This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Simpler suggstion to resolve the #!/usr/bin/suidperl vs. the set uid
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
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1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
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7First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
16dc217a 9<URL:http://www.cpan.org/src/>.
3ce0d271 10
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11The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12with all the defaults are:
8e07c86e 13
dc45a647 14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 15 sh Configure -de
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16 make
17 make test
18 make install
36477c24 19
aa689395 20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 22 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
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24
25Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26
cc65bb49 27B<NOTE>: starting from the release 5.6.0, Perl uses a version
fe23a901 28scheme where even-numbered subreleases (like 5.6 and 5.8) are stable
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29maintenance releases and odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7) are
30unstable development releases. Development releases should not be
31used in production environments. Fixes and new features are first
32carefully tested in development releases and only if they prove
33themselves to be worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance
34releases.
35
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36The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
37platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
38If that's not okay with you, use
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39
40 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
41 sh Configure
42 make
43 make test
44 make install
45
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46For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on L<"Porting
47information"> below.
48
49If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
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50similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
51and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
adbebc0b 52by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
7f678428 53
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54If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
55L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
56
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57For information on what's new in this release, see the
58pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
59changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 60
1ec51d55 61=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 62
c3edaffb 63This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
64structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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65read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
66by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
67
68 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
69 C<code> literal code
70 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
71
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72Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
73you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
1ec51d55 74proceeding.
c3edaffb 75
eed2e782 76If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
77the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
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78provide additional or different instructions for building Perl. There
79are also README files for several flavors of Unix systems, such as
80Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX; if you have one of those systems, you should
81also read the README file specific to that system.
eed2e782 82
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83If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
84should also read that hint file for specific information for your
70cc50ef 85system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or the svr5.sh hint file.)
cc65bb49 86Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
203c3eec 87
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88=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
89
905.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
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91global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build rather old
92extensions that have not been updated for the current naming convention
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93with:
94
95 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
d56c5707 96
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97Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
98building perl itself with:
99
100 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
101
5cda700b 102pod/perl56delta.pod contains more details about this.
c42e3e15 103
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104=head1 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
105Perl prior to 5.8.0.
1b1c1ae2 106
cc65bb49 107If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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108using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
109those extensions.
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110
111Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
112without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
113L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 114L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
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115
116The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
117
1b1c1ae2 118On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
693762b4 119changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
5cda700b 120pod/perldelta.pod (and the earlier pod/perl5Xdelta.pod) for a description of
c42e3e15 121what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
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122file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
123Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
124currently installed modules.
693762b4 125
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126=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
127
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128Most C compilers are now ANSI-compliant. However, a few current
129computers are delivered with an older C compiler expressly for
130rebuilding the system kernel, or for some other historical reason.
131Alternatively, you may have an old machine which was shipped before
132ANSI compliance became widespread. Such compilers are not suitable
133for building Perl.
134
135If you find that your default C compiler is not ANSI-capable, but you
136know that an ANSI-capable compiler is installed on your system, you
137can tell F<Configure> to use the correct compiler by means of the
138C<-Dcc=> command-line option -- see L<"gcc">.
139
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140If do not have an ANSI-capable compiler there are a couple of avenues
141open to you:
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142
143=over 4
144
145=item *
146
147You may try obtaining GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide,
148listed at <URL:http://www.gnu.org/order/ftp.html>. If, rather than
149building gcc from source code, you locate a binary version configured
150for your platform, be sure that it is compiled for the version of the
151operating system that you are using.
152
153=item *
154
155You may purchase a commercial ANSI C compiler from your system
156supplier or elsewhere. (Or your organization may already have
157licensed such software -- ask your colleagues to find out how to
158access it.) If there is a README file for your system in the Perl
159distribution (for example, F<README.hpux>), it may contain advice on
160suitable compilers.
161
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162=back
163
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164Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
165does not work with some C++ compilers.
166
aa689395 167=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 168
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169The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 50 MB of disk space.
170After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 171total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
8756f06c 172directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 173value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 174
aa689395 175=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 176
edb1cbcb 177If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
178with the command
179
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180 make distclean
181
182or
183
edb1cbcb 184 make realclean
c3edaffb 185
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186The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
187your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
188
189The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
190files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
191change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
192you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 193not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 194
d6baa268 195 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 196
e57fd563 197If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
198version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
199the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
200includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
201name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
202Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
5cda700b 203probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't.
e57fd563 204Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
205numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
206
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207Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
208Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
209it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
210might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
211compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
212the architecture name.
e57fd563 213
214In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
215Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 216
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217If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
218installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
219using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
220settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
221also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
222
223 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 224
aa689395 225=head1 Run Configure
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226
227Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
228things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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229you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
230almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
231since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
232the same function.
233
234At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
235defaults from then on.
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236
237After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 238*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 239
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240=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
241
242Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
243installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
244and these will be used by the perl being built.
245
246To disable use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
247modules, you can specify to not include the pathes found:
248
249 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
250
251When using the newer perl, you can add these pathes again in the
252$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
253
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254=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
255
256For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
cc65bb49 257also has several convenient options which are described below.
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258However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
259you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
260run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
261a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
262
263 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
264
265For more help on Configure switches, run:
266
267 sh Configure -h
268
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269=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
270
271Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
272where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
273read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
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274architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
275links) by
5cda700b 276
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277 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
278 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
279 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
280
281This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
282pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
283unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
284
285 make all test
286
287and Perl will be built and tested, all in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
288
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289=head2 Common Configure options
290
fb73857a 291Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
292get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
293Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
294
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295=over 4
296
297=item gcc
298
299To compile with gcc you should run
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300
301 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
302
303This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
304compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
305
d6baa268 306=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 307
8e07c86e 308By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
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309/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
310and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
311further details.)
