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1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
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8
9 rm -f config.sh
10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
17 (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
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19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
3fe9a6f1 22For information on non-Unix systems, see L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 23
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24For information on what's new in this release, see the pod/perldelta.pod
25file. For more detailed information about specific changes, see the
26Changes file.
c3edaffb 27
1ec51d55 28=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 29
c3edaffb 30This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
31structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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32read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
33by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
34
35 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
36 C<code> literal code
37 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
38
39You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
40proceeding.
c3edaffb 41
eed2e782 42If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
43the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
44provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
45
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46If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
47should also read that hint file for specific information for your
48system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.)
49
aa689395 50=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 51
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52The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space. The
53complete tree after completing make takes roughly 15 MB, though the
54actual total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
55directories need something on the order of 7 MB, though again that
56value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 57
aa689395 58=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 59
edb1cbcb 60If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
61with the command
62
63 make realclean
c3edaffb 64
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65The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
66you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
67systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
1ec51d55 68experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably not
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69re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
70
71 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 72
e57fd563 73If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
74version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
75the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
76includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
77name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
78Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
79probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
80Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
81numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
82
83Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
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84(such as Debian) use i386, while others may use i486 or i586. If you
85pick up a precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
e57fd563 86
87In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
88Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 89
aa689395 90=head1 Run Configure
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91
92Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
93things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
1ec51d55 94you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default
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95is almost always ok. At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d
96and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
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97
98After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 99*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
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100
101Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
102to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
103
104 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
105
106This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
107compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
108
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109If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
110with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
111
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112By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
113/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
114the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
115using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
116e.g.
117
25f94b33 118 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
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119
120If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
121are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
122then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 123/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 124
aa689395 125By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 126your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
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127statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
128you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 129
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130If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
131output, you can run
132
133 sh Configure -des
134
135For my Solaris system, I usually use
136
137 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
138
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139=head2 GNU-style configure
140
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141If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
142use the supplied configure command, e.g.
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143
144 CC=gcc ./configure
145
1ec51d55 146The configure script emulates a few of the more common configure
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147options. Try
148
149 ./configure --help
150
151for a listing.
152
aa689395 153Cross compiling is not supported.
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154
155For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
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156"configure", Perl includes a copy of configure named
157configure.gnu.
46bb10fb 158
24b3df7f 159=head2 Extensions
160
edb1cbcb 161By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
162to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
163only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
5f05dabc 164DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
165not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
166by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
167Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
168Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
169by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 170useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 171
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172You can learn more about each of these extensions by consulting the
173documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
174ext/ subdirectory.
175
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176Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
177DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
178version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
179
24b3df7f 180In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
181to turn off each extension:
182
183 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 184 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 185 Fcntl (Always included by default)
186 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 187 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 188 NDBM_File i_ndbm
189 ODBM_File i_dbm
190 POSIX useposix
191 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 192 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 193 Socket d_socket
194
195Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
196
197 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
198
199Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
200library.
201
202Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 203the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 204
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205Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of
206Berkeley DB. Once Berkeley DB version 2 is released, DB_File will be
207upgraded to work with it. Configure will automatically detect this
208for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with version 2.
209
24b3df7f 210Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
211remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
212executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
213well build all the ones that will work on your system.
214
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215=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
216
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217Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
218dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
219Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
220automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1ec51d55 221are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
4633a7c4 222how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e 223
1ec51d55 224Note: If your database header (.h) files are not in a
8e07c86e 225directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
1ec51d55 226include the appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by
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227Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
228normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
1ec51d55 229include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by
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230Configure. See the examples below.
231
232=head2 Examples
233
234=over 4
235
aa689395 236=item gdbm in /usr/local
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237
238Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
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239GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have gdbm.h
240installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
241/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
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242necessary steps out automatically.
243
244Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1ec51d55 245your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
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246
247When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1ec51d55 248-L/usr/local/lib.
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249
250If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
251linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1ec51d55 252-L/usr/local/lib.
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253
254Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
255defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
256messages, then you can just run
257
258 sh Configure -des
259
260and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
261
262This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
263(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
264
265=item gdbm in /usr/you
266
267Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
268but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
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269have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
270still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
271an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
8e07c86e 272Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1ec51d55 273/usr/you/lib to the list.
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274
275It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
276line):
277
278 sh Configure -des \
279 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
280 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
281
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282locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
283Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
8e07c86e 284
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285loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
286Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
287you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
288/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
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289
290 sh Configure -des \
291 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
292 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
293
294=back
295
aa689395 296=head2 Installation Directories
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297
298The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
299appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
300installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
301
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302It is highly recommend that you running Configure interactively
303to be sure it puts everything where you want it. At any point
304during the Configure process, you can answer a question with
305C<&-d> and Configure will use the defaults from then on.
