hp=156fdd90ed6a0dca40e8f24112f6452318284a60;hpb=4fdae80067c447c675a6ac92c7959d2206e207ba;p=p5sagit%2Fp5-mst-13.2.git
diff --git a/INSTALL b/INSTALL
index 156fdd9..f961024 100644
--- a/INSTALL
+++ b/INSTALL
@@ -4,64 +4,207 @@ Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
=head1 SYNOPSIS
- ****************************
- *** NEEDS WORK FOR 5.004 ***
- ****************************
+First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
+you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
+.
-The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
+The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
+with all the defaults are:
- rm -f config.sh
- sh Configure
+ rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
+ sh Configure -de
make
make test
make install
- # possibly add these:
- (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
- cd pod; make html && mv *.html && cd ..
- cd pod; make tex && && cd ..
+ # You may also wish to add these:
+ (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
+ (installhtml --help)
+ (cd pod && make tex && )
Each of these is explained in further detail below.
+B: 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
+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 above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
+on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
+
+ rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
+ sh Configure
+ make
+ make test
+ make install
+
For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
-L<"Porting Information">, below.
+L<"Porting information"> below.
-=head1 DESCRIPTION
+If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
+L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
-You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
-proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
-by B.
+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 embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
+ C literal code
+ L A link (cross reference) to name
+
+Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
+you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
+proceeding.
If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
-=head1 Space Requirements.
+If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
+should also read that hint file for specific information for your
+system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
+there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
+that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
-The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
-The complete tree after completing C takes roughly
-15 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
-system-dependent. The installation directories need something
-on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
+=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
-=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution.
+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
+with:
+
+ perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
+
+Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
+building perl itself with:
+
+ sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
+
+pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
+
+=head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
+
+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.
+
+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 to 5.6"> 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 (and pod/perl500Xdelta.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.
+
+=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
+
+Most C compilers are now ANSI-compliant. However, a few current
+computers are delivered with an older C compiler expressly for
+rebuilding the system kernel, or for some other historical reason.
+Alternatively, you may have an old machine which was shipped before
+ANSI compliance became widespread. Such compilers are not suitable
+for building Perl.
+
+If you find that your default C compiler is not ANSI-capable, but you
+know that an ANSI-capable compiler is installed on your system, you
+can tell F to use the correct compiler by means of the
+C<-Dcc=> command-line option -- see L<"gcc">.
+
+If do not have an ANSI-capable compiler there are several avenues open
+to you:
+
+=over 4
+
+=item *
+
+You may try obtaining GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide,
+listed at . If, rather than
+building gcc from source code, you locate a binary version configured
+for your platform, be sure that it is compiled for the version of the
+operating system that you are using.
+
+=item *
+
+You may purchase a commercial ANSI C compiler from your system
+supplier or elsewhere. (Or your organization may already have
+licensed such software -- ask your colleagues to find out how to
+access it.) If there is a README file for your system in the Perl
+distribution (for example, F), it may contain advice on
+suitable compilers.
+
+=item *
+
+Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
+sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
+you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
+in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
+available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
+unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
+run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
+the sources back to the platform without GCC.
+
+If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
+form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.org to let us know the steps you
+followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
+
+=back
+
+Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
+does not work with some C++ compilers.
+
+=head1 Space Requirements
+
+The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
+After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
+total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
+directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
+value is system-dependent.
+
+=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
with the command
+ make 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
-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
- mv config.sh config.sh.old
+ 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,
@@ -73,287 +216,526 @@ probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
-Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
-call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
-precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
+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.
-=head1 Run Configure.
+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
+
+ rm -f Policy.sh
+
+=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. 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.
+*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
+
+=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
+
+For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
+also has several convenient options which are all described below.
+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:
+
+ sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
-Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B
-to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
+For more help on Configure switches, run:
+
+ sh Configure -h
+
+=head2 Common Configure options
+
+Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B 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.
+=item Installation prefix
+
+By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
+/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 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.
+
+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.
+
+=item /usr/bin/perl
+
+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.
+
+By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
+the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
+
+ Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
+
+or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
+
+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.
+
+=item 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.
+=back
+
If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
output, you can run
sh Configure -des
-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.
-
- sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
+Note: for development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.7, as opposed
+to maintenance releases which have even subreleases, like 5.6)
+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.
-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
-/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
+For example for my Solaris system, I usually use
-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.
+ sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
=head2 GNU-style configure
-If you prefer the GNU-style B command line interface, you can
-use the supplied B command, e.g.
+If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
+use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
- CC=gcc ./configure
+ CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
-The B script emulates several of the more common configure
+The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
options. Try
- ./configure --help
+ ./configure.gnu --help
for a listing.
