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.
9 p4 sync //depot/metaconfig/...
10 (those are three literal dots) or some other way to obtain this file,
11 like a complete compressed archive from the previous pumpkin.
13 Normally this directory and perl directory are next to each other
14 so ../perl will get you to perl and ../perl/../metaconfig will get you
17 Contents of this directory:
20 U: Metaconfig units used for buliding Perl's Configure
21 U.check: Sample directory used for testing new metaconfig units.
22 see U.check/README for more information.
24 dist-3.0 at patchlevel 70. This is the final version released
25 by Raphael Manfredi. Don't use it. Instead, use ...
27 dist-3.0 at patchlevel 70 with unofficial patches 'a' and 'b'
28 applied. This version was never officially released, but
29 the patches are essential, so this is the version we use for
30 perl. Actually, I've also applied U/dist_patches/dist-p70c
31 to this tree. If someone with perforce access wants to change
32 the name of the directory, that'd be fine. Otherwise, it really
35 dist-3.5-20 is almost meta-4.0, still maintained by Raphael
36 Manfredi, but with a lot of fixes over 3.0, some changes
37 from the perl modifications merged and a much better metalint
39 a symlink to the lib you actually use. For Merijn that is
40 metaconfig/dist -> ../lib/dist
42 (a) You need to have dist installed so that you have metalint and metaconfig
44 The dist version used for perl is dist-3.5-20 in this directory, which is
45 a slightly modified version of the original, which you can get at the SVN
46 repository https://dist.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/dist/trunk
47 Unsurprisingly 'dist' uses (its) Configure to generate itself:
50 chmod -R +w . # We have derived files in perforce :-(
55 After make install, remove lib/U/d_debugging.U in your target lib, as perl
56 uses it's own way to set/define debugging (see INSTALL)
58 the dist-3.5-20 installation as used by Merijn is available on his CPAN as
61 dist's 'Configure' is similar to perl's but perhaps not quite as polished.
63 There are some perl specific "dist units" in the 'U' directory.
64 The U directory also contains some patches to 'dist' which have already
65 been applied to dist-3.5-20 directory.
66 We have not yet arranged for metaconfig to use perl's versions of the
67 'units' by default so you need some housekeeping in the perl directory...
69 (b) You need to be in a/the Perl directory, i.e. either something from
70 //depot/perl/... or one of its branches
71 (e.g. Nick I-S is usually in //depot/perlio/...)
73 1) have a symlink to ../metaconfig/U called U
74 2) have a symlink to ../metaconfig/.package called .package
75 3) have a symlink to MANIFEST called MANIFEST.new
76 4) chmod +w Configure config_h.SH Porting/Glossary Porting/config*
78 (c) Write the new unit as U/foo/bar.U (usually 'foo' is just 'perl',
79 but sometimes there's some more appropriate subdir of U. See
80 U/README for a description of the various subdirectories.)
82 (d) Run metalint to see nits: as opposed to lint, the gripings of
83 metalint are usually serious :-) and need fixing
85 Exceptions are lots of
86 Your private U/modified/voidflags.U overrides the public one.
87 due to the perl special units
89 an alias to something like
90 $ metalint |& grep -v -e '^ Your private U/'
91 will make the process silence up on that
95 "End.U": stale ?MAKE: dependency '$W'.
97 which is apparently normal ...
99 (e) p4 edit Configure config_h.SH
101 (f) metaconfig -m to regenerate Configure
103 (g) metaconfig does not deal with depends in config_h.SH, so some
104 reorganization is needed.
106 perl Porting/config_h.SH
108 will fix the ordering
110 (h) The messy not-yet-automated part is that the knowledge of the new symbol
111 needs to be propagated to non-Configure lands like Win32, WinCE, Netware,
112 VMS, VOS, EPOC, ... see previous Configure changes to see which are these
113 heathen lands. Files to take care of are
114 {win32,wince,NetWare}/config_[hH]*, (Win32, WinCE, NetWare),
115 configure.com (VMS), VOS/config* (since 5.9 VOS uses Configure, though),
116 epoc/config.sh (EPOC). Depending on the kind of patch djgpp/config*
117 might also need adjusting (for example when adding/changing the list
120 For Win32 the process is semi-automated - if you have a Win32
121 machine to run dmake on ...
123 (i) Edit U/mkglossary (right near the top) to point to where you keep
124 dist's standard metaconfig units as well as your perl-specific ones.
126 (j) Run U/mksample to freshen the Porting/config* and Porting/Glossary.
127 Adjust the various compile-time options (e.g. 64bit, threads) as
129 You can skip this phase, it's not essential, just good housekeeping.
131 (k) make veryclean;sh Configure -des -Dusedevel;make all test
133 (l) p4 add ../metaconfig/foo/bar.U when you are ready ...
136 IF your $EDITOR and/or $VISUAL start a background edit session
137 ('elvis -fork' or 'gvim'), be sure to set $P4EDITOR to an
138 editor call that is waited for.