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1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. |
2 | It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially | |
3 | designed to be readable as is. | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 NAME | |
6 | ||
7 | README.aix - Perl version 5 on IBM Unix (AIX) systems | |
8 | ||
9 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
10 | ||
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11 | This document describes various features of IBM's Unix operating |
12 | system (AIX) that will affect how Perl version 5 (hereafter just Perl) | |
13 | is compiled and/or runs. | |
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14 | |
15 | =head2 Compiling Perl 5 on AIX | |
16 | ||
d5d9880c | 17 | When compiling Perl, you must use an ANSI C compiler. AIX does not ship |
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18 | an ANSI compliant C-compiler with AIX by default, but binary builds of |
19 | gcc for AIX are widely available. | |
20 | ||
21 | At the moment of writing, AIX supports two different native C compilers, | |
4951a6f9 | 22 | for which you have to pay: B<xlC> and B<vac>. If you decide to use either |
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23 | of these two (which is quite a lot easier than using gcc), be sure to |
24 | upgrade to the latest available patch level. Currently: | |
25 | ||
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26 | xlC.C 3.1.4.8 or 3.6.6.0 |
27 | vac.C 4.4.0.3 or 5.0.2.3 | |
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29 | Perl can be compiled with either IBM's ANSI C compiler or with gcc. |
30 | The former is recommended, as not only can it compile Perl with no | |
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31 | difficulty, but also can take advantage of features listed later that |
32 | require the use of IBM compiler-specific command-line flags. | |
33 | ||
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34 | The IBM's compiler patch levels 5.0.0.0 and 5.0.1.0 have compiler |
35 | optimization bugs that affect compiling perl.c and regcomp.c, | |
36 | respectively. If Perl's configuration detects those compiler patch | |
37 | levels, optimization is turned off for the said source code files. | |
38 | Upgrading to at least 5.0.2.0 is recommended. | |
39 | ||
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40 | If you decide to use gcc, make sure your installation is recent and |
41 | complete, and be sure to read the Perl README file for more gcc-specific | |
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42 | details. Please report any hoops you had to jump through to the development |
43 | team. | |
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44 | |
45 | =head2 OS level | |
46 | ||
47 | Before installing the patches to the IBM C-compiler you need to know the | |
48 | level of patching for the Operating System. IBM's command 'oslevel' will | |
a318903f | 49 | show the base, but is not always complete: |
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50 | |
51 | # oslevel | |
52 | 4.3.0.0 | |
53 | # lslpp -l | grep 'bos.rte ' | |
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54 | bos.rte 4.3.3.75 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime |
55 | bos.rte 4.3.2.0 COMMITTED Base Operating System Runtime | |
56 | # | |
57 | ||
58 | As a side note, perl cannot be built without bos.adt.syscalls installed | |
59 | ||
60 | # lslpp -l | grep syscalls | |
4951a6f9 | 61 | bos.adt.syscalls 4.3.3.51 COMMITTED System Calls Application |
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62 | # |
63 | ||
64 | =head2 Building Dynamic Extensions on AIX | |
65 | ||
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66 | AIX supports dynamically loadable objects as well as shared libraries. |
67 | Shared libraries by convention end with the suffix .a, which is a bit | |
68 | misleading, as an archive can contain static as well as dynamic members. | |
69 | For perl dynamically loaded objects we use the .so suffix also used on | |
70 | many other platforms. | |
71 | ||
72 | Note that starting from Perl 5.7.2 (and consequently 5.8.0) and AIX 4.3 | |
73 | or newer Perl uses the AIX native dynamic loading interface in the so | |
74 | called runtime linking mode instead of the emulated interface that was | |
75 | used in Perl releases 5.6.1 and earlier or, for AIX releases 4.2 and | |
76 | earlier. This change does break backward compatibility with compiled | |
77 | modules from earlier perl releases. The change was made to make Perl | |
78 | more compliant with other applications like Apache/modperl which are | |
79 | using the AIX native interface. This change also enables the use of C++ | |
80 | code with static constructors and destructors in perl extensions, which | |
81 | was not possible using the emulated interface. | |
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83 | =head2 The IBM ANSI C Compiler |
84 | ||
85 | All defaults for Configure can be used. | |
86 | ||
87 | If you've chosen to use vac 4, be sure to run 4.4.0.3. Older versions | |
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88 | will turn up nasty later on. For vac 5 be sure to run at least 5.0.1.0, |
89 | but vac 5.0.2.1 or up is highly recommended. | |
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91 | Here's a brief lead of how to upgrade the compiler to the latest |
92 | level. Of course this is subject to changes. You can only upgrade | |
93 | versions from ftp-available updates if the first three digit groups | |
94 | are the same (in where you can skip intermediate unlike the patches | |
95 | in the developer snapshots of perl), or to one version up where the | |
96 | `base' is available. In other words, the AIX compiler patches are | |
97 | cumulative. | |
98 | ||
99 | vac.C.4.4.0.1 => vac.C.4.4.0.3 is OK (vac.C.4.4.0.2 not needed) | |