312
313You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
314directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
315line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 316
25f94b33 317 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 318
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319If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
320directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
321prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
322/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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323for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
324or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 325
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326NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
327as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
328attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 329
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330=item /usr/bin/perl
331
332It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
333find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 334/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 335careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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336vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
337on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
338configured may be found with
339
340 perl -V:config_args
341
342(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
343spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look
344carefully at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 345
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346By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to
347the current version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 348
7d9a7e35 349 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 350
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351or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
352(Note that before perl 5.8.1, the default behavior was to create
353or overwrite /usr/bin/perl even if it already existed.)
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354
355In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
dd64f1c3 356put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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357into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
358obvious and convenient place.
359
d6baa268 360=item Overriding an old config.sh
04d420f9 361
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362If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
363with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
364
365=back
8e07c86e 366
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367If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
368output, you can run
369
370 sh Configure -des
371
cc65bb49 372Note: for development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9, as opposed
fe23a901 373to maintenance releases which have even subreleases, like 5.6 and 5.8)
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374if you want to use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel
375to Configure, because the default answer to the question "do you really
376want to Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel
377skips that sanity check.
378
379For example for my Solaris system, I usually use
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380
381 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
382
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383=head2 GNU-style configure
384
1ec51d55 385If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 386use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 387
693762b4 388 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 389
dc45a647 390The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
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391options. Try
392
693762b4 393 ./configure.gnu --help
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394
395for a listing.
396
dc45a647 397(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 398that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 399
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400See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
401
aa689395 402=head2 Installation Directories
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403
404The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
405appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
406installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
cc65bb49 407Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
4633a7c4 408
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409I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
410everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
d6baa268 411process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
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412the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
413
414 grep '^install' config.sh
415
416after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
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417
418The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
419people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
420distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
421need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
422you can safely skip the next section.
423
424The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
425
426=over 4
427
428=item Directories for the perl distribution
429
fe23a901 430By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.8.0.
d6baa268 431$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
fe23a901 4325.8.0 or 5.8.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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433determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
434variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
435
436 Configure variable Default value
437 $prefix /usr/local
438 $bin $prefix/bin
439 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
440 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
441 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
442 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
443 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
444 $html1dir (none)
445 $html3dir (none)
446
447Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
448/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
449instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
450directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
451the common style is shown here.
452
453=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
454
455After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
456CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
c42e3e15 457be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
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458
459 Configure variable Default value
460 $siteprefix $prefix
461 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
49c10eea 462 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
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463 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
464 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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465 $siteman1dir $siteprefix/man/man1
466 $siteman3dir $siteprefix/man/man3
467 $sitehtml1dir (none)
468 $sitehtml3dir (none)
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469
470By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
273cf8d1 471modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
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472
473=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
474
475Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
476distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
477for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
478
479 Configure variable Default value
480 $vendorprefix (none)
481 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
482 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
49c10eea 483 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
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484 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
485 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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486 $vendorman1dir $vendorprefix/man/man1
487 $vendorman3dir $vendorprefix/man/man3
488 $vendorhtml1dir (none)
489 $vendorhtml3dir (none)
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490
491These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
492a vendor might choose the following settings:
493
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494 $prefix /usr
495 $siteprefix /usr/local
496 $vendorprefix /usr
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497
498This would have the effect of setting the following:
499
500 $bin /usr/bin
501 $scriptdir /usr/bin
502 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
503 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
504 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
505 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
506
507 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
49c10eea 508 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
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509 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
510 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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511 $siteman1dir /usr/local/man/man1
512 $siteman3dir /usr/local/man/man3
d6baa268 513
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514 $vendorbin /usr/bin
515 $vendorscript /usr/bin
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516 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
517 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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518 $vendorman1dir /usr/man/man1
519 $vendorman3dir /usr/man/man3
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520
521Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
522/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
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523the /usr/local hierarchy.
524
525The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
526version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
527However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
528installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
529See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
530on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
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531
532Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
533example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
534are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
535site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
536network. One way to do that would be something like
537
538 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
539
540=item otherlibdirs
541
542As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
543variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
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544directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
545Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
546version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
d6baa268 547
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548For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
549installation, perhaps in a strange place:
550
551 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
552
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553=item APPLLIB_EXP
554
555There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
556that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
557separated list of directories, like this
558
559 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
560
561The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
562ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
563modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
564touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
565version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
566present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
567directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
568run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
569
d6baa268 570=item Man Pages
1ec51d55 571
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572In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
573pages in a version-specific directory, such as
574/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
575after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
576without resetting MANPATH.
4633a7c4 577
d6baa268 578You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
4633a7c4 579
fe23a901 580 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/man/man3
8d74ce1c 581
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582Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
583
584 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
585
586Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
587Configure.
588
589=item HTML pages
590
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591Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
592HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
593add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
594variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
595documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
596eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
8d74ce1c 597
d6baa268 598=back
8d74ce1c 599
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600Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
601to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
602architectures.
4633a7c4 603
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604Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
605directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
606filesystem.
