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1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
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5=head1 NAME
6
7df75831 7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
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8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
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12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
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15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
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25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
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29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
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31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
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34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
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39Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C-Compiler.
40A minimum of C89 is required. Some features available in C99 will
41be probed for and used when found. The perl build process does not
42rely on anything more than C89.
43
ff52061e 44These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 45
8d74ce1c 46If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 47L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 48
7beaa944 49For information on what's new in this release, see the
37ee6528 50pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 51specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 52
1ec51d55 53=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 54
c3edaffb 55This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
56structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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57read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
58by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
59
60 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
61 C<code> literal code
62 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 63 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 64
c42e3e15 65Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 66you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 67proceeding.
c3edaffb 68
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69In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
70your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
71instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
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72system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
73for even more information.
c42e3e15 74
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75For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
76L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
77directory.
d56c5707 78
ce80d64e 79=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 80
ce80d64e 81=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 82
37ee6528 83Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
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84potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
85the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
37ee6528 86to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 87
fdd3cf50 88B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 89If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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90using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
91those extensions.
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92
93Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 94without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 95L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
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96
97The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
98
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99On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
100in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
37ee6528 101pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
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102installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
103list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
104way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 105
aa689395 106=head1 Run Configure
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107
108Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
109things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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110you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
111almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
112since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
113the same function.
114
ce80d64e 115At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 116defaults from then on.
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117
118After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 119*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 120
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121The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
122files.
123
ce80d64e 124=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 125
ce80d64e 126Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 127
ce80d64e 128 Configure -h
d6baa268 129
ce80d64e 130to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 131Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
132
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133=over 4
134
08854360 135=item C compiler
d6baa268 136
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137To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
138system, you should run
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139
140 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
141
08854360 142This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
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143compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
144
d6baa268 145=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 146
8e07c86e 147By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 148/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 149and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
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150further details.)
151
152You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 153directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 154line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 155
25f94b33 156 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 157
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158If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
159directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
160prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
161/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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162for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
163or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 164
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165NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
166as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
167attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 168
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169=item /usr/bin/perl
170
171It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
172find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 173/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 174careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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175vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
176on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
177configured may be found with
178
179 perl -V:config_args
180
181(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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182spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
183at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 184
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185By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
186version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 187
7d56c962 188 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 189
7d56c962 190or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 191
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192In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
193(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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194into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
195obvious and convenient place.
196
71c4561b 197=item Building a development release
04d420f9 198
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199For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
200use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
201because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
202Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
203sanity check.
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204
205=back
8e07c86e 206
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207If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
208output, you can run
209
210 sh Configure -des
211
dd3196cd 212=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 213
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214For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
215be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
216have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
217after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
218For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
219invocations:
46bb10fb 220
08854360 221 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 222
5247441a 223To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
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224Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
225variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
226But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 227
ce80d64e 228For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 229
ce80d64e 230 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 231
ce80d64e 232=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 233
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234There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
235system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
236Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
237some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 238
ce80d64e 239=head3 Threads
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241On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
242enable this, run
4633a7c4 243
ce80d64e 244 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 245
ce80d64e 246The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 247
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248Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
249model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
250called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
251thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 252(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 253
ce80d64e 254The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
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255'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
256ithreads model.
d6baa268 257
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258When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
259the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
260This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
261fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
262PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
263way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 264C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 265
08854360 266=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 267
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268Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2692 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
270support is on by default.
d6baa268 271
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272This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
273seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
274using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
275be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
276parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 277will happen.
d6baa268 278
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279There's also one known limitation with the current large files
280implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
281section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
282like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 283
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284If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
285
286 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
287
08854360 288=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 289
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290If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
291them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 292you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 293
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294There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
295using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
296-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
297the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 298
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299The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
30064-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
301longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
302your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
303does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
304might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
305you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 306
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307The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
308integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
309create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
310resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
311have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
312aware.
d6baa268 313
08854360 314Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
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315On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
316is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
317Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 318options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 319
ce80d64e 320=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 321
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322In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
323range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
324(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
325this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 326
ce80d64e 327=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 328
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329You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
330and the long double support.
b367e8b0 331
ce80d64e 332=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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333
334In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
335Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 336enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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337a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
338and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
339
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340In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
341create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
342the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
343in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
344data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
345certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
346
347In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
348elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
349basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
350then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
351adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
352existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
353specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
354data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
355randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
356is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
357
358One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
359vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
360variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
361is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 362example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
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363which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
364variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
365the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 366
3debabd9 367B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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368ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3695. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 370be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 371randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 372between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
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373hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
374recommended.
