This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Use simpler language.
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
f1300be0
YST
1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
8e07c86e
AD
5=head1 NAME
6
7df75831 7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
8e07c86e
AD
8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
ce80d64e
AD
12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
ce80d64e
AD
15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e
AD
25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
8e07c86e
AD
29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
cc65bb49
AD
31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
ff52061e
RGS
34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
ff52061e 39These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 40
8d74ce1c 41If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 42L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 43
7beaa944 44For information on what's new in this release, see the
655da5cf 45pod/perl5116delta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 46specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 47
1ec51d55 48=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 49
c3edaffb 50This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
51structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55
CS
52read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
53by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
54
55 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
56 C<code> literal code
57 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 58 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 59
c42e3e15 60Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 61you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 62proceeding.
c3edaffb 63
ce80d64e
AD
64In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
65your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
66instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
dd3196cd
RGS
67system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
68for even more information.
c42e3e15 69
ce80d64e
AD
70For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
71L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
72directory.
d56c5707 73
ce80d64e 74=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 75
ce80d64e 76=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 77
655da5cf 78Please see pod/perl5116delta.pod for a description of the changes and
ce80d64e
AD
79potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
80the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
655da5cf 81to pod/perl5116delta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 82
fdd3cf50 83B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 84If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b
DM
85using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
86those extensions.
1b1c1ae2
GS
87
88Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 89without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 90L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
693762b4
AD
91
92The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
93
ce80d64e
AD
94On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
95in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
655da5cf 96pod/perl5116delta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e
AD
97installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
98list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
99way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 100
aa689395 101=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e
AD
102
103Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
104things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268
JH
105you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
106almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
107since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
108the same function.
109
ce80d64e 110At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 111defaults from then on.
8e07c86e
AD
112
113After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 114*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 115
dd3196cd
RGS
116The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
117files.
118
ce80d64e 119=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 120
ce80d64e 121Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 122
ce80d64e 123 Configure -h
d6baa268 124
ce80d64e 125to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 126Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
127
d6baa268
JH
128=over 4
129
08854360 130=item C compiler
d6baa268 131
08854360
RGS
132To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
133system, you should run
8e07c86e
AD
134
135 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
136
08854360 137This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
8e07c86e
AD
138compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
139
d6baa268 140=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 141
8e07c86e 142By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 143/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 144and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
8d74ce1c
AD
145further details.)
146
147You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 148directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 149line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 150
25f94b33 151 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 152
d6baa268
JH
153If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
154directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
155prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
156/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec
JH
157for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
158or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 159
8d74ce1c
AD
160NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
161as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
162attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 163
d6baa268
JH
164=item /usr/bin/perl
165
166It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
167find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 168/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 169careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec
AD
170vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
171on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
172configured may be found with
173
174 perl -V:config_args
175
176(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e
AD
177spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
178at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 179
ce80d64e
AD
180By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
181version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 182
7d56c962 183 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 184
7d56c962 185or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 186
ce80d64e
AD
187In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
188(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a
MB
189into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
190obvious and convenient place.
191
71c4561b 192=item Building a development release
04d420f9 193
ce80d64e
AD
194For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
195use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
196because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
197Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
198sanity check.
d6baa268
JH
199
200=back
8e07c86e 201
203c3eec
AD
202If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
203output, you can run
204
205 sh Configure -des
206
dd3196cd 207=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 208
ce80d64e
AD
209For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
210be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
211have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
212after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
213For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
214invocations:
46bb10fb 215
08854360 216 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 217
5247441a 218To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
dd3196cd
RGS
219Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
220variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
221But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 222
ce80d64e 223For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 224
ce80d64e 225 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 226
ce80d64e 227=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 228
ce80d64e
AD
229There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
230system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
231Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
232some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 233
ce80d64e 234=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 235
ce80d64e
AD
236On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
237enable this, run
4633a7c4 238
ce80d64e 239 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 240
ce80d64e 241The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 242
47f9f84c
JH
243Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
244model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
245called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
246thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 247(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 248
ce80d64e 249The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
47f9f84c
JH
250'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
251ithreads model.
d6baa268 252
ce80d64e
AD
253When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
254the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
255This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
256fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
257PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
258way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 259C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 260
08854360 261=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 262
ce80d64e
AD
263Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2642 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
265support is on by default.
d6baa268 266
ce80d64e
AD
267This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
268seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
269using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
270be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
271parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 272will happen.
d6baa268 273
ce80d64e
AD
274There's also one known limitation with the current large files
275implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
276section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
277like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 278
71c4561b
RGS
279If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
280
281 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
282
08854360 283=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 284
08854360
RGS
285If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
286them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 287you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 288
ce80d64e
AD
289There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
290using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
291-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
292the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 293
ce80d64e
AD
294The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
29564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
296longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
297your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
298does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
299might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
300you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 301
ce80d64e
AD
302The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
303integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
304create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
305resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
306have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
307aware.