607
608Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
609development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
610discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
611
612If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
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613library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
614suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
8d74ce1c 615
d6baa268 616Thus, for example, if you Configure with
fe23a901 617-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.8.0 are
3a6175e1 618
d6baa268 619 Configure variable Default value
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620 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.8.0
621 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.8.0/$archname
622 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.0
623 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
4633a7c4 624
aa689395 625=head2 Changing the installation directory
626
627Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
628associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
629will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
630sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 631However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
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632packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
633wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
634management software to move perl to its final destination. This
635section describes how to do that.
aa689395 636
0dcb58f4 637Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
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638could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
639/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
640following command line:
641
642 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
643
644(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
aa689395 645
693762b4 646Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
d6baa268 647modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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648follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
649that problem.
650
aa689395 651=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
652
653If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
654convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
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655installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
656create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
657Here's one way to do that:
aa689395 658
d6baa268 659 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
aa689395 660 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
d6baa268 661 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
aa689395 662 make
663 make test
d6c1b5d3 664 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
aa689395 665 cd /tmp/perl5
d6c1b5d3 666 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
fb73857a 667 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
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668 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
669 # everywhere in those files.)
670 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
bfb7748a 671 # #!/wherever/perl line.
aa689395 672 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
673 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
d6c1b5d3 674 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
aa689395 675 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
676
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677Alternatively, the DESTDIR variable is honored during C<make install>.
678The DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths
679(and there is no need to edit anything). With DESTDIR, the above
680example can we written as:
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681
682 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
683 make
684 make test
685 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
686 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
687 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
688
dc45a647 689=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
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690
691After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
692answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
693person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
694system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
695to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
696hint file for your system.
697
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698Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
699answers, you should
700
701 rm -f Policy.sh
702
703to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
704
705Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
706
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707If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
708to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
709platform-specific hints files.
710
aa689395 711=head2 Configure-time Options
712
713There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
714system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
715Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
716some of the main things you can change.
717
693762b4 718=head2 Threads
aa689395 719
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720On some platforms, perl can be compiled with
721support for threads. To enable this, run
f7542a9d 722
693762b4 723 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 724
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725Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
726line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
727
728The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 729
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730Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
731model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module
732since 5.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads),
733with one interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data.
aaacdc8b 734
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735The 5.005 version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and
736unmaintained.
737
738By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
aaacdc8b 739
cc65bb49 740(You need to also use the PerlIO layer, explained later, if you decide
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741to use ithreads, to guarantee the good interworking of threads and I/O.)
742
cc65bb49 743However, if you wish, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
aaacdc8b 744
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745 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
746
747If you decide to use ithreads, the 'threads' module allows their use,
748and the 'Thread' module offers an interface to both 5005threads and
749ithreads (whichever has been configured).
aaacdc8b 750
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751When building threaded for certain library calls like the getgr*() and
752the getpw*() there is a dynamically sized result buffer: the buffer
753starts small but Perl will keep growing the buffer until the result fits.
754To get a fixed upper limit you will have to recompile Perl with
755PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want.
756One way to do this is to run Configure with
757C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
758
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759=head2 Large file support.
760
5cda700b 761Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
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7622 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
763support is on by default.
764
765This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
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766seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
767using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
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768be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
769parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
770will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
771Apache extension mod_perl.
772
773There's also one known limitation with the current large files
774implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
775section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer
776formats like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
777
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778=head2 64 bit support.
779
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780If your platform does not have 64 bits natively, but can simulate them
781with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>, you can build a
782perl that uses 64 bits.
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783
784There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
785using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
786-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
787the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
788
789The C<use64bitint> does only as much as is required to get 64-bit
790integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long longs")
791while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because your
792pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint> does
793not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it might,
794but it doesn't have to): the C<use64bitint> means that you will be
795able to have 64 bits wide scalar values.
796
797The C<use64bitall> goes all the way by attempting to switch also
798integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
799create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
800resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
801have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
802aware.
803
804Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
805nor -Duse64bitall.
806
807 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
808 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
809 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
810 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
811
812=head2 Long doubles
813
814In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
815range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
816(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
817this support (if it is available).
818
819=head2 "more bits"
820
821You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
822and the long double support.
823
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824=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
825
365d6a78 826Executive summary: in Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
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827as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
828
829In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
830mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
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831introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
832until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
833and the only supported mechanism.
46bb10fb 834
365d6a78 835Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
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836abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
837instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
838implementations.
46bb10fb 839
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840This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
841are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
842line with
46bb10fb 843
6d5328bc 844 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 845
6d5328bc 846or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 847
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848With the PerlIO abstraction layer, there is another possibility for
849the underlying IO calls, AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance
850to stdio.h in many cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline"
851modules ("Native" PerlIO has them too). Sfio currently only builds on
852a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports. Because the data
853structures are completely different from stdio, perl extension modules
854or external libraries may not work. This configuration exists to
855allow these issues to be worked on.
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856
857This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
1b9c9cf5 858The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
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859
860You select this option by
861
862 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
863
864If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
865that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
866Configure.
867
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868Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
869detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
870this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
871Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
872_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
873your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
33e6ee5f 874
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875=head2 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
876
877In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
878Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
1aa6899f 879enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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880a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
881and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
882
883In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder
884to create such degenerate hashes.
885
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886Because of this feature the keys(), values(), and each() functions may
887return the hash elements in different order between different runs of
888Perl even with the same data. One can still revert to the old
aa69cd32 889repeatable order by setting the environment variable PERL_HASH_SEED,
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890see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option is to add
891-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for example by
892using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HAS_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in which case
893one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable to
894enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to the compilation
895flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
c71f9582 896
1aa6899f 897B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
c71f9582 898ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of
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899Perl 5. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and
900continues to be, affected by the insertion order.