504f80c1 375
ce80d64e 376=head3 SOCKS
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377
378Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
379TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
380access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
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381Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
382You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
383L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 384
ce80d64e 385=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 386
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387By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
388If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
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389statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
390you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
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391With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
392(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 393
ce80d64e 394=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 395
396Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
397linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 398extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 399
08854360 400On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 401replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 402several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
403different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 404you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 405can share the same library.
406
407The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 408penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 409mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 410and upgrades.
411
412In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 413test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 414Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
415results.
416
417The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 418libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 419libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 420based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
421version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
422isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
423
c3edaffb 424You can elect to build a shared libperl by
425
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426 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
427
428To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
429library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
430NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
431for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
432the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
433be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
434library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
435variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
436
437 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
438
439However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
440shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
441something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
442./perl:
443
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444 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
445
ce80d64e 446or
08854360 447
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448 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
449
450then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
451You can do this with
452
453 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
454
455for Bourne-style shells, or
456
457 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
458
459for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
460unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
461again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
462
463You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
464messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
465for example:
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466
467 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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468
469There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
470want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
471with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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472install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
473try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
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474the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
475ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
476libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
477that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
478in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
479equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
480with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
481LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
482Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
483_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
484
485In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
486with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
487previous build.
488
489A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
490architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
491You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
492point to your new architecture-dependent library.
493
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494=head3 Environment access
495
496Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
497is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
498leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
499to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
500whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
501but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
502embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
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503by compiling with C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section
504L</"Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.">.
505You can force an embedded perl to use direct manipulation by setting
506C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the C<perl_construct()> call.
575e1338 507
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508=head2 Installation Directories
509
510The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
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511appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
512questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
513slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
514you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
515from then on. Alternatively, you can
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516
517 grep '^install' config.sh
518
519after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
520
521The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
522people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
523distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
524need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
525you can safely skip the next section.
526
527The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
528
529=over 4
530
531=item Directories for the perl distribution
532
aff3bd8f 533By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.13.4.
ce80d64e 534$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
aff3bd8f 5355.13.4 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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536determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
537variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
538
539 Configure variable Default value
540 $prefixexp /usr/local
541 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
542 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
543 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
544 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
545 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
546 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
547 $html1direxp (none)
548 $html3direxp (none)
549
550$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
551directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
552file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
553variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
554
555Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
556/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
557instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
558directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
559the common style is shown here.
560
561=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
562
563After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
564CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
565be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
566
567 Configure variable Default value
568 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
569 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
570 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
571 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
572 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
573 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
574 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
575 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
576 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
577
578By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
579modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
580
581=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
582
583Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
584distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
585for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
586
587 Configure variable Default value
588 $vendorprefixexp (none)
589 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
590 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
591 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
592 $vendorlibexp
593 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
594 $vendorarchexp
595 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
596 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
597 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
598 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
599 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
600
601These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
602a vendor might choose the following settings:
603
604 $prefix /usr
605 $siteprefix /usr/local
606 $vendorprefix /usr
607
608This would have the effect of setting the following:
609
610 $binexp /usr/bin
611 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
612 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
613 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
614 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
615 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
616
617 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
618 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
619 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
620 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
621 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
622 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
623
624 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
625 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
626 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
627 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
628 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
629 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
630
631Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
632/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
633the /usr/local hierarchy.
634
635The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
636version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
637However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
638installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 639See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
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640on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
641
642Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
643example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
644are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
645site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
646network. One way to do that would be something like
647
648 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
649
650=item otherlibdirs
651
652As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
653variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
654directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
655Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
656version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
657
658For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
659installation, perhaps in a strange place:
660
661 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
662
663=item APPLLIB_EXP
664
665There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
666that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
667separated list of directories, like this
668
669 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
670
671The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
672ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
673modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
674touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
675version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
676present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
677directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
678run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
679
785aa5e3 680=item usesitecustomize
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681
682Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
683
36de116d 684 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 685
785aa5e3
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686which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
687When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
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688anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
689entries to @INC.