d6baa268 308
08854360 309Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
0e78eb44
MB
310On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
311is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
312Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
313options is planned for perl 5.12.
d6baa268 314
ce80d64e 315=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 316
ce80d64e
AD
317In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
318range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
319(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
320this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 321
ce80d64e 322=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 323
ce80d64e
AD
324You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
325and the long double support.
b367e8b0 326
ce80d64e 327=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1
JH
328
329In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
330Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 331enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1
JH
332a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
333and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
334
86358043
NC
335In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
336create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
337the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
338in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
339data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
340certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
341
342In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
343elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
344basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
345then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
346adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
347existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
348specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
349data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
350randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
351is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
352
353One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
354vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
355variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
356is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 357example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043
NC
358which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
359variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
360the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 361
3debabd9 362B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043
NC
363ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3645. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 365be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 366randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 367between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
86358043
NC
368hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
369recommended.
504f80c1 370
ce80d64e 371=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5
DH
372
373Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
374TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
375access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
71c4561b
RGS
376Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
377You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
378L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 379
ce80d64e 380=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 381
71c4561b
RGS
382By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
383If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
d6baa268
JH
384statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
385you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
7df75831
RGS
386With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
387(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 388
ce80d64e 389=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 390
391Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
392linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 393extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 394
08854360 395On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 396replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 397several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
398different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 399you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 400can share the same library.
401
402The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 403penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 404mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 405and upgrades.
406
407In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 408test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 409Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
410results.
411
412The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 413libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 414libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 415based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
416version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
417isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
418
c3edaffb 419You can elect to build a shared libperl by
420
ce80d64e
AD
421 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
422
423To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
424library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
425NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
426for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
427the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
428be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
429library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
430variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
431
432 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
433
434However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
435shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
436something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
437./perl:
438
08854360
RGS
439 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
440
ce80d64e 441or
08854360 442
ce80d64e
AD
443 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
444
445then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
446You can do this with
447
448 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
449
450for Bourne-style shells, or
451
452 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
453
454for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
455unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
456again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
457
458You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
459messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
460for example:
08854360
RGS
461
462 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
ce80d64e
AD
463
464There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
465want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
466with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
08854360
RGS
467install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
468try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
ce80d64e
AD
469the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
470ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
471libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
472that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
473in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
474equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
475with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
476LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
477Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
478_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
479
480In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
481with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
482previous build.
483
484A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
485architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
486You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
487point to your new architecture-dependent library.
488
575e1338
NC
489=head3 Environment access
490
491Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
492is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
493leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
494to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
495whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
496but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
497embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 498by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
575e1338
NC
499use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
500C<perl_construct()> call.
501
ce80d64e
AD
502=head2 Installation Directories
503
504The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
be8498a1
RGS
505appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
506questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
507slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
508you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
509from then on. Alternatively, you can
ce80d64e
AD
510
511 grep '^install' config.sh
512
513after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
514
515The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
516people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
517distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
518need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
519you can safely skip the next section.
520
521The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
522
523=over 4
524
525=item Directories for the perl distribution
526
84e09a8c 527By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.11.5.
ce80d64e 528$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
84e09a8c 5295.11.5 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
ce80d64e
AD
530determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
531variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
532
533 Configure variable Default value
534 $prefixexp /usr/local
535 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
536 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
537 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
538 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
539 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
540 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
541 $html1direxp (none)
542 $html3direxp (none)
543
544$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
545directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
546file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
547variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
548
549Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
550/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
551instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
552directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
553the common style is shown here.
554
555=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
556
557After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
558CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
559be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
560
561 Configure variable Default value
562 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
563 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
564 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
565 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
566 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
567 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
568 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
569 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
570 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
571
572By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
573modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
574
575=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
576
577Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
578distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
579for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
580
581 Configure variable Default value
582 $vendorprefixexp (none)
583 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
584 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
585 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
586 $vendorlibexp
587 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
588 $vendorarchexp
589 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
590 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
591 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
592 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
593 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
594
595These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
596a vendor might choose the following settings:
597
598 $prefix /usr
599 $siteprefix /usr/local
600 $vendorprefix /usr
601
602This would have the effect of setting the following:
603
604 $binexp /usr/bin
605 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
606 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
607 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
608 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
609 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
610
611 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
612 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
613 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
614 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
615 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
616 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
617
618 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
619 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
620 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
621 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
622 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
623 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
624
625Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
626/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
627the /usr/local hierarchy.