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901
902Note that because of this randomisation for example the Data::Dumper
903results will be different between different runs of Perl since
904Data::Dumper by default dumps hashes "unordered". The use of the
1aa6899f 905Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is recommended.
c71f9582 906
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907=head2 SOCKS
908
909Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
910TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
911access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
912Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
913
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914=head2 Dynamic Loading
915
916By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
917your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
918statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
919you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
920
10c7e831 921=head2 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 922
923Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
924linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
925extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
926such as -lm.
927
9d67150a 928On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
929replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 930several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
931different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 932you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 933can share the same library.
934
935The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 936penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 937mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 938and upgrades.
939
940In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 941test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 942Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
943results.
944
945The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 946libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 947libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 948based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
949version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
950isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
951
952For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
953for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
954
955You can elect to build a shared libperl by
956
957 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
958
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959To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
960library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
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961NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
962for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
2bf2710f 963the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
d6baa268 964be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
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965library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
966variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
967
968 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
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969
970However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
971shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
972something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
973./perl:
974
975 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
976or
977 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
978
979then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
980You can do this with
c3edaffb 981
982 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
983
984for Bourne-style shells, or
985
986 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
987
2bf2710f 988for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
10c7e831 989unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
5cda700b 990again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
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991
992You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
993messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
994for example:
99518126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
c3edaffb 996
9d67150a 997There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
998want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
999with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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1000install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
1001try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 1002the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
1003ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
cc65bb49 1004libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
9d67150a 1005that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
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1006in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
1007equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
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1008with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
1009LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
1010Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
1011_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 1012
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1013In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
1014with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
1015previous build.
1016
1017A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
1018architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
1019You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
1020point to your new architecture-dependent library.
9d67150a 1021
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1022=head2 Malloc Issues
1023
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1024Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1025so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1026the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1027version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1028perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1029than your system malloc.
55479bb6 1030
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1031However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1032experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1033that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1034(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
c3edaffb 1035
aa689395 1036=over 4
1037
d6baa268 1038=item Using the system malloc
2ae324a7 1039
d6baa268 1040To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
aa689395 1041
d6baa268 1042 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
aa689395 1043
d6baa268 1044or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
aa689395 1045
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1046=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1047
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1048NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1049run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
b2a6d19e 1050
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1051Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1052Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1053These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
d6baa268 1054
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1055If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1056will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1057sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1058been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
86058a2d 1059
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1060Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1061from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1062does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1063versions.
86058a2d 1064
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1065=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1066
1067This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1068Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1069using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1070
67bae6b3 1071 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
e3b9cd39
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1072
1073to enable this option.
1074
aa689395 1075=back
1076
3bf462b8
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1077=head2 Building a debugging perl
1078
1079You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 1080B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
3bf462b8
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1081you probably want to do
1082
1083 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1084
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1085This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1086to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1087executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
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1088cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1089your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1090variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1091internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1092if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1093old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1094ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1095L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
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1096
1097You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1098it's convenient to have both.
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1099
1100If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
fb80922b 1101versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1102
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1103=head2 Extensions
1104
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1105Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1106in the ext/ subdirectory.
1107
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1108By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1109to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1110only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
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1111Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
1112is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1113set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
80c1f5de 1114the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1115
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GS
1116If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1117running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1118extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1119it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1120has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1121extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1122convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1123you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1124dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1125
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1126If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1127is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1128
c42e3e15 1129You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
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1130documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1131ext/ subdirectory.
1132
1133Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1134DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
1135version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
1136
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1137To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use
1138the -Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both
1139accept a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed
1140in C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build,
1141while the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only
1142the listed extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution
1143since certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1144such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing these
1145options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
1146
1147Another, older way to turn off various extensions (which is still good
1148to know if you have to work with older Perl) exists. Here are the
1149Configure command-line variables you can set to turn off various
1150extensions. All others are included by default.
8d74ce1c 1151
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1152 DB_File i_db
1153 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
8d74ce1c 1154 GDBM_File i_gdbm
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1155 NDBM_File i_ndbm
1156 ODBM_File i_dbm
1157 POSIX useposix
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1158 Opcode useopcode
1159 Socket d_socket
a2dab6bc 1160 Threads use5005threads
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1161
1162Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
1163
1164 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
1165
1166Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
1167library.
1168
1169Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1170the extensions you want.
1171
1172Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1173DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1174this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1175releases of version 2.
1176
1177If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1178adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1179for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1180you.
1181
80c1f5de 1182Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
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1183remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1184executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1185well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1186
1187=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1188
1189Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1190dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1191Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1192automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1193are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1194how to obtain the libraries.
1195
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1196If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1197searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1198appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
1199your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
1200searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1201the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1202See the examples below.
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1203
1204=head2 Examples
1205
1206=over 4
1207
1208=item gdbm in /usr/local
1209
1210Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1211GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1212installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1213/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1214necessary steps out automatically.
1215
1216Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1217your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1218
1219When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1220-L/usr/local/lib.
1221
1222If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1223linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1224-L/usr/local/lib.
1225
d6baa268
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1226Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1227you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1228/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
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1229
1230=item gdbm in /usr/you
1231
1232Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1233but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1234have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1235still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1236an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1237Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1238/usr/you/lib to the list.