690
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691=item Man Pages
692
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693By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
694are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
695want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
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696
697 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
698
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699=item HTML pages
700
701Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
702HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
703add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
704variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
705documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
706eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
707
708=back
709
710Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
711to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
712architectures.
713
714Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
715directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
716filesystem.
c3edaffb 717
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718Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
719development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 720discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 721
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722If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
723library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
724suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 725
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726Thus, for example, if you Configure with
727-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 728
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729 Configure variable Default value
730 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
731 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
732 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
733 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 734
ce80d64e 735=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 736
ce80d64e 737Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 738associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
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739will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
740sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
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741However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
742dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
743wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
744to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
745
746=over 4
747
748=item installprefix
c3edaffb 749
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750To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
751command line:
c3edaffb 752
7df75831 753 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 754
ce80d64e 755(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 756
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757Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
758modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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759follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
760as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 761
7df75831 762=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 763
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764If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
765to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
766multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
767archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
768using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
769automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
770simply do:
830717a7 771
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772 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
773 make
774 make test
775 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
776 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
777 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 778
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779=back
780
32878f30
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781=head2 Relocatable @INC
782
783To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
784
785 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
786
787Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
788optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
789
790That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
791path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
792can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
793"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
794install is done to the original configured prefix.
795
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796This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
797("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
798rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
799
ce80d64e 800=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 801
ce80d64e 802After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
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803answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
804If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
805defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
806directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 807generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 808different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
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809you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
810example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
811as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 812
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813Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
814answers, you should
c3edaffb 815
ce80d64e 816 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 817
ce80d64e 818to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 819
ce80d64e 820Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 821
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822If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
823to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
824platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 825
ce80d64e 826=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 827
ce80d64e 828Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
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829installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
830and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
831being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
832variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 833
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834To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
835modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 836
ce80d64e 837 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 838
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839When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
840$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 841
ce80d64e 842=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 843
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844Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
845where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
846read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
847architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
848links) by
06c896bb 849
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850 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
851 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
852 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 853
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854This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
855pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
856unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 857
ce80d64e 858 make
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859 make test
860 make install
06c896bb 861
ce80d64e 862as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 863
3bf462b8
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864=head2 Building a debugging perl
865
866You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 867B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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868you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
869(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
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870system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
871use the parameter:
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873 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
874
875or
876
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877 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
878
879For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
880for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
881to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
882
7df75831 883Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 884
7df75831 885=over 4
3bf462b8 886
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887=item -DDEBUGGING
888
889=item -DEBUGGING
890
891=item -DEBUGGING=both
892
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893Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
894
895You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
896but usually it's convenient to have both.
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897
898=item -DEBUGGING=-g
899
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900=item -Doptimize=-g
901
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902Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
903
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904(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
905Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
906
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907=item -DEBUGGING=none
908
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909=item -UDEBUGGING
910
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911Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
912
913=back
914
3bf462b8 915If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 916versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 917
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918Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be bigger and will run more
919slowly than a standard perl.
920
921=head2 DTrace support
922
923On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
924using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
925subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
926simple D script that uses them:
927
928 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
929 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
930 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
931 }
932
933
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934=head2 Extensions
935
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936Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
937in the ext/ subdirectory.
938
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939By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
940to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 941only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
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942
943To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
944-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
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945a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
946listed in
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947C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
948the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
949extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
950certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
951examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
952these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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953
954Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
955the extensions you want.
956
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957If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
958running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
959extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
960it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
961has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
962extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
963convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
964you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
965dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
966Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
967L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 968
dd3196cd 969If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
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970adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
971for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
972you.
973
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974=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
975
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976Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
977dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 978Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
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979automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
980to be specified explicitely (see L<Threads>).
981
982Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
983for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
984compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
985option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
986directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
987need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
988by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 989
ce80d64e 990=head3 Examples
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991
992=over 4
993
994=item gdbm in /usr/local
995
996Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 997GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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998installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
999/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1000necessary steps out automatically.
1001
1002Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
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1003your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1004not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1005you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
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1006
1007If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1008linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1009-L/usr/local/lib.
1010
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1011Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1012you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1013/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1014
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1015=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1016
1017The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by sleepycat.com installs in a
1018version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1019/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1020-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1021and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1022Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1023add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1024add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1025BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1026
1027It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
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1028line):
1029
7df75831 1030 sh Configure -de \
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1031 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include /usr/local/include' \
1032 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1033 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
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1034
1035locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1036Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1037
1038loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1039Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1040
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1041The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1042the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1043Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1044system.