628
629The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
630version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
631However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
632installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 633See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
ce80d64e
AD
634on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
635
636Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
637example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
638are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
639site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
640network. One way to do that would be something like
641
642 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
643
644=item otherlibdirs
645
646As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
647variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
648directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
649Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
650version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
651
652For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
653installation, perhaps in a strange place:
654
655 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
656
657=item APPLLIB_EXP
658
659There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
660that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
661separated list of directories, like this
662
663 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
664
665The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
666ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
667modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
668touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
669version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
670present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
671directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
672run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
673
785aa5e3 674=item usesitecustomize
20ef40cf
GA
675
676Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
677
36de116d 678 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 679
785aa5e3
RGS
680which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
681When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
20ef40cf
GA
682anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
683entries to @INC.
684
ce80d64e
AD
685=item Man Pages
686
be8498a1
RGS
687By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
688are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
689want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
ce80d64e
AD
690
691 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
692
ce80d64e
AD
693=item HTML pages
694
695Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
696HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
697add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
698variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
699documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
700eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
701
702=back
703
704Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
705to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
706architectures.
707
708Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
709directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
710filesystem.
c3edaffb 711
ce80d64e
AD
712Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
713development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 714discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 715
ce80d64e
AD
716If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
717library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
718suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 719
ce80d64e
AD
720Thus, for example, if you Configure with
721-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 722
ce80d64e
AD
723 Configure variable Default value
724 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
725 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
726 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
727 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 728
ce80d64e 729=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 730
ce80d64e 731Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 732associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
ce80d64e
AD
733will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
734sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
7df75831
RGS
735However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
736dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
737wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
738to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
739
740=over 4
741
742=item installprefix
c3edaffb 743
be8498a1
RGS
744To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
745command line:
c3edaffb 746
7df75831 747 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 748
ce80d64e 749(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 750
ce80d64e
AD
751Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
752modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
7df75831
RGS
753follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
754as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 755
7df75831 756=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 757
ce80d64e
AD
758If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
759to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
760multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
761archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
762using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
763automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
764simply do:
830717a7 765
ce80d64e
AD
766 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
767 make
768 make test
769 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
770 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
771 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 772
7df75831
RGS
773=back
774
32878f30
NP
775=head2 Relocatable @INC
776
777To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
778
779 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
780
781Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
782optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
783
784That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
785path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
786can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
787"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
788install is done to the original configured prefix.
789
ce80d64e 790=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 791
ce80d64e 792After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
7df75831
RGS
793answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
794If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
795defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
796directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 797generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 798different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3
DD
799you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
800example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
801as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 802
ce80d64e
AD
803Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
804answers, you should
c3edaffb 805
ce80d64e 806 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 807
ce80d64e 808to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 809
ce80d64e 810Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 811
ce80d64e
AD
812If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
813to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
814platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 815
ce80d64e 816=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 817
ce80d64e 818Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
7df75831
RGS
819installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
820and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
821being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
822variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 823
ce80d64e
AD
824To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
825modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 826
ce80d64e 827 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 828
ce80d64e
AD
829When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
830$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 831
ce80d64e 832=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 833
ce80d64e
AD
834Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
835where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
836read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
837architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
838links) by
06c896bb 839
ce80d64e
AD
840 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
841 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
842 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 843
ce80d64e
AD
844This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
845pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
846unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 847
ce80d64e 848 make
7df75831
RGS
849 make test
850 make install
06c896bb 851
ce80d64e 852as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 853
3bf462b8
CS
854=head2 Building a debugging perl
855
856You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 857B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae
MB
858you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
859(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
7df75831
RGS
860system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
861use the parameter:
eaf812ae 862
08854360
RGS
863 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
864
865or
866
eaf812ae
MB
867 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
868
869For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
870for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
871to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
872
7df75831 873Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 874
7df75831 875=over 4
3bf462b8 876
eaf812ae
MB
877=item -DDEBUGGING
878
879=item -DEBUGGING
880
881=item -DEBUGGING=both
882
7df75831
RGS
883Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
884
885You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
886but usually it's convenient to have both.
eaf812ae
MB
887
888=item -DEBUGGING=-g
889
7df75831
RGS
890=item -Doptimize=-g
891
eaf812ae
MB
892Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
893
7df75831
RGS
894(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
895Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
896
eaf812ae
MB
897=item -DEBUGGING=none
898
7df75831
RGS
899=item -UDEBUGGING
900
eaf812ae
MB
901Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
902
903=back
904
3bf462b8 905If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 906versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 907
1db12997
DM
908Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be bigger and will run more
909slowly than a standard perl.
910
911=head2 DTrace support
912
913On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
914using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
915subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
916simple D script that uses them:
917
918 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
919 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
920 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
921 }
922
923
8d74ce1c
AD
924=head2 Extensions
925
80c1f5de
AD
926Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
927in the ext/ subdirectory.