-Cross compiling is currently not supported.
+Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
-For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
-"configure", Perl includes a copy of B named
-B.
+(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
+that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
-=head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
+=head2 Installation Directories
-Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
-been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
-may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
-collisons. This change broke compatability with version 5.002, so
-installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you 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.
+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.
+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.
-Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, which has been
-rectified in Perl 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
-complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
-Perl for such a site, then when B asks if you want binary
-compatibility, answer "y".
+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.
-=head2 Extensions
+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.
-By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
-to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
-only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
-DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
-not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
-by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
-Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
-Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
-by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
-useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
+The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
-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.)
+=over 4
-In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
-to turn off each extension:
+=item Directories for the perl distribution
+
+By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
+$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
+5.6.0 or 5.6.1, 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
+ $prefix /usr/local
+ $bin $prefix/bin
+ $scriptdir $prefix/bin
+ $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
+ $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
+ $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
+ $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
+ $html1dir (none)
+ $html3dir (none)
+
+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
+ $siteprefix $prefix
+ $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
+ $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
+ $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
+ $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
+ $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
+ $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
+ $sitehtml1 (none)
+ $sitehtml3 (none)
+
+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
+distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
+for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
+
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $vendorprefix (none)
+ (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
+ $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
+ $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
+ $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
+ $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
+ $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
+ $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
+ $vendorhtml1 (none)
+ $vendorhtml3 (none)
+
+These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
+a vendor might choose the following settings:
+
+ $prefix /usr/bin
+ $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
+ $vendorprefix /usr/bin
+
+This would have the effect of setting the following:
+
+ $bin /usr/bin
+ $scriptdir /usr/bin
+ $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
+ $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
+ $man1dir /usr/man/man1
+ $man3dir /usr/man/man3
+
+ $sitebin /usr/local/bin
+ $sitescript /usr/local/bin
+ $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
+ $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
+ $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
+ $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
+
+ $vendorbin /usr/bin
+ $vendorscript /usr/bin
+ $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
+ $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
+ $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
+ $vendorman3 /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.
+
+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
+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 $otherlibdirs
+variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
+directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
+Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
+version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
+
+=item Man Pages
+
+In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
+pages in a version-specific directory, such as
+/usr/local/lib/perl5/$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/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
+
+Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
- DB_File i_db
- DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
- Fcntl (Always included by default)
- GDBM_File i_gdbm
- IO (Always included by default)
- NDBM_File i_ndbm
- ODBM_File i_dbm
- POSIX useposix
- SDBM_File (Always included by default)
- Opcode useopcode
- Socket d_socket
+ sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
-Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
+Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
+Configure.
- sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
+=item HTML pages
-Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
-library.
+As of perl5.005_57, 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.
-Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
-the Extensions you want.
+=back
-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.
+Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
+to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
+architectures.
-=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
+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.
-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 included with perl. See the library documentation for
-how to obtain the libraries.
+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.
-I 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.
+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.
-=head2 Examples
+Thus, for example, if you Configure with
+-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
-=over 4
+ Configure variable Default value
+ $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
+ $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
+ $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
+ $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
-=item gdbm in /usr/local.
+=head2 Changing the installation directory
-Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
-GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F
-installed in F and F installed in
-F. Configure should figure all the
-necessary steps out automatically.
+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.
-Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
-your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
+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:
-When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
-C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
+ sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
-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>.
+(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
-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
+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.
- sh Configure -des
+=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
-and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
+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.
+Here's one way to do that:
-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).
+ # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
+ # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
+ sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
+ make
+ make test
+ make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
+ cd /tmp/perl5
+ # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
+ # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
+ # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
+ # everywhere in those files.)
+ # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
+ # #!/wherever/perl line.
+ tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
+ # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
+ cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
+ tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
-=item gdbm in /usr/you
+=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
-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 and F. 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. Specifically, when
-Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
-F to the list.
+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.
-It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
-line):
+Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
+answers, you should
- sh Configure -des \
- -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
- -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
+ rm -f Policy.sh
-C is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
-Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
+to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
-C 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 and others under
-F, then you have to include both, namely
+Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
- sh Configure -des \
- -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
- -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
+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.
-=back
+Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
+new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
+set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
+interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
-=head2 Installation Directories.
+=head2 Configure-time Options
-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.
+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.
-By default, Configure uses the following directories for
-library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
-by Configure)
+=head2 Threads
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
+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:
-and the following directories for manual pages:
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads
- /usr/local/man/man1
- /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
+Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
+line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
-(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 would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
-page, rather than the B program.
+The default is to compile without thread support.