8d74ce1c
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1045
1046=back
1047
ce80d64e
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1048=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1049
dd3196cd
RGS
1050If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1051Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1052need to use B<Configure -O>.
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1053
1054=head2 GNU-style configure
1055
1056If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1057use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1058
1059 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1060
1061The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1062options. Try
1063
1064 ./configure.gnu --help
1065
1066for a listing.
1067
1068(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1069that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1070
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1071=head2 Malloc Issues
1072
1073Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1074so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1075the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1076version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1077perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1078than your system malloc.
1079
1080However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1081experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1082that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1083(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1084
1085=over 4
1086
1087=item Using the system malloc
1088
1089To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1090
1091 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1092
1093or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1094
73d6d1b0
RGS
1095Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1096depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1097systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1098See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1099default is set.
1100
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1101=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1102
1103NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1104run Configure to accept all the defaults.
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1105
1106Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1107Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1108These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1109
1110If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1111will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1112sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1113been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1114
1115Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1116from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1117does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1118versions.
1119
1120=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1121
1122This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1123Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1124using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1125
7df75831 1126 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
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1127
1128to enable this option.
1129
1130=back
1131
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1132=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1133
8d74ce1c 1134If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1135If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1136
8e07c86e
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1137=over 4
1138
25f94b33
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1139=item Running Configure Interactively
1140
1141If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1142Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1143guesses.
1144
1145All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1146have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1147flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1148will use the defaults from then on.
1149
1150If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1151config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1152instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1153
aa689395 1154=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1155
a0a8d9d3
DD
1156Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1157
1158=over 4
1159
1160=item o
1161
1162The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1163library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1164and so on.
1165
1166=item o
1167
1168The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1169although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1170resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1171
1172=item o
1173
1174How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1175speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1176implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1177often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1178
1179=back
1180
1181The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1182in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1183will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1184not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
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1185
1186Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
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1187If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1188for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1189More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1190file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1191
1192Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1193Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1194
73d6d1b0 1195=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1196
82c11e95
RGS
1197If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1198different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1199always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1200on your system.
edb1cbcb 1201
1202For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1203and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1204Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1205Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1206issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1207
1208 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1209 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1210 Keep the previous value? [y]
1211
1ec51d55 1212In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1213should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1214the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1215
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1216=item Changing Compilers
1217
1218If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1219probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1220rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1221
c3edaffb 1222=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1223
1ec51d55
CS
1224If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1225them to all the .SH files by running
1226
1227 sh Configure -S
1228
1229You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1230
1231 make depend
1232 make
8e07c86e 1233
48370efc
JH
1234=item config.over and config.arch
1235
1236You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1237Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1238before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1239however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1240This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1241
1242There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1243config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1244architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1245hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1246
1247=item config.h
1248
1ec51d55
CS
1249Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1250Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1251The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1252
1ec51d55
CS
1253If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1254though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1255lost.
1256
1257=item cflags
1258
1259If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1260line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1261optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1262toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1263can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1264lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1265
f5b3b617
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1266To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1267see the file hints/README.hints.
1268
1269To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1270$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1271
1272 sh Configure -S
1273 make depend
8e07c86e 1274
aa689395 1275=item No sh
8e07c86e 1276
c42e3e15
GS
1277If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1278Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1279system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1280You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1281mechanism.
1282
c3edaffb 1283=item Porting information
1284
e6f03d26 1285Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1286corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1287including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1288subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1289
7f678428 1290Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1291http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1292various other operating systems.
1293
ce80d64e 1294If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1295section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
8502f9cc 1296in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlrepository.pod.
491517e0
JA
1297Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1298
8e07c86e
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1299=back
1300
ce80d64e 1301=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1302
1303You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1304CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1305command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1306
d3df0cfd 1307 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1308
1309or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1310then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1311The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
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1312This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1313extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1314extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1315
1316Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1317modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1318or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1319do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1320
1321Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1322dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1323For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1324headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1325process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1326
ce80d64e 1327=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1328
172dd959
JV
1329suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1330longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1331changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1332
8e07c86e
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1333=head1 make depend
1334
bfb7748a
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1335This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1336The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1337the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1338makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
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1339(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1340Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
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1341
1342Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1343explicitly above.
1344
1345=head1 make
1346
1347This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1348
8d410bc4
YST
1349=head2 Expected errors
1350
f5b5f377 1351These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1352
1353 ...