928
8d74ce1c
AD
929By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
930to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 931only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
ce80d64e
AD
932
933To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
934-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
47bd56ab
DM
935a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
936listed in
ce80d64e
AD
937C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
938the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
939extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
940certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
941examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
942these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c
AD
943
944Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
945the extensions you want.
946
7df75831
RGS
947If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
948running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
949extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
950it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
951has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
952extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
953convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
954you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
955dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
956Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
957L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 958
dd3196cd 959If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
8d74ce1c
AD
960adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
961for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
962you.
963
8d74ce1c
AD
964=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
965
7df75831
RGS
966Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
967dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 968Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
7df75831
RGS
969automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
970to be specified explicitely (see L<Threads>).
971
972Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
973for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
974compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
975option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
976directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
977need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
978by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 979
ce80d64e 980=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c
AD
981
982=over 4
983
984=item gdbm in /usr/local
985
986Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 987GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c
AD
988installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
989/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
990necessary steps out automatically.
991
992Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
7df75831
RGS
993your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
994not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
995you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
8d74ce1c
AD
996
997If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
998linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
999-L/usr/local/lib.
1000
d6baa268
JH
1001Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1002you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1003/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1004
e8b9ce60
AD
1005=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1006
1007The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by sleepycat.com installs in a
1008version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1009/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1010-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1011and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1012Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1013add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1014add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1015BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1016
1017It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
8d74ce1c
AD
1018line):
1019
7df75831 1020 sh Configure -de \
e8b9ce60
AD
1021 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include /usr/local/include' \
1022 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1023 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
8d74ce1c
AD
1024
1025locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1026Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1027
1028loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1029Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1030
e8b9ce60
AD
1031The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1032the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1033Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1034system.
8d74ce1c
AD
1035
1036=back
1037
ce80d64e
AD
1038=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1039
dd3196cd
RGS
1040If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1041Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1042need to use B<Configure -O>.
ce80d64e
AD
1043
1044=head2 GNU-style configure
1045
1046If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1047use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1048
1049 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1050
1051The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1052options. Try
1053
1054 ./configure.gnu --help
1055
1056for a listing.
1057
1058(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1059that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1060
ce80d64e
AD
1061=head2 Malloc Issues
1062
1063Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1064so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1065the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1066version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1067perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1068than your system malloc.
1069
1070However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1071experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1072that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1073(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1074
1075=over 4
1076
1077=item Using the system malloc
1078
1079To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1080
1081 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1082
1083or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1084
73d6d1b0
RGS
1085Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1086depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1087systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1088See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1089default is set.
1090
ce80d64e
AD
1091=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1092
1093NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1094run Configure to accept all the defaults.
ce80d64e
AD
1095
1096Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1097Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1098These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1099
1100If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1101will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1102sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1103been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1104
1105Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1106from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1107does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1108versions.
1109
1110=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1111
1112This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1113Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1114using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1115
7df75831 1116 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
AD
1117
1118to enable this option.
1119
1120=back
1121
8e07c86e
AD
1122=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1123
8d74ce1c 1124If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1125If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1126
8e07c86e
AD
1127=over 4
1128
25f94b33
AD
1129=item Running Configure Interactively
1130
1131If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1132Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1133guesses.
1134
1135All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1136have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1137flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33
AD
1138will use the defaults from then on.
1139
1140If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1141config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1142instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1143
aa689395 1144=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1145
a0a8d9d3
DD
1146Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1147
1148=over 4
1149
1150=item o
1151
1152The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1153library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1154and so on.
1155
1156=item o
1157
1158The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1159although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1160resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1161
1162=item o
1163
1164How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1165speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1166implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1167often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1168
1169=back
1170
1171The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1172in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1173will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1174not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
AD
1175
1176Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
AD
1177If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1178for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1179More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1180file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1181
1182Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1183Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1184
73d6d1b0 1185=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1186
82c11e95
RGS
1187If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1188different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1189always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1190on your system.
edb1cbcb 1191
1192For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1193and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1194Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a
AD
1195Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1196issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1197
1198 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1199 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1200 Keep the previous value? [y]
1201
1ec51d55 1202In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1203should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1204the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1205
8e07c86e
AD
1206=item Changing Compilers
1207
1208If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1209probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1210rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1211
c3edaffb 1212=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1213
1ec51d55
CS
1214If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1215them to all the .SH files by running
1216
1217 sh Configure -S
1218
1219You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1220
1221 make depend
1222 make
8e07c86e 1223
48370efc
JH
1224=item config.over and config.arch
1225
1226You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1227Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1228before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1229however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1230This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1231
1232There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1233config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1234architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1235hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e
AD
1236
1237=item config.h
1238
1ec51d55
CS
1239Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1240Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1241The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1242
1ec51d55
CS
1243If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1244though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
AD
1245lost.