1239
1240It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1241line):
1242
d6baa268 1243 sh Configure -de \
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1244 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1245 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1246
1247locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1248Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1249
1250loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1251Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1252you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1253/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1254
d6baa268 1255 sh Configure -de \
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1256 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1257 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1258
1259=back
1260
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1261=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1262
1263Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1264compile standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
1265following instructions.
1266
1267Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
1268DB1 compatibility code (needed for DB_File interface) and without
1269links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
1270for DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
1271--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1272additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1273--prefix=/usr):
1274
1275 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1276 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
1277 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
1278 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
1279 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
1280 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1281
1282Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1283for ODBM/NDBM):
1284
1285 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1286 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1287
1288ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1289using DB 3.1.17:
1290
1291 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1292 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1293
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1294=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1295
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1296If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1297If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1298
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1299=over 4
1300
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1301=item Running Configure Interactively
1302
1303If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1304Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1305guesses.
1306
1307All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1308have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1309flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1310will use the defaults from then on.
1311
1312If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1313config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1314instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1315
aa689395 1316=item Hint files
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1317
1318The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1319in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1320will offer to use that hint file.
1321
1322Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
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1323If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1324for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1325More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1326file.
8e07c86e 1327
edb1cbcb 1328=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1329
1330Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
13314.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1332standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1333will see a message:
1334
1335 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1336 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1337 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1338
1339You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1340relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1341overriding it.
1342
1343If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1344used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1345to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1346system.
1347
1348For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1349and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1350Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1351Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1352issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1353
1354 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1355 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1356 Keep the previous value? [y]
1357
1ec51d55 1358In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1359should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1360the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1361
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1362=item Changing Compilers
1363
1364If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1365probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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1366rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1367with the options you want to use.
1368
1ec51d55
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1369This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1370gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1371
c3edaffb 1372=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1373
1ec51d55
CS
1374If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1375them to all the .SH files by running
1376
1377 sh Configure -S
1378
1379You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1380
1381 make depend
1382 make
8e07c86e 1383
48370efc
JH
1384=item config.over and config.arch
1385
1386You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1387Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1388before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1389however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1390This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1391
1392There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1393config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1394architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1395hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1396
1397=item config.h
1398
1ec51d55
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1399Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1400Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1401The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1402
1ec51d55
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1403If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1404though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
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1405lost.
1406
1407=item cflags
1408
1409If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1410line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1411optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1412toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1413can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1414lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1415
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1416To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1417see the file hints/README.hints.
1418
1419To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1420$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1421
1422 sh Configure -S
1423 make depend
8e07c86e 1424
aa689395 1425=item No sh
8e07c86e 1426
c42e3e15
GS
1427If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1428Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1429system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
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1430You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1431mechanism.
1432
d6baa268
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1433=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1434
1435In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1436
1437Build a threading Perl? [n]
1438Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1439
1440This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1441(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1442"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1443to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1444being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1445'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1446(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1447
1448=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1449
1450If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1451that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1452HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1453fail
1454
1455Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1456Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1457sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1458
1459and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1460libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1461
c3edaffb 1462=item Porting information
1463
e6f03d26 1464Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1465corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1466including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c42e3e15 1467subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
c3edaffb 1468
7f678428 1469Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1470http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1471various other operating systems.
1472
491517e0
JA
1473If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1474section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1475in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1476Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1477
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1478=back
1479
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1480=head1 Adding extra modules to the build
1481
1482You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1483CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1484command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1485
1486 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1487
1488or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1489then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1490The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
fb80922b
NC
1491This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1492extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1493extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
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1494
1495Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1496modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1497or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1498do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1499
1500Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1501dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1502For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1503library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1504headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1505process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1506
707d3842 1507=head1 suidperl
03739d21 1508
707d3842 1509suidperl is an optional component, which is built or installed by default.
03739d21
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1510From perlfaq1:
1511
1512 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1513 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1514 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1515 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1516 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
707d3842 1517 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
03739d21
JH
1518 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1519 features of the kernel.
1520
707d3842 1521Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
03739d21 1522of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
707d3842 1523software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
03739d21
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1524should be considered deprecated.
1525Instead use for example 'sudo': http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/
1526
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1527=head1 make depend
1528
bfb7748a
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1529This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1530The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1531the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1532makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1533(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1534Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
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1535
1536Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1537explicitly above.
1538
1539=head1 make
1540
1541This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1542
a8eb0fba
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1543=head2 Expected errors
1544
1545These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1546
1547 ...
1548 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1549 ...
1550 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1551
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1552=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1553
8e07c86e 1554If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1555If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
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1556the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1557then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1558
1559=over 4
1560
1ec51d55 1561=item hints
8e07c86e
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1562
1563If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1564for further tips and information.
1565
1ec51d55 1566=item extensions
8e07c86e 1567
1ec51d55 1568If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 1569during the building of extensions, you should run
1570
3a6175e1 1571 make minitest
c3edaffb 1572
1573to test your version of miniperl.
1574
e57fd563 1575=item locale
1576
bfb7748a
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1577If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1578them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1579running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1580See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1581whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
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1582The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1583
1584 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1585 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1586 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1587 LANG = (unset)
1588 are supported and installed on your system.
1589 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1590
1591at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1592
7f678428 1593=item varargs
c3edaffb 1594
1595If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
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1596correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1597gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1598in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1599correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1600your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1601See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1602
bfb7748a 1603=item util.c
c3edaffb 1604
1605If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1606numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1607
bfb7748a
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1608 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1609 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1610 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1611
1612it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1613previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1614
1ec51d55 1615=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1616
1617If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1618the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1619Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1620fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1621of your local set-up.