1354 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1355 ...
1356 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1357
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1358=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1359
8e07c86e 1360If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1361If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1362the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1363then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1364
1365=over 4
1366
1ec51d55 1367=item hints
8e07c86e
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1368
1369If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1370for further tips and information.
1371
1ec51d55 1372=item extensions
8e07c86e 1373
1ec51d55 1374If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1375during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1376
3a6175e1 1377 make minitest
c3edaffb 1378
1379to test your version of miniperl.
1380
e57fd563 1381=item locale
1382
bfb7748a
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1383If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1384them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1385running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1386See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1387whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1388The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1389
1390 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1391 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1392 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1393 LANG = (unset)
1394 are supported and installed on your system.
1395 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1396
1397at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1398
06aa495b
DM
1399=item other environment variables
1400
1401Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1402have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1403OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1404their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1405behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1406executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1407PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1408So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1409retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1410
7f678428 1411=item varargs
c3edaffb 1412
1413If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1414correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1415gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1416in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1417correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1418your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1419See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1420
bfb7748a 1421=item util.c
c3edaffb 1422
1423If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1424numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1425
bfb7748a
AD
1426 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1427 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1428 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1429
1430it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1431previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1432
1ec51d55 1433=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1434
1435If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1436the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1437Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1438fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1439of your local set-up.
1440
aa689395 1441=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1442
1443If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1444try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1445with
1446
1447 sh Configure -Uusenm
1448
1449or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1450If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1451config.sh.
1452
bfb7748a
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1453=item umask not found
1454
1455If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1456is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1457Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1458this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1459try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1460
7f678428 1461=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1462
1463If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1464problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1465version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1466(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1467d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1468
1469 d_vprintf='define'
1470
1471If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1472on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1473the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1474
3fe9a6f1 1475=item do_aspawn
1476
1477If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1478problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
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1479fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1480on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1481
84902520
TB
1482=item __inet_* errors
1483
1484If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1485referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1486installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1487these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1488in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1489newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1490If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1491with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1492test process to avoid the problem.
1493
73d6d1b0 1494=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1495
1496On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1497reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1498but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1499other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1500header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1501another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1502Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1503header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1504normally /usr/include).
84902520 1505
d6baa268
JH
1506=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1507
1508This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1509gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1510changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1511rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1512update your gcc installation.
1513
aa689395 1514=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1515
9d67150a 1516If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1517optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1518
1519 optimize='-O'
1520
bfb7748a 1521to
9d67150a 1522
1523 optimize=' '
1524
1525then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1526with B<make depend; make>.
1527
4bbc1586 1528=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1529
4bbc1586
AD
1530If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1531undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1532should look something like
1533
1534 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1535
1536The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1537need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1538will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1539need to start all over again. Run
1540
1541 make distclean
1542
1543and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1544what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1545Configure.
1546
1547If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1548L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1549
1550If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1551need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1552that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1553you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1554look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1555
1ec51d55 1556=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1557
1ec51d55
CS
1558Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1559toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1560allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1561each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1562makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1563specific rule.
1564
7f678428 1565=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1566
c3edaffb 1567SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1568that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1569
1bb125e2
MB
1570=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1571
1572Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1573error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1574
1575 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1576
1577 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1578
1579 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1580
1581 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1582 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1583 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1584
1585 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1586
1587 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1588 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1589
f3d9a6ba 1590=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1591
1592If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1593the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1594then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1595Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1596systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
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1597Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1598phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1599unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1600
1601On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1602message
1603
f3d9a6ba 1604 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1605
1606then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1607the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1608extension without the -lgdbm library.
1609
1610It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1611this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1612quite that tightly coordinated.
1613
aa689395 1614=item sh: ar: not found
1615
1616This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1617was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1618make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1619is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1620directory.
1621
1622=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1623
1624Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1625with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1626bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1627
6087ac44
JH
1628=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1629
11906ba0 1630If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1631V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1632also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1633to include the System V semaphores.
1634
11906ba0 1635=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1636
1637Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1638both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1639ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1640with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1641system.
1642
d6baa268
JH
1643=item GNU binutils
1644
1645If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1646tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1647with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1648may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1649under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1650to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1651vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1652Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1653
16dc217a
GS
1654=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1655
1656The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1657make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1658archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1659C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1660archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1661incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1662official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1663that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1664archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1665
16dc217a
GS
1666=item invalid token: ##
1667
ce80d64e
AD
1668You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1669need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1670file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1671options.