306
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307By default, Configure uses the following directories for
308library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
309by Configure)
310
46bb10fb 311 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 312 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
314 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
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315
316and the following directories for manual pages:
317
318 /usr/local/man/man1
319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
320
321(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
322/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
323instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
324they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
325and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
326systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
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327page, rather than the less program. (This location may change in a
328future release of perl.)
329
330Note: Many users prefer to store the module man pages in
331/usr/local/man/man3. You can do this from the command line with
332
333 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/man/man3
334
335Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
336
337 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
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338
339If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 340directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
341-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 342
46bb10fb 343 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
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344 /opt/perl/lib
345 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
346 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
347
348 /opt/perl/man/man1
349 /opt/perl/man/man3
350
351The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
352above.
353
354The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
355intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
356will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
357just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
358
46bb10fb 359In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
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360a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
361stored in a version-specific directory, such as
46bb10fb 362/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
a6006777 363files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
364not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
365the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
366can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
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367
368Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
369Configure.
370
aa689395 371=head2 Changing the installation directory
372
373Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
374associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
375will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
376sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 377However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
aa689395 378packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
379use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
380This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
381an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
382
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383Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory.
384You can edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to
385point to /tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local/wherever. You could
aa689395 386also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
387automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
1ec51d55 388config.over before you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
aa689395 389directory of your choice):
390
391 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
392 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
393 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
394 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
395 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
396 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
397 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
398 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
399 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
400 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
401 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
402
403Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
404
405 sh Configure -des
406 make
407 make test
408 make install
409
410=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
411
412If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
413convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
414installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
415
416 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
417 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
418 sh Configure -des
419 make
420 make test
421 make install
422 cd /tmp/perl5
423 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
424 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
425 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
426 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
427
428=head2 Configure-time Options
429
430There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
431system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
432Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
433some of the main things you can change.
434
435=head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
436
437If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
438perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
439need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
440
441Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
442been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
443may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
444collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
445installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
446re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
447(The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
448automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
449-DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
450
451Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
452been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
453complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
1ec51d55 454Perl for such a site, then when Configure asks if you want binary
aa689395 455compatibility, answer "y".
456
457On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
458and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
1ec51d55 459answer "n" when Configure asks if you want binary compatibility.
aa689395 460
461The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
462appropriate for almost everyone.
463
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464In a related issue, old extensions may possibly be affected by the changes
465in the Perl language in the current release. Please see pod/perldelta for
3fe9a6f1 466a description of what's changed.
467
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468=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
469
470Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 471stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
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472mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
473the default and is the only supported mechanism.
474
475This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
476line with
477
478 sh Configure -Duseperlio
479
480or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
481
482If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
483(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
484tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
485everywhere.
486
487=over 4
488
489=item 1.
490
1ec51d55 491AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 492cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
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493currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
494Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
495extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
496configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
497
498This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
499A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
500it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
501
502You select this option by
503
504 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
505
506If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
507that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
508Configure.
509
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510Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails
511to detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent).
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512Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
513and SunOS 4.
514
515You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
516script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
517portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
518
519 #!/bin/sh
520 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
521 #include <stdio.h>
522 main() { printf("42\n"); }
523 EOCP
524 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
525 val=`./try`
526 if test X$val = X42; then
527 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
528 else
529 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
530 fi
531
532If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
533and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
534your platform.)
535
536There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
537problem.
538
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539=item 2.
540
541Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
542abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
543extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
544abstraction.
545
546This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
547
aa689395 548You select this option via:
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549
550 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
551
552If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
553detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
554
555=back
556
aa689395 557=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 558
559Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
560linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
561extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
562such as -lm.
563
9d67150a 564On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
565replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 566several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
567different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 568you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 569can share the same library.
570
571The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 572penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 573mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 574and upgrades.
575
576In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 577test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 578Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
579results.
580
581The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 582libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 583libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 584based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
585version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
586isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
587
588For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
589for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
590
591You can elect to build a shared libperl by
592
593 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
594
595To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 596LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 597this with
598
599 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
600
601for Bourne-style shells, or
602
603 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
604
605for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
606Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
607LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
608
9d67150a 609There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
610want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
611with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 612install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
613try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 614the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
615ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 616libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 617that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
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618in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
619equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
620with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
9d67150a 621
622The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
623directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
624version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
625variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
626installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
627
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628=head2 Malloc Issues
629
630Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
631perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
632the malloc function on your system.
