1 Jarkko's How to build Configure tweaked by Nick and Merijn.
3 The Configure script and config_h.SH file in the Perl distribution are
4 generated by a program called metaconfig. Metaconfig was originally
5 written by Larry Wall, and was subsequently enhanced and maintained
8 You have presumably obtained the metaconfig from the repository e.g.
10 $ git clone git://perl5.git.perl.org/metaconfig.git metaconfig
12 or some other way to obtain this file, like a complete compressed archive
13 from the previous pumpkin.
15 Normally this directory and perl directory are next to each other
16 so ../perl will get you to perl and ../perl/../metaconfig will get you
19 Contents of this directory:
22 U: Metaconfig units used for buliding Perl's Configure
23 U.check: Sample directory used for testing new metaconfig units.
24 see U.check/README for more information.
26 dist-3.0 at patchlevel 70. This is the final version released
27 by Raphael Manfredi. Don't use it. Instead, use ...
29 dist-3.0 at patchlevel 70 with unofficial patches 'a' and 'b'
30 applied. This version was never officially released, but
31 the patches are essential, so this is the version we use for
32 perl. Actually, I've also applied U/dist_patches/dist-p70c
33 to this tree. If someone with commit power wants to change
34 the name of the directory, that'd be fine. Otherwise, it
35 really doesn't matter.
37 dist-3.5-20 is almost meta-4.0, still maintained by Raphael
38 Manfredi, but with a lot of fixes over 3.0, some changes
39 from the perl modifications merged and a much better metalint
41 a symlink to the lib you actually use. For Merijn that is
42 metaconfig/dist -> ../lib/dist
44 (a) You need to have dist installed so that you have metalint and metaconfig
46 The dist version used for perl is dist-3.5-20 in this directory, which is
47 a slightly modified version of the original, which you can get at the SVN
48 repository https://dist.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/dist/trunk
49 Unsurprisingly 'dist' uses (its) Configure to generate itself:
52 chmod -R +w . # We have derived files in git :-(
57 After make install, remove lib/U/d_debugging.U in your target lib, as perl
58 uses it's own way to set/define debugging (see INSTALL)
60 the dist-3.5-20 installation as used by Merijn is available on his CPAN as
63 dist's 'Configure' is similar to perl's but perhaps not quite as polished.
65 There are some perl specific "dist units" in the 'U' directory.
66 The U directory also contains some patches to 'dist' which have already
67 been applied to dist-3.5-20 directory.
68 We have not yet arranged for metaconfig to use perl's versions of the
69 'units' by default so you need some housekeeping in the perl directory...
71 (b) You need to be in a/the Perl directory, i.e. either something from
72 //depot/perl/... or one of its branches
73 (e.g. Nick I-S is usually in //depot/perlio/...)
75 1) have a symlink to ../metaconfig/U called U
76 2) have a symlink to ../metaconfig/.package called .package
77 3) have a symlink to MANIFEST called MANIFEST.new
78 4) chmod +w Configure config_h.SH Porting/Glossary Porting/config*
80 (c) Write the new unit as U/perl/d_bar.U ('perl' can also be 'modified',
81 'compline' or any other existing folder, except for 'all'). Choose
82 the best appropriate subdir of U. See U/README for a description of
83 the various subdirectories.)
85 (d) Run metalint to see nits: as opposed to lint, the gripings of
86 metalint are usually serious :-) and need fixing
88 Exceptions are lots of
89 Your private U/modified/voidflags.U overrides the public one.
90 due to the perl special units
92 an alias to something like
93 $ metalint |& grep -v -e '^ Your private U/'
94 will make the process silence up on that
98 "End.U": stale ?MAKE: dependency '$W'.
100 which is apparently normal ...
102 -- the next steps are in the perl folder
104 (e) chmod +w Configure config_h.SH
106 (f) metaconfig -m to regenerate Configure
108 (g) metaconfig does not deal with depends in config_h.SH, so some
109 reorganization is needed.
111 perl Porting/config_h.SH
113 will fix the ordering
115 (h) The messy not-yet-automated part is that the knowledge of the new symbol
116 needs to be propagated to non-Configure lands like Win32, WinCE, Netware,
117 VMS, VOS, EPOC, ... see previous Configure changes to see which are these
118 heathen lands. Files to take care of are
119 {win32,wince,NetWare}/config_[hH]*, (Win32, WinCE, NetWare),
120 configure.com (VMS), VOS/config* (since 5.9 VOS uses Configure, though),
121 epoc/config.sh (EPOC). Depending on the kind of patch djgpp/config*
122 might also need adjusting (for example when adding/changing the list
125 For Win32 the process is semi-automated - if you have a Win32
126 machine to run dmake on ...
128 (i) Edit U/mkglossary (right near the top) to point to where you keep
129 dist's standard metaconfig units as well as your perl-specific ones.
131 (j) Run U/mksample to freshen the Porting/config* and Porting/Glossary.
132 Adjust the various compile-time options (e.g. 64bit, threads) as
134 You can skip this phase, it's not essential, just good housekeeping.
136 (k) make veryclean; sh Configure -des -Dusedevel; make all test
138 -- the next steps are in the metaconfig folder again
140 (l) git add U/perl/foo/bar.U when you are ready ...
142 (m) git commit -m "Your commit description"
144 (n) When all patches are applied, tested and committed, and you are happy,
147 Merijn prefers to do steps (l) through (n) in git-gui