1622
aa689395 1623=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1624
1625If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1626try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1627with
1628
1629 sh Configure -Uusenm
1630
1631or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1632If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1633config.sh.
1634
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1635=item umask not found
1636
1637If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1638is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1639Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1640this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1641try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1642
7f678428 1643=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1644
1645If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1646problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1647version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1648(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1649d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1650
1651 d_vprintf='define'
1652
1653If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1654on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1655the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1656
3fe9a6f1 1657=item do_aspawn
1658
1659If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1660problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
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1661fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1662on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1663
84902520
TB
1664=item __inet_* errors
1665
1666If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1667referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1668installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1669these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1670in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
5b7ea690
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1671newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1672If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1673with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1674test process to avoid the problem.
1675
1676=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1677
1678On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1679reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1680but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1681other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1682header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1683another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
1684Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
1685header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1686normally /usr/include).
84902520 1687
d6baa268
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1688=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1689
1690This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1691gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1692changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1693rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1694update your gcc installation.
1695
aa689395 1696=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1697
9d67150a 1698If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1699optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1700
1701 optimize='-O'
1702
bfb7748a 1703to
9d67150a 1704
1705 optimize=' '
1706
1707then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1708with B<make depend; make>.
1709
9d67150a 1710=item Missing functions
1711
1712If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1713other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1714there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
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1715likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1716you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
8e07c86e 1717
1ec51d55 1718=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1719
1ec51d55
CS
1720Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1721toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1722allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1723each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1724makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
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1725specific rule.
1726
7f678428 1727=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1728
c3edaffb 1729SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1730that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1731
f3d9a6ba 1732=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1733
1734If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1735the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1736then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1737Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1738systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1739For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1740unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1741they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1742reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1743process is continuing.
7f678428 1744
1745On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1746message
1747
f3d9a6ba 1748 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1749
1750then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1751the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1752extension without the -lgdbm library.
1753
1754It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1755this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1756quite that tightly coordinated.
1757
aa689395 1758=item sh: ar: not found
1759
1760This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1761was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1762make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1763is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1764directory.
1765
1766=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1767
1768Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1769with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1770bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1771
6087ac44
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1772=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1773
efb84706 1774If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1775V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1776also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1777to include the System V semaphores.
1778
efb84706 1779=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1780
1781Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1782both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1783ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1784with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1785system.
1786
d6baa268
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1787=item GNU binutils
1788
1789If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1790tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1791with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1792may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1793under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1794to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1795vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1796Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1797
16dc217a
GS
1798=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1799
1800The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1801make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1802archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1803C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1804archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1805incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1806official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1807that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1808archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1809
16dc217a
GS
1810=item invalid token: ##
1811
1812You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. See L<WARNING: This
fb80922b 1813version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.>
16dc217a 1814
1ec51d55 1815=item Miscellaneous
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1816
1817Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1818
1819Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1820
1821NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1822
9ede5bc8 1823UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1824
efb84706 1825FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1826configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
220f3621 1827you will get a message telling what to do.
6087ac44 1828
d6baa268
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1829HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1830Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1831tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1832break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1833(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1834
5a4eec7a
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1835Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1836installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1837and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1838the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1839view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1840to avoid the BIND.
1841
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1842=back
1843
58a21a9b
JH
1844=head2 Cross-compilation
1845
1846Starting from Perl 5.8 Perl has the beginnings of cross-compilation
1847support. What is known to work is running Configure in a
1848cross-compilation environment and building the miniperl executable.
65090350 1849What is known not to work is building the perl executable because
58a21a9b
JH
1850that would require building extensions: Dynaloader statically and
1851File::Glob dynamically, for extensions one needs MakeMaker and
1852MakeMaker is not yet cross-compilation aware, and neither is
1853the main Makefile.
1854
93bc48fa
JH
1855Since the functionality is so lacking, it must be considered
1856highly experimental. It is so experimental that it is not even
c80c8d62 1857mentioned during an interactive Configure session, a direct command
93bc48fa
JH
1858line invocation (detailed shortly) is required to access the
1859functionality.
1860
58a21a9b 1861 NOTE: Perl is routinely built using cross-compilation
403fd3c3
JH
1862 in the EPOC environment, in the WinCE, and in the OpenZaurus
1863 project, but all those use something slightly different setup
1864 than what described here. For the WinCE setup, read the
1865 wince/README.compile. For the OpenZaurus setup, read the
1866 Cross/README.
1867
1868The one environment where this cross-compilation setup has
1869successfully been used as of this writing is the Compaq iPAQ running
1870ARM Linux. The build host was Intel Linux, the networking setup was
1871PPP + SSH. The exact setup details are beyond the scope of this
1872document, see http://www.handhelds.org/ for more information.
58a21a9b
JH
1873
1874To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch is
1875C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
1876
1877 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1878
1879This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1880symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
1881
1882During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1883into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1884cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1885target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1886transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1887the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1888methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1889F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1890
1891To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1892the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1893happens), supply Configure with
1894
1895 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1896
1897The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1898must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1899You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1900
1901 -Dtargetuser=luser
1902
1903but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1904
93bc48fa
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1905Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1906which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1907This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1908In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1909environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1910
1911 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1912 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1913 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1914 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1915 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1916
1917If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1918compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1919C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
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1920(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1921as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1922will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1923in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1924
1925In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1926choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1927for example:
1928
1929 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1930
1931Putting it all together:
1932
1933 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1934 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1935 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
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1936 -Dtargetuser=root \
1937 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1938 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1939 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1940 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1941 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1942 -D...