16dc217a 1672
1ec51d55 1673=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1674
7df75831 1675Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1676
1677Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1678
1679NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1680
9ede5bc8 1681UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1682
11906ba0 1683FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1684configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1685you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1686
6c8d78fb
HS
1687Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1688installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1689and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1690the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1691view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1692to avoid the BIND.
1693
8e07c86e
AD
1694=back
1695
58a21a9b
JH
1696=head2 Cross-compilation
1697
e7a3c61b
JH
1698Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1699rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1700June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1701the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1702while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1703platforms.
1704
1705What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1706cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1707up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1708(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1709awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1710version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1711cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1712
1713See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1714the particular platforms:
1715
1716=over 4
1717
1718=item WinCE/PocketPC
1719
75472953 1720README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1721
1722=item Open Zaurus
1723
1724Cross/README
1725
1726=item EPOC
1727
1728README.epoc
1729
1730=item Symbian
1731
1732README.symbian
1733
1734=item OS/400
1735
1736README.os400
1737
1738=back
1739
1740Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1741modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1742cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1743platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1744L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1745of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1746
1747For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1748C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1749directory>.
1750
1751About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1752work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1753building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1754building the perl executable because that would require building
1755extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1756extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1757cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1758
1759The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1760at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1761both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1762cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1763target system.
1764
1765To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1766has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1767
1768 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1769
1770This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1771symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1772for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1773
1774During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1775into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1776cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1777target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1778transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1779the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1780methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1781F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1782
1783To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1784the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1785happens), supply Configure with
1786
1787 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1788
1789The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1790must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1791You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1792
1793 -Dtargetuser=luser
1794
1795but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1796
93bc48fa
JH
1797Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1798which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1799This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1800In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1801environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1802
1803 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1804 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1805 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1806 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1807 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1808
1809If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1810compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1811C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1812(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1813as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1814will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1815in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1816
1817In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1818choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1819for example:
1820
1821 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1822
1823Putting it all together:
1824
1825 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1826 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1827 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1828 -Dtargetuser=root \
1829 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1830 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1831 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1832 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1833 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1834 -D...
1835
e7a3c61b 1836or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1837
1838 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1839 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1840 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1841 -D...
1842
e7a3c61b
JH
1843Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1844F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1845
1846 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1847 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1848 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1849 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1850 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1851 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1852
8e07c86e
AD
1853=head1 make test
1854
d6baa268
JH
1855This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1856'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1857wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1858
84902520 1859Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1860opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1861a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1862
c4f23d77
AD
1863=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1864
1ec51d55
CS
1865If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1866by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1867bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1868
761cea1c 1869 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
8e07c86e 1870
aa689395 1871Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1872individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1873
785aa5e3 1874 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1875
fb73857a 1876(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1877complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1878will run all tests.
10c7e831 1879
fb73857a 1880You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1881comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1882shared library path if you get errors like:
1883
1884 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1885
1886See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1887
c4f23d77
AD
1888=over 4
1889
1890=item locale
1891
1ec51d55 1892Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1893may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 1894'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1895one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1896LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1897are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1898
1899If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1900
1901 setenv LC_ALL C
1902
1903(for C shell) or
1904
1905 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1906
1ec51d55
CS
1907for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1908make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1909is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1910shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1911things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1912open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1913external program.
eed2e782 1914
0740bb5b
AD
1915=item Timing problems
1916
c29923ff
JH
1917Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1918sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
1919If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1920these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1921with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1922and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
1923F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
1924F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 1925F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1926
f89caa8d
RGS
1927You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
1928perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
1929different.
1930
c4f23d77
AD
1931=item Out of memory
1932
1933On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1934of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1935For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1936test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1937
1938Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1939
785aa5e3 1940 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
1941
1942to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1943test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1944tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1945and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1946
a55bb48b
AD
1947=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
1948
1949This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
1950a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
1951(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
1952shared library should fix the problem.
1953
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AD
1954=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1955
1956First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1957real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1958
1959Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1960directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1961systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1962run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1963test').
1964
1965The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1966
1967(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1968other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1969
1970This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
1971unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
1972are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1973
1974(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1975by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
1976UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
1977add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
1978used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
1979set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
1980file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
1981others.)