1246
1247=item cflags
1248
1249If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1250line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1251optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1252toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1253can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1254lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1255
f5b3b617
AD
1256To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1257see the file hints/README.hints.
1258
1259To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1260$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1261
1262 sh Configure -S
1263 make depend
8e07c86e 1264
aa689395 1265=item No sh
8e07c86e 1266
c42e3e15
GS
1267If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1268Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1269system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
AD
1270You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1271mechanism.
1272
c3edaffb 1273=item Porting information
1274
e6f03d26 1275Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1276corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1277including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1278subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1279
7f678428 1280Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1281http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1282various other operating systems.
1283
ce80d64e 1284If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1285section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
8502f9cc 1286in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlrepository.pod.
491517e0
JA
1287Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1288
8e07c86e
AD
1289=back
1290
ce80d64e 1291=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1292
1293You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1294CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1295command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1296
d3df0cfd 1297 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1298
1299or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1300then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1301The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
AD
1302This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1303extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1304extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1305
1306Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1307modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1308or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1309do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1310
1311Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1312dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1313For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1314headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1315process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1316
ce80d64e 1317=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1318
172dd959
JV
1319suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1320longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1321changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1322
8e07c86e
AD
1323=head1 make depend
1324
bfb7748a
AD
1325This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1326The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1327the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1328makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
AD
1329(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1330Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
AD
1331
1332Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1333explicitly above.
1334
1335=head1 make
1336
1337This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1338
8d410bc4
YST
1339=head2 Expected errors
1340
f5b5f377 1341These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1342
1343 ...
1344 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1345 ...
1346 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1347
8d74ce1c
AD
1348=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1349
8e07c86e 1350If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1351If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1352the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1353then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e
AD
1354
1355=over 4
1356
1ec51d55 1357=item hints
8e07c86e
AD
1358
1359If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1360for further tips and information.
1361
1ec51d55 1362=item extensions
8e07c86e 1363
1ec51d55 1364If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1365during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1366
3a6175e1 1367 make minitest
c3edaffb 1368
1369to test your version of miniperl.
1370
e57fd563 1371=item locale
1372
bfb7748a
AD
1373If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1374them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1375running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1376See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1377whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1378The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1379
1380 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1381 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1382 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1383 LANG = (unset)
1384 are supported and installed on your system.
1385 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1386
1387at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1388
06aa495b
DM
1389=item other environment variables
1390
1391Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1392have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1393OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1394their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1395behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1396executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1397PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1398So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1399retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1400
7f678428 1401=item varargs
c3edaffb 1402
1403If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
AD
1404correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1405gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1406in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
AD
1407correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1408your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1409See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1410
bfb7748a 1411=item util.c
c3edaffb 1412
1413If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1414numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1415
bfb7748a
AD
1416 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1417 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1418 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1419
1420it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1421previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1422
1ec51d55 1423=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1424
1425If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1426the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1427Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1428fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1429of your local set-up.
1430
aa689395 1431=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1432
1433If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1434try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1435with
1436
1437 sh Configure -Uusenm
1438
1439or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1440If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1441config.sh.
1442
bfb7748a
AD
1443=item umask not found
1444
1445If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1446is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1447Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1448this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1449try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1450
7f678428 1451=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1452
1453If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1454problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1455version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1456(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1457d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1458
1459 d_vprintf='define'
1460
1461If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1462on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1463the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1464
3fe9a6f1 1465=item do_aspawn
1466
1467If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1468problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1469fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1470on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1471
84902520
TB
1472=item __inet_* errors
1473
1474If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1475referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1476installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1477these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1478in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1479newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1480If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1481with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1482test process to avoid the problem.
1483
73d6d1b0 1484=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1485
1486On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1487reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1488but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1489other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1490header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1491another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1492Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1493header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1494normally /usr/include).
84902520 1495
d6baa268
JH
1496=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1497
1498This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1499gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1500changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1501rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1502update your gcc installation.
1503
aa689395 1504=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1505
9d67150a 1506If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1507optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1508
1509 optimize='-O'
1510
bfb7748a 1511to
9d67150a 1512
1513 optimize=' '
1514
1515then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1516with B<make depend; make>.
1517
4bbc1586 1518=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1519
4bbc1586
AD
1520If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1521undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1522should look something like
1523
1524 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1525
1526The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1527need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1528will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1529need to start all over again. Run
1530
1531 make distclean
1532
1533and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1534what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1535Configure.
1536
1537If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1538L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1539
1540If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1541need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1542that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1543you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1544look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1545
1ec51d55 1546=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1547
1ec51d55
CS
1548Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1549toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1550allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1551each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1552makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1553specific rule.