1943
93bc48fa
JH
1944or if you are happy with the defaults
1945
1946 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1947 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1948 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1949 -D...
1950
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1951=head1 make test
1952
d6baa268
JH
1953This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1954'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1955wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1956
84902520 1957Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1958opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1959a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1960
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1961=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1962
1ec51d55
CS
1963If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1964by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1965bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
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1966
1967 ./perl op/groups.t
1968
aa689395 1969Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1970individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1971
1972 ./perl harness
1973
fb73857a 1974(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831
JH
1975complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
1976need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
1977PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
1978right Perl library path:
1979
1980 setenv PERL_CORE 1
1981 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
1982 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 1983
5cda700b 1984(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 1985You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1986comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1987shared library path if you get errors like:
1988
1989 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1990
1991See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1992
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1993=over 4
1994
1995=item locale
1996
1ec51d55 1997Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1998may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1999B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2000one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2001LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2002are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2003
2004If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2005
2006 setenv LC_ALL C
2007
2008(for C shell) or
2009
2010 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2011
1ec51d55
CS
2012for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2013make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2014is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2015shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2016things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2017open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2018external program.
eed2e782 2019
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2020=item Timing problems
2021
c29923ff
JH
2022Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2023sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2024If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2025these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2026with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2027and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2028F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2029F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2030
c4f23d77
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2031=item Out of memory
2032
2033On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2034of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2035For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2036test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
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2037
2038Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2039
2040 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2041
2042to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2043test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2044tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2045and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2046
650939d2
JH
2047=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2048
2049First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2050real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2051
2052Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2053directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2054systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2055run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2056test').
2057
2058The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2059
2060(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2061other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2062
2063This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2064unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2065are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2066
2067(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2068by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2069UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2070add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2071used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2072set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2073file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2074others.)
2075
2076This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2077permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2078also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2079is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2080should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2081supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2082used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
208311.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2084on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2085local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2086
b2b23189
JH
2087(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2088any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2089directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
650939d2
JH
2090(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2091building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2092module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2093
2094See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
650939d2 2095about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2096
c4f23d77
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2097=back
2098
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2099=head1 make install
2100
2101This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2102Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2103to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2104pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e
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2105are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
2106ignore any messages about chown not working.
2107
dd64f1c3
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2108=head2 Installing perl under different names
2109
2110If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2111when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2112indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2113
2114 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2115
beb13193
RS
2116You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2117"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2118
2119 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2120
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2121This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2122avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2123Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
beb13193 2124
dd64f1c3
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2125=head2 Installed files
2126
8e07c86e
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2127If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2128anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2129
8e07c86e
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2130 ./perl installperl -n
2131 ./perl installman -n
2132
1ec51d55 2133make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2134
d56c5707
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2135 binaries
2136
8e07c86e
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2137 perl,
2138 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
2139 will be a link to perl.
707d3842
NC
2140 suidperl,
2141 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2142 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
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2143
2144 scripts
2145
8e07c86e
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2146 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2147 read from stdin.
2148 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2149 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2150 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2151 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2152 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2153 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2154 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2155 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2156 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2157 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
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2158 pod2man,
2159 pod2text,
2160 pod2checker,
2161 pod2select,
2162 pod2usage
aa689395 2163 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2164 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2165
d56c5707
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2166 library files
2167
2168 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2169 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
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2170
2171 documentation
2172
d6baa268
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2173 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2174 module man
2175 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
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2176 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2177
d6baa268
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2178Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2179in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2180
d56c5707 2181Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2182under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
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2183optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2184program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2185
d56c5707
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2186Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2187installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2188perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2189disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2190To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2191
2192 Configure -Dversiononly
2193
2194or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2195you can just manually run
2196
2197 ./perl installperl -v
2198
2199and skip installman altogether.
2200See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2201approach.
2202
aa689395 2203=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2204
14eee2f1 2205Perl 5.8 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2206In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2207
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2208In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
22095.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
2210all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2211around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2212For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 2213with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4
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2214top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
2215#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
2216
e655887d
CB
2217Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to
2218use with a newer version of Perl (the Perl 5.6 to Perl 5.8 transition
2219being an exception). Here is how it is supposed to work. (These
2220examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2221
d6baa268
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2222Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2223searched by 5.005_03 are
2224
2225 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2226 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2227 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2228 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2229
0a08c020
GS
2230Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2231fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2232searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2233
0a08c020
GS
2234 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2235 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2236 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2237 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268
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2238
2239 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2240 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2241 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2242
c42e3e15 2243Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268
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2244of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2245directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2246to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2247suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020
GS
2248present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2249/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2250but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2251
c42e3e15 2252The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 22535.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2254
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2255Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2256with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2257Configure defaults) will be:
2258
2259 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2260 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2261 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2262 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2263
0a08c020 2264 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2265
d6baa268 2266 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2267
d6baa268 2268 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2269
cc65bb49
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2270Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2271modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2272
0a08c020 2273Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 22745.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
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2275extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2276of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2277newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2278compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2279installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
22805.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
22815.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2282install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
22835.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020
GS
2284
2285This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2286to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2287versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
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2288
2289=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2290
1ec51d55 2291Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2292separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2293won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2294libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2295way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2296
46bb10fb 2297 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 2298
46bb10fb 2299and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2300may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2301scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2302
693762b4 2303Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2304(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
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2305each major version.