1982
1983This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
1984permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
1985also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
1986is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
1987should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
1988supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
1989used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
199011.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
1991on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
1992local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 1993
b2b23189
JH
1994(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
1995any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
1996directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
1997(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
1998building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
1999module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2000
2001See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2002about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2003
c4f23d77
AD
2004=back
2005
5ee651a9
NC
2006The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2007Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2008your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2009C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2010
2011 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2012
2013An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2014L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2015scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2016interact with their job schedulers.
2017
8e07c86e
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2018=head1 make install
2019
2020This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2021Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2022to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2023pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
2024are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2025in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2026
2027If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2028similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2029and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2030by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2031
dd64f1c3
AD
2032=head2 Installing perl under different names
2033
2034If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2035when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2036indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2037
2038 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2039
beb13193 2040You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2041"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2042
2043 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2044
5cda700b
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2045This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2046avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2047Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2048
ce80d64e
AD
2049=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2050
2051You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2052the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2053
2054 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2055
2056DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2057the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2058
dd64f1c3
AD
2059=head2 Installed files
2060
8e07c86e
AD
2061If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2062anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2063
8e07c86e
AD
2064 ./perl installperl -n
2065 ./perl installman -n
2066
1ec51d55 2067make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2068
d56c5707
JH
2069 binaries
2070
8e07c86e 2071 perl,
be8498a1 2072 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e
AD
2073 will be a link to perl.
2074 suidperl,
be8498a1 2075 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2076 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
JH
2077
2078 scripts
2079
73d6d1b0
RGS
2080 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P, if
2081 your cc -E can't read from stdin.
8e07c86e 2082 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2083 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration
2084 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with different
2085 versions of perl
2086 cpan The CPAN shell
2087 cpan2dist The CPANPLUS distribution creator
2088 cpanp The CPANPLUS shell
2089 cpanp-run-perl An helper for cpanp
f5b5f377 2090 dprofpp Perl code profiler post-processor
73d6d1b0 2091 enc2xs Encoding module generator
8e07c86e 2092 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2093 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2094 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2095 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2096 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2097 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2098 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2099 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure
2100 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
2101 utility iconv
aa689395 2102 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2103 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2104 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2105 pod2man,
2106 pod2text,
d56c5707 2107 pod2usage
73d6d1b0
RGS
2108 podchecker POD syntax checker
2109 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation
2110 prove A command-line tool for running tests
2111 psed A Perl implementation of sed
2112 ptar A Perl implementation of tar
2113 ptardiff A diff for tar archives
2114 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2115 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums
aa689395 2116 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
73d6d1b0 2117 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code
8e07c86e 2118
d56c5707
JH
2119 library files
2120
2121 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2122 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2123
2124 documentation
2125
d6baa268
JH
2126 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2127 module man
2128 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2129 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2130
33cceb07 2131installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2132in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2133
d56c5707 2134Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2135under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2136optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2137program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2138
33cceb07
RGS
2139=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2140
d56c5707
JH
2141Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2142installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2143perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2144disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2145To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2146
2147 Configure -Dversiononly
2148
2149or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2150you can just manually run
2151
2152 ./perl installperl -v
2153
2154and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2155
d56c5707
JH
2156See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2157approach.
2158
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2159=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2160
2161Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2162system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2163header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2164by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2165library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2166
2167Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2168of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2169hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2170For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2171structures.
2172
2173=head1 installhtml --help
2174
2175Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2176format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2177documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2178
2179Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2180html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2181
2182The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2183perl documentation:
2184
2185 ./installhtml \
2186 --podroot=. \
2187 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2188 --recurse \
2189 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2190 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2191 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2192 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2193 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2194 --verbose
2195
2196See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2197many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2198see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2199resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2200(and would welcome patches for them).
2201
2202You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2203the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2204
2205=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2206
2207Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2208available in TeX format. Type
2209
2210 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2211
2212=head1 Starting all over again
2213
2214If you wish to re-build perl from the same build directory, you should
2215clean it out with the command
2216
2217 make distclean
2218
2219or
2220
2221 make realclean
2222
2223The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2224your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2225
2226If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2227change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2228you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not re-use
2229your old config.sh.
2230
2231If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2232installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2233using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2234settings"> above.
2235
ff52061e
RGS
2236=head1 Reporting Problems
2237
2238Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2239to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2240information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2241more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2242carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2243on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2244you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2245message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2246get advice.