1554
7f678428 1555=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1556
c3edaffb 1557SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1558that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1559
f3d9a6ba 1560=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1561
1562If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1563the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1564then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1565Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1566systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
AD
1567Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1568phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1569unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1570
1571On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1572message
1573
f3d9a6ba 1574 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1575
1576then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1577the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1578extension without the -lgdbm library.
1579
1580It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1581this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1582quite that tightly coordinated.
1583
aa689395 1584=item sh: ar: not found
1585
1586This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1587was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1588make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1589is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1590directory.
1591
1592=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1593
1594Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1595with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1596bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1597
6087ac44
JH
1598=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1599
11906ba0 1600If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1601V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1602also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1603to include the System V semaphores.
1604
11906ba0 1605=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1606
1607Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1608both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1609ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1610with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1611system.
1612
d6baa268
JH
1613=item GNU binutils
1614
1615If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1616tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1617with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1618may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1619under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1620to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1621vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1622Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1623
16dc217a
GS
1624=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1625
1626The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1627make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1628archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1629C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1630archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1631incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1632official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1633that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1634archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1635
16dc217a
GS
1636=item invalid token: ##
1637
ce80d64e
AD
1638You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1639need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1640file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1641options.
16dc217a 1642
1ec51d55 1643=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1644
7df75831 1645Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1646
1647Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1648
1649NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1650
9ede5bc8 1651UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1652
11906ba0 1653FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1654configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1655you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1656
6c8d78fb
HS
1657Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1658installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1659and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1660the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1661view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1662to avoid the BIND.
1663
8e07c86e
AD
1664=back
1665
58a21a9b
JH
1666=head2 Cross-compilation
1667
e7a3c61b
JH
1668Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1669rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1670June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1671the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1672while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1673platforms.
1674
1675What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1676cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1677up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1678(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1679awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1680version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1681cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1682
1683See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1684the particular platforms:
1685
1686=over 4
1687
1688=item WinCE/PocketPC
1689
75472953 1690README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1691
1692=item Open Zaurus
1693
1694Cross/README
1695
1696=item EPOC
1697
1698README.epoc
1699
1700=item Symbian
1701
1702README.symbian
1703
1704=item OS/400
1705
1706README.os400
1707
1708=back
1709
1710Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1711modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1712cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1713platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1714L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1715of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1716
1717For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1718C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1719directory>.
1720
1721About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1722work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1723building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1724building the perl executable because that would require building
1725extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1726extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1727cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1728
1729The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1730at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1731both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1732cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1733target system.
1734
1735To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1736has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1737
1738 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1739
1740This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1741symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1742for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1743
1744During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1745into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1746cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1747target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1748transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1749the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1750methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1751F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1752
1753To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1754the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1755happens), supply Configure with
1756
1757 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1758
1759The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1760must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1761You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1762
1763 -Dtargetuser=luser
1764
1765but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1766
93bc48fa
JH
1767Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1768which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1769This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1770In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1771environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1772
1773 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1774 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1775 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1776 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1777 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1778
1779If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1780compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1781C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1782(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1783as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1784will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1785in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1786
1787In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1788choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1789for example:
1790
1791 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1792
1793Putting it all together:
1794
1795 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1796 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1797 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1798 -Dtargetuser=root \
1799 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1800 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1801 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1802 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1803 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1804 -D...
1805
e7a3c61b 1806or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1807
1808 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1809 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1810 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1811 -D...
1812
e7a3c61b
JH
1813Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1814F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1815
1816 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1817 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1818 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1819 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1820 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1821 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1822
8e07c86e
AD
1823=head1 make test
1824
d6baa268
JH
1825This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1826'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1827wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1828
84902520 1829Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1830opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1831a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1832
c4f23d77
AD
1833=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1834
1ec51d55
CS
1835If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1836by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1837bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1838
761cea1c 1839 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
8e07c86e 1840
aa689395 1841Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1842individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1843
785aa5e3 1844 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1845
fb73857a 1846(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1847complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1848will run all tests.
10c7e831 1849
fb73857a 1850You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1851comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1852shared library path if you get errors like:
1853
1854 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1855
1856See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1857
c4f23d77
AD
1858=over 4
1859
1860=item locale
1861
1ec51d55 1862Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1863may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 1864'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1865one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1866LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1867are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1868
1869If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1870
1871 setenv LC_ALL C
1872
1873(for C shell) or
1874
1875 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1876
1ec51d55
CS
1877for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1878make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1879is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1880shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1881things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1882open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1883external program.
eed2e782 1884
0740bb5b
AD
1885=item Timing problems
1886
c29923ff
JH
1887Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1888sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
1889If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1890these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1891with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1892and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
1893F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
1894F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 1895F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1896
f89caa8d
RGS
1897You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
1898perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
1899different.