-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/5.004
- /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/perl5.004 after
-a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
-stored in a version-specific directory, such as
-/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
-files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
-not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
-the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
-can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
+As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
+The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
+(ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
+ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
+5005threads behavior instead by either
-Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
-Configure.
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
+
+or by
+ sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
+
+Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
+and these options may disappear as well.
+
+=head2 64 bit support.
+
+If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them with
+compiler flags and/or C or C, you can build a perl that
+uses 64 bits.
+
+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 C 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 Cs (it might,
+but it doesn't have to): the C means that you will be
+able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.
+
+The C goes all the way by attempting to switch also
+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.
+
+Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
+nor -Duse64bitall.
+
+ 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.
+
+=head2 Long doubles
+
+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).
+
+=head2 "more bits"
+
+You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
+and the long double support.
=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
-. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
+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.
@@ -373,16 +755,15 @@ everywhere.
=item 1.
-AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to in many
-cases, and is extensible by the use of "disipline" modules. Sfio
+AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
+cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
-A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
-it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
+The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
You select this option by
@@ -392,6 +773,13 @@ 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.
+
=item 2.
Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
@@ -401,7 +789,7 @@ abstraction.
This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
-You select this option via :
+You select this option via:
sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
@@ -410,46 +798,21 @@ detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
=back
-=head2 Changing the installation directory
+=head2 SOCKS
-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 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 directory.
-You can edit F and change all the install* variables to
-point to F instead of F. 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 B 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
+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/
+
+=head2 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.
-=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library.
+=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
@@ -465,7 +828,7 @@ can share the same library.
The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
-meachanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
+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
@@ -487,9 +850,25 @@ You can elect to build a shared libperl by
sh Configure -Duseshrplib
-To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
-LD_LIBRARY_PATH environtment variable before running make. You can do
-this with
+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, 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.
+
+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
@@ -497,9 +876,13 @@ for Bourne-style shells, or
setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
-for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
-Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
-LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
+for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
+unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
+
+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.
@@ -512,34 +895,247 @@ libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
-with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
+with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
+override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
+to point to the perl build directory.
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.
+version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
+variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
-=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
+=head2 Malloc Issues
-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:
+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.
- # 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
+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
+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
+
+or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+=back
+
+=head2 Building a debugging perl
+
+You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
+B. 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 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.
+
+=head2 Extensions
+
+By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
+to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
+only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
+B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs 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.
+
+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.)
+
+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.)
+
+In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
+to turn off each extension:
+
+ B (Always included by default)
+ DB_File i_db
+ DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
+ Fcntl (Always included by default)
+ GDBM_File i_gdbm
+ IO (Always included by default)
+ NDBM_File i_ndbm
+ ODBM_File i_dbm
+ POSIX useposix
+ SDBM_File (Always included by default)
+ Opcode useopcode
+ Socket d_socket
+ Threads use5005threads
+ attrs (Always included by default)
+
+Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
+
+ sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
+
+Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
+library.
+
+Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
+the extensions you want.
+
+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 Unix systems do)
+remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
+executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
+well build all the ones that will work on your system.
+
+=head2 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 library (.a) files 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.
+
+=head2 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.
+
+It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
+line):
+
+ sh Configure -de \
+ -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
+ -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
+
+locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
+Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
+
+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
+
+ sh Configure -de \
+ -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
+ -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
+
+=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"> below.
+
=over 4
=item Running Configure Interactively
@@ -549,24 +1145,25 @@ Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
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 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!!! ***
@@ -591,31 +1188,35 @@ system.
For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
-Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
+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 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 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 to
-B, 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, you should propagate
-them to all the .SH files by running B. 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
@@ -625,62 +1226,106 @@ then have to rebuild by running
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.
+does no checking that your changes make sense.
=item config.h
-Many of the system dependencies are contained in F.
-F builds F by running the F script.
-The values for the variables are taken from F.
+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 directly. Beware,
-though, that the next time you run B, 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. For instance, to turn off the
-optimizer on F, find the line in the switch structure for
-F and put the command C before the C<;;>. You
-can also edit F directly, but beware that your changes will be
-lost the next time you run B.
+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
-and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
-and then re-run B.
+To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
+see the file hints/README.hints.
+
+To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
+$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
+
+ sh Configure -S
+ make depend
-=item No sh.
+=item No sh
-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.
+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 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
+
+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, Plan9, 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.
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.perl.com/CPAN/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
=head1 make depend
-This will look for all the includes.
-The output is stored in F. The only difference between
-F and F is the dependencies at the bottom of
-F. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
-F, not F since the Unix B command reads
-F 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.
@@ -689,63 +1334,65 @@ explicitly above.
This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
+=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