2247
2248The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2249completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2250C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2251C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2252run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2253directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2254
2255If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2256B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2257an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2258
2259If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2260(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2261description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2262- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2263
2264Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2265reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2266written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
2267the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2268not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2269
2270Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2271config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2272necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2273session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2274messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2275appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
2276attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2277read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2278subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2279
5acb7768
NC
2280If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2281inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2282it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2283unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2284to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2285co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2286platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2287issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2288
ff52061e
RGS
2289If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2290report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2291http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2292
7df75831 2293=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2294
35dec5db 2295Perl 5.12 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2296In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2297
693762b4 2298In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
22995.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2300re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2301version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2302
be8498a1
RGS
2303Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2304used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2305(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2306
33cceb07
RGS
2307Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2308searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2309
33cceb07
RGS
2310 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2311 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2312 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2314
33cceb07
RGS
2315Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2316searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2317
33cceb07
RGS
2318 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2320 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2321 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2322
33cceb07
RGS
2323 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2324 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2325 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2326
c42e3e15 2327Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2328of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2329directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2330to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2331suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2332present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2333/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2334but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2335
c42e3e15 2336The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23375.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2338
33cceb07
RGS
2339Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2340with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2341Configure defaults) will be:
2342
33cceb07
RGS
2343 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2344 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2345 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2347
33cceb07 2348 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2349
33cceb07 2350 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2351
d6baa268 2352 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2353
cc65bb49
AD
2354Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2355modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2356
0a08c020
GS
2357This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2358to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2359versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2360
2361=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2362
1ec51d55 2363Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2364separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2365won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2366libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2367way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2368
aff3bd8f 2369 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.13.4
d52d4e46 2370
aff3bd8f 2371and adding /opt/perl5.13.4/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2372may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2373scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2374
693762b4 2375Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2376(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2377each major version.
2378
6877a1cf
AD
2379If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2380seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2381subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2382yet.
2383
aff3bd8f 2384=head2 Upgrading from 5.13.3 or earlier
693762b4 2385
aff3bd8f 2386B<Perl 5.13.4 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.13.3 and any earlier
dd3196cd 2387Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2388(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
aff3bd8f
FR
2389used with 5.13.4. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23905.13.4, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2391installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2392above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2393
2394See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2395incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2396perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2397
8ebf57cf
JH
2398=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2399
2400The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2401Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2402operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2403
c8214fdf 2404Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2405Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2406space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2407Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2408programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2409depends on what do you need to do.
2410
8ebf57cf
JH
2411In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2412recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2413depends on what you need.
2414
2415Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2416
2417 use strict;
2418 use warnings;
2419 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2420 print("$f\n");
2421 }
2422
bfe08c74 2423in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2424
2425 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2426 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2427 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2428 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2429 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2430 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
JH
2431
2432Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2433size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2434
bfe08c74
RGS
2435 /usr/bin/perl
2436 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2437 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2438 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2439 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2440 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2441 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2442 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2443 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2444 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2445 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2446 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2447 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2448 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2449 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2450 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2451 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2452 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2453 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2454 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2455 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2456 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2457 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2458 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2459 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2460 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2461 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2462 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2463 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2464 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2465 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2466 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2481 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2482 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2483 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2484 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2485 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2486 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2487 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2488 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2489 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2490 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2491 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2492 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2493 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2494 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2495 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2496 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2497 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2498 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2499 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2500 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2501 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2502 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2503 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2504 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2505 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2506 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2507 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2508 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2509 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2510 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2511 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2512 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2513 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2514 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2515 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2516 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2517 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2518 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2519 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2520 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2521 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2522 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2523 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2524
e7a3c61b
JH
2525A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2526need to run a Perl program is
2527
a0a8d9d3 2528 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2529
2530(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2531it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2532use something like the below
2533
2534 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2535
2536(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2537and 'ktrace'.)
2538
c19ccd8c
RGS
2539=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2540
2541If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2542F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2543by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2544completely removed.
2545
8e07c86e
AD
2546=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2547
bfb7748a
AD
2548Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2549is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2550build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2551can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2552sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e
AD
2553
2554=head1 AUTHOR
2555
bfb7748a
AD
2556Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2557heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2558feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2559
f5b3b617
AD
2560If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2561L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2562
2563=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2564
2565This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2566the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2567If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2568a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2569and the contact information to match your distribution.