1900
c4f23d77
AD
1901=item Out of memory
1902
1903On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1904of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1905For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1906test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1907
1908Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1909
785aa5e3 1910 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
1911
1912to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1913test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1914tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1915and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1916
a55bb48b
AD
1917=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
1918
1919This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
1920a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
1921(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
1922shared library should fix the problem.
1923
4f76e5ba
AD
1924=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1925
1926First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1927real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1928
1929Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1930directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1931systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1932run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1933test').
1934
1935The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1936
1937(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1938other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1939
1940This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
1941unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
1942are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1943
1944(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1945by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
1946UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
1947add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
1948used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
1949set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
1950file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
1951others.)
1952
1953This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
1954permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
1955also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
1956is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
1957should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
1958supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
1959used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
196011.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
1961on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
1962local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 1963
b2b23189
JH
1964(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
1965any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
1966directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
1967(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
1968building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
1969module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
1970
1971See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 1972about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 1973
c4f23d77
AD
1974=back
1975
5ee651a9
NC
1976The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
1977Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
1978your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
1979C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
1980
1981 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
1982
1983An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
1984L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
1985scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
1986interact with their job schedulers.
1987
8e07c86e
AD
1988=head1 make install
1989
1990This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1991Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1992to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1993pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
1994are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
1995in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
1996
1997If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
1998similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
1999and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2000by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2001
dd64f1c3
AD
2002=head2 Installing perl under different names
2003
2004If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2005when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2006indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2007
2008 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2009
beb13193 2010You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2011"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2012
2013 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2014
5cda700b
AD
2015This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2016avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2017Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2018
ce80d64e
AD
2019=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2020
2021You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2022the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2023
2024 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2025
2026DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2027the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2028
dd64f1c3
AD
2029=head2 Installed files
2030
8e07c86e
AD
2031If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2032anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2033
8e07c86e
AD
2034 ./perl installperl -n
2035 ./perl installman -n
2036
1ec51d55 2037make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2038
d56c5707
JH
2039 binaries
2040
8e07c86e 2041 perl,
be8498a1 2042 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e
AD
2043 will be a link to perl.
2044 suidperl,
be8498a1 2045 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2046 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
JH
2047
2048 scripts
2049
73d6d1b0
RGS
2050 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P, if
2051 your cc -E can't read from stdin.
8e07c86e 2052 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2053 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration
2054 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with different
2055 versions of perl
2056 cpan The CPAN shell
2057 cpan2dist The CPANPLUS distribution creator
2058 cpanp The CPANPLUS shell
2059 cpanp-run-perl An helper for cpanp
f5b5f377 2060 dprofpp Perl code profiler post-processor
73d6d1b0 2061 enc2xs Encoding module generator
8e07c86e 2062 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2063 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2064 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2065 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2066 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2067 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2068 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2069 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure
2070 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
2071 utility iconv
aa689395 2072 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2073 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2074 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2075 pod2man,
2076 pod2text,
d56c5707 2077 pod2usage
73d6d1b0
RGS
2078 podchecker POD syntax checker
2079 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation
2080 prove A command-line tool for running tests
2081 psed A Perl implementation of sed
2082 ptar A Perl implementation of tar
2083 ptardiff A diff for tar archives
2084 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2085 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums
aa689395 2086 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
73d6d1b0 2087 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code
8e07c86e 2088
d56c5707
JH
2089 library files
2090
2091 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2092 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2093
2094 documentation
2095
d6baa268
JH
2096 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2097 module man
2098 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2099 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2100
33cceb07 2101installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2102in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2103
d56c5707 2104Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2105under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2106optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2107program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2108
33cceb07
RGS
2109=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2110
d56c5707
JH
2111Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2112installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2113perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2114disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2115To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2116
2117 Configure -Dversiononly
2118
2119or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2120you can just manually run
2121
2122 ./perl installperl -v
2123
2124and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2125
d56c5707
JH
2126See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2127approach.
2128
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2129=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2130
2131Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2132system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2133header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2134by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2135library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2136
2137Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2138of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2139hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2140For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2141structures.
2142
2143=head1 installhtml --help
2144
2145Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2146format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2147documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2148
2149Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2150html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2151
2152The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2153perl documentation:
2154
2155 ./installhtml \
2156 --podroot=. \
2157 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2158 --recurse \
2159 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2160 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2161 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2162 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2163 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2164 --verbose
2165
2166See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2167many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2168see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2169resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2170(and would welcome patches for them).
2171
2172You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2173the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2174
2175=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2176
2177Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2178available in TeX format. Type
2179
2180 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2181
2182=head1 Starting all over again
2183
2184If you wish to re-build perl from the same build directory, you should
2185clean it out with the command
2186
2187 make distclean
2188
2189or
2190
2191 make realclean
2192
2193The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2194your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2195
2196If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2197change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2198you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not re-use
2199your old config.sh.