100 | xlC.C.3.1.3.3 => xlC.C.3.1.4.10 is NOT OK (xlC.C.3.1.4.0 is not available) | |
101 | ||
102 | # ftp ftp.software.ibm.com | |
103 | Connected to service.boulder.ibm.com. | |
104 | : welcome message ... | |
105 | Name (ftp.software.ibm.com:merijn): anonymous | |
106 | 331 Guest login ok, send your complete e-mail address as password. | |
107 | Password: | |
108 | ... accepted login stuff | |
109 | ftp> cd /aix/fixes/v4/ | |
110 | ftp> dir other other.ll | |
111 | output to local-file: other.ll? y | |
112 | 200 PORT command successful. | |
113 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. | |
114 | 226 Transfer complete. | |
115 | ftp> dir xlc xlc.ll | |
116 | output to local-file: xlc.ll? y | |
117 | 200 PORT command successful. | |
118 | 150 Opening ASCII mode data connection for /bin/ls. | |
119 | 226 Transfer complete. | |
120 | ftp> bye | |
121 | ... goodbye messages | |
122 | # ls -l *.ll | |
123 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 1169432 Nov 2 17:29 other.ll | |
124 | -rw-rw-rw- 1 merijn system 29170 Nov 2 17:29 xlc.ll | |
125 | ||
126 | On AIX 4.2 using xlC, we continue: | |
127 | ||
128 | # lslpp -l | fgrep 'xlC.C ' | |
129 | xlC.C 3.1.4.9 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler | |
130 | xlC.C 3.1.4.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler | |
131 | # grep 'xlC.C.3.1.4.*.bff' xlc.ll | |
132 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6286336 Jul 22 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.1.bff | |
133 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6173696 Aug 24 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff | |
134 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6319104 Aug 14 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.2.bff | |
135 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6316032 Oct 21 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.3.bff | |
136 | -rw-r--r-- 1 45776101 1 6315008 Dec 20 1996 xlC.C.3.1.4.4.bff | |
137 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6178816 Mar 28 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.5.bff | |
138 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6188032 May 22 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.6.bff | |
139 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6191104 Sep 5 1997 xlC.C.3.1.4.7.bff | |
140 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6185984 Jan 13 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.8.bff | |
141 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 6169600 May 27 1998 xlC.C.3.1.4.9.bff | |
142 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/xlc/xlC.C.3.1.4.10.bff | |
143 | # | |
144 | ||
145 | On AIX 4.3 using vac, we continue: | |
146 | ||
147 | # lslpp -l | fgrep 'vac.C ' | |
148 | vac.C 4.4.0.2 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler | |
149 | vac.C 4.4.0.0 COMMITTED C for AIX Compiler | |
150 | # grep 'vac.C.4.4.0.*.bff' other.ll | |
151 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13466624 May 26 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.1.bff | |
152 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13473792 Aug 31 1999 vac.C.4.4.0.2.bff | |
153 | -rw-rw-r-- 1 45776101 1 13480960 May 19 20:32 vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff | |
154 | # wget ftp://ftp.software.ibm.com/aix/fixes/v4/other/vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff | |
155 | # | |
156 | ||
157 | Then execute the following command, and fill in its choices | |
158 | ||
159 | # smit install_update | |
160 | -> Install and Update from LATEST Available Software | |
161 | * INPUT device / directory for software [ vac.C.4.4.0.3.bff ] | |
162 | [ OK ] | |
163 | [ OK ] | |
164 | ||
165 | Follow the messages ... and you're done. | |
166 | ||
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167 | =head2 Using GNU's gcc for building perl |
168 | ||
4951a6f9 | 169 | Using gcc-3.0 (tested with 3.0.4) now works out of the box. |
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171 | =head2 Using Large Files with Perl |
172 | ||
60ecc970 | 173 | Should yield no problems. |
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174 | |
175 | =head2 Threaded Perl | |
176 | ||
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177 | Threads seem to work OK, though at the moment not all tests pass when |
178 | threads are used in combination with 64bit configurations. | |
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179 | |
180 | =head2 64-bit Perl | |
181 | ||
60ecc970 | 182 | If your AIX is installed with 64-bit support, you can expect 64bit |
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183 | configurations to work. In combination with threads some tests might |
184 | still fail. | |
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12f54d27 | 186 | =head2 AIX 4.2 and extensions using C++ with statics |
20d11268 | 187 | |
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188 | In AIX 4.2 Perl extensions that use C++ functions that use statics |
189 | may have problems in that the statics are not getting initialized. | |
190 | In newer AIX releases this has been solved by linking Perl with | |
191 | the libC_r library, but unfortunately in AIX 4.2 the said library | |
192 | has an obscure bug where the various functions related to time | |
193 | (such as time() and gettimeofday()) return broken values, and | |
194 | therefore in AIX 4.2 Perl is not linked against the libC_r. | |
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195 | |
196 | =head1 AUTHOR | |
197 | ||
198 | H.Merijn Brand <h.m.brand@hccnet.nl> | |
199 | ||
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200 | =head1 DATE |
201 | ||
4951a6f9 | 202 | Version 0.0.4: 13 May 2002 |
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203 | |
204 | =cut |