2306
6877a1cf
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2307If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2308seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2309subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2310yet.
2311
e655887d 2312=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2313
e655887d
CB
2314B<Perl 5.8.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, 5.005,
2315and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2316(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
2317used with 5.8.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23185.8.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 or 5.6.0
2319installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2320above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2321
2322See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2323incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2324perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2325
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2326=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2327
2328You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2329
1ec51d55
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2330By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2331they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e
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2332
2333In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2334perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e
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2335process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2336However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268
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2337the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
2338whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
2339possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2340
aa689395 2341=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2342
d6baa268
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2343Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2344system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2345header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268
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2346by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2347library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2348
d6baa268
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2349Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2350of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2351hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2352For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2353structures.
aa689395 2354
fb73857a 2355=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2356
3e3baf6d
TB
2357Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2358format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2359documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2360
d6baa268
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2361Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2362html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2363
fb73857a 2364The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2365perl documentation:
aa689395 2366
3e3baf6d
TB
2367 ./installhtml \
2368 --podroot=. \
2369 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2370 --recurse \
2371 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2372 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2373 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2374 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2375 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2376 --verbose
2377
2378See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2379many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2380see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2381resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2382(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2383
fb73857a 2384You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2385the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2386
aa689395 2387=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2388
2389Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2390available in TeX format. Type
2391
2392 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2393
8ebf57cf
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2394=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2395
2396The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2397Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2398operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2399
c8214fdf 2400Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
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2401Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2402space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2403Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
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2404programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2405depends on what do you need to do.
2406
8ebf57cf
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2407In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2408recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2409depends on what you need.
2410
2411Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2412
2413 use strict;
2414 use warnings;
2415 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2416 print("$f\n");
2417 }
2418
2419in Solaris is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
2420
2421 ./bin/perl
2422 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2423 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2424 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2425 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2426 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2427 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/auto/File/Glob/autosplit.ix
2428 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/Config.pm
2429 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/XSLoader.pm
2430 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/DynaLoader.pm
2431 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/sun4-solaris-64int/CORE/libperl.so
2432 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/strict.pm
2433 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/warnings.pm
2434 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Carp.pm
2435 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Exporter.pm
2436 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/File/Glob.pm
2437 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/AutoLoader.pm
2438 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/vars.pm
2439 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/warnings/register.pm
2440 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2441 ./lib/perl5/5.6.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2442
2443Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
2444size about 1.2MB in its i386 version:
2445
2446 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2447 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
2448 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
2449 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
2450 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
2451 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
2452 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/AutoLoader.pm
2453 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Carp.pm
2454 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2455 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Cwd.pm
2456 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Exporter.pm
2457 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2458 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/File/Spec.pm
2459 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2460 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/FileHandle.pm
2461 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2462 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2463 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2464 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2465 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2466 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/SelectSaver.pm
2467 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Symbol.pm
2468 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2469 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2470 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/attributes.pm
2471 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/GetOptions.al
2472 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/FindOption.al
2473 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/Configure.al
2474 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/config.al
2475 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/Croak.al
2476 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/auto/Getopt/Long/autosplit.ix
2477 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/base.pm
2478 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/constant.pm
2479 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/fields.pm
2480 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/integer.pm
2481 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/lib.pm
2482 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/locale.pm
2483 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/overload.pm
2484 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/strict.pm
2485 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/vars.pm
2486 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/warnings.pm
2487 /usr/share/perl/5.6.1/warnings/register.pm
2488 /usr/bin/perl
2489 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Config.pm
2490 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Data/Dumper.pm
2491 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/DynaLoader.pm
2492 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Errno.pm
2493 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Fcntl.pm
2494 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/File/Glob.pm
2495 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO.pm
2496 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/File.pm
2497 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Handle.pm
2498 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2499 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2500 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Select.pm
2501 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/IO/Socket.pm
2502 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/POSIX.pm
2503 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/Socket.pm
2504 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/XSLoader.pm
2505 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2506 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2507 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2508 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2509 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2510 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2511 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2512 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2513 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2514 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2515 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2516 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2517 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/File/Glob/autosplit.ix
2518 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2519 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/IO/IO.bs
2520 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2521 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2522 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2523 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2524 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2525 /usr/lib/perl/5.6.1/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2526
aa689395 2527=head1 Reporting Problems
2528
bfb7748a
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2529If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
2530helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
2531pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
7f2de2d2 2532to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.org with
bfb7748a 2533an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 2534
bfb7748a
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2535Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
2536the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
2537comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
2538before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
f5b3b617 2539run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
aa689395 2540
694a7e45
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2541Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
2542information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
2543Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
2544complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
d6baa268 2545commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
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2546are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
2547usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
2548reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
2549will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
2550try to keep it brief but clear.
aa689395 2551
8e07c86e
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2552=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2553
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2554Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2555is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2556build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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2557can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2558sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2559
1ec51d55 2560Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
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2561along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2562running (either):
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RM
2563
2564 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2565 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
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RM
2566
2567This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2568(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2569set-up.)
34a2a22e 2570
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2571Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2572the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2573the documentation.
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2575=head1 AUTHOR
2576
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2577Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2578heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2579feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
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2581If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2582L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2583
2584=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2585
2586This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2587the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2588If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
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2589a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2590and the contact information to match your distribution.