2200
2201If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2202installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2203using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2204settings"> above.
2205
ff52061e
RGS
2206=head1 Reporting Problems
2207
2208Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2209to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2210information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2211more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2212carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2213on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2214you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2215message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2216get advice.
2217
2218The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2219completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2220C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2221C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2222run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2223directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2224
2225If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2226B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2227an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2228
2229If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2230(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2231description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2232- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2233
2234Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2235reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2236written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
2237the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2238not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2239
2240Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2241config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2242necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2243session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2244messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2245appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
2246attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2247read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2248subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2249
5acb7768
NC
2250If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2251inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2252it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2253unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2254to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2255co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2256platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2257issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2258
ff52061e
RGS
2259If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2260report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2261http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2262
7df75831 2263=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2264
54c46bd5 2265Perl 5.11 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2266In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2267
693762b4 2268In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
22695.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2270re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2271version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2272
be8498a1
RGS
2273Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2274used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2275(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2276
33cceb07
RGS
2277Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2278searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2279
33cceb07
RGS
2280 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2282 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2284
33cceb07
RGS
2285Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2286searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2287
33cceb07
RGS
2288 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2290 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2291 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2292
33cceb07
RGS
2293 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2294 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2295 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2296
c42e3e15 2297Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2298of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2299directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2300to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2301suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2302present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2303/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2304but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2305
c42e3e15 2306The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23075.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2308
33cceb07
RGS
2309Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2310with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2311Configure defaults) will be:
2312
33cceb07
RGS
2313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2314 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2315 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2316 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2317
33cceb07 2318 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2319
33cceb07 2320 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2321
d6baa268 2322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2323
cc65bb49
AD
2324Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2325modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2326
0a08c020
GS
2327This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2328to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2329versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2330
2331=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2332
1ec51d55 2333Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2334separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2335won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2336libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2337way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2338
84e09a8c 2339 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.11.5
d52d4e46 2340
84e09a8c 2341and adding /opt/perl5.11.5/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2342may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2343scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2344
693762b4 2345Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2346(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2347each major version.
2348
6877a1cf
AD
2349If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2350seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2351subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2352yet.
2353
6f15df47 2354=head2 Upgrading from 5.11.0 or earlier
693762b4 2355
84e09a8c 2356B<Perl 5.11.5 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.11.1 and any earlier
dd3196cd 2357Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2358(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
84e09a8c
SH
2359used with 5.11.5. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23605.11.5, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2361installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2362above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2363
2364See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2365incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2366perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2367
8ebf57cf
JH
2368=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2369
2370The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2371Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2372operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2373
c8214fdf 2374Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2375Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2376space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2377Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2378programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2379depends on what do you need to do.
2380
8ebf57cf
JH
2381In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2382recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2383depends on what you need.
2384
2385Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2386
2387 use strict;
2388 use warnings;
2389 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2390 print("$f\n");
2391 }
2392
bfe08c74 2393in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2394
2395 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2396 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2397 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2398 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2399 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2400 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
JH
2401
2402Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2403size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2404
bfe08c74
RGS
2405 /usr/bin/perl
2406 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2407 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2408 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2409 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2410 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2411 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2412 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2413 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2414 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2415 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2416 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2417 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2418 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2419 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2420 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2421 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2422 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2423 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2424 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2425 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2426 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2427 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2428 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2429 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2430 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2431 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2432 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2433 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2434 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2435 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2436 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2437 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2438 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2439 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2440 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2441 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2442 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2443 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2444 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2445 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2446 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2447 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2448 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2449 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2450 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2451 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2452 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2453 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2454 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2455 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2456 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2457 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2458 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2459 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2460 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2461 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2462 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2463 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2464 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2465 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2466 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2467 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2468 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2469 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2470 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2471 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2472 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2473 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2474 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2475 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2476 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2477 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2478 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2479 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2480 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2481 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2482 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2483 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2484 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2485 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2486 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2487 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2488 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2489 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2490 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2491 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2492 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2493 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2494
e7a3c61b
JH
2495A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2496need to run a Perl program is
2497
a0a8d9d3 2498 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2499
2500(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2501it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2502use something like the below
2503
2504 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2505
2506(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2507and 'ktrace'.)
2508
c19ccd8c
RGS
2509=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2510
2511If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2512F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2513by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2514completely removed.
2515
8e07c86e
AD
2516=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2517
bfb7748a
AD
2518Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2519is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2520build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2521can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2522sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e
AD
2523
2524=head1 AUTHOR
2525
bfb7748a
AD
2526Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2527heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2528feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2529
f5b3b617
AD
2530If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2531L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2532
2533=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2534
2535This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2536the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2537If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2538a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2539and the contact information to match your distribution.