633
634The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
635but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
636malloc() function is probably a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
637
638For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
639the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
640with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
641(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
642if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
643third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
644your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
645malloc flags discussed below.)
646
647To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
648
649 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
650
651or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
652
aa689395 653=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 654
55479bb6 655If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
1ec51d55 656more of the following items to your cflags config.sh variable
55479bb6 657to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
1ec51d55 658more about these flags by reading the malloc.c source.
55479bb6 659In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
c3edaffb 660
aa689395 661=over 4
662
2ae324a7 663=item -DDEBUGGING_MSTATS
664
1ec51d55 665If DEBUGGING_MSTATS is defined, you can extract malloc
2ae324a7 666statistics from the Perl interpreter. The overhead this imposes is not
667large (perl just twiddles integers at malloc/free/sbrk time). When you
1ec51d55 668run perl with the environment variable PERL_DEBUG_MSTATS set to
2ae324a7 669either 1 or 2, the interpreter will dump statistics to stderr at exit
670time and (with a value of 2) after compilation. If you install the
671Devel::Peek module you can get the statistics whenever you like by
672invoking its mstat() function.
673
aa689395 674=item -DEMERGENCY_SBRK
675
1ec51d55 676If EMERGENCY_SBRK is defined, running out of memory need not be a
2ae324a7 677fatal error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
1ec51d55 678variable $^M. See perlvar(1) for more details.
aa689395 679
680=item -DPACK_MALLOC
681
1ec51d55 682If PACK_MALLOC is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
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683algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
684allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
aa689395 685
1ec51d55 686The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in $alignbytes) is
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687about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
688additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
689to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
aa689395 690
691=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
692
1ec51d55 693If TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
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694algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
695(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
696special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
697manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
698might be wise to define this macro.
aa689395 699
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700The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
701require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
aa689395 702negligible.
703
704=back
705
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706=head2 Building a debugging perl
707
708You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 709B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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710you probably want to do
711
712 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
713
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714This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
715to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
716executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
717cc -g2. Check you man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your
718system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags variable in
1ec51d55 719config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's internal
203c3eec 720state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by
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721default if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to
722reuse your old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the
3fe9a6f1 723optimize and ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes
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724as shown in L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
725
726You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
727it's convenient to have both.
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728
729If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
730versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
731
aa689395 732=head2 Other Compiler Flags
733
734For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
735you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
1ec51d55 736by adding appropriate -D directives to your ccflags variable in
aa689395 737config.sh.
738
739For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
740perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
741following:
742
743 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
744
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745or by adding -Drand=random and -Dsrand=srandom to your ccflags
746at the appropriate Configure prompt. (Note: Although this worked for
747me, it might not work for you if your system's header files give
748different prototypes for rand() and random() or srand() and srandom().)
749
750You should also run Configure interactively to verify that a hint file
751doesn't inadvertently override your ccflags setting. (Hints files
752shouldn't do that, but some might.)
c3edaffb 753
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754=head2 What if it doesn't work?
755
756=over 4
757
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758=item Running Configure Interactively
759
760If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
761Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
762guesses.
763
764All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 765have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 766flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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767will use the defaults from then on.
768
769If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
770config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
771instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
772
aa689395 773=item Hint files
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774
775The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
776in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
777will offer to use that hint file.
778
779Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
780If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
1ec51d55 781file for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an
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782extensive example.
783
edb1cbcb 784=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
785
786Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
7874.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
788standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
789will see a message:
790
791 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
792 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
793 Keep the recommended value? [y]
794
795You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
796relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
797overriding it.
798
799If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
800used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
801to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
802system.
803
804For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
805and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
806Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
807Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
808
809 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
810 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
811 Keep the previous value? [y]
812
1ec51d55 813In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 814should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 815the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
816
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817=item Changing Compilers
818
819If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 820probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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821rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
822with the options you want to use.
823
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824This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
825gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 826
c3edaffb 827=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 828
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829If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
830them to all the .SH files by running
831
832 sh Configure -S
833
834You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 835
836 make depend
837 make
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838
839=item config.over
840
841You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
842guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
843is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 844does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 845L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
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846
847=item config.h
848
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849Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
850Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
851The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 852
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853If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
854though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
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855lost.
856
857=item cflags
858
859If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
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860line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
861optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
862toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
863can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
864lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 865
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866To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh
867and change either $ccflags or $optimize,
868and then re-run
869
870 sh Configure -S
871 make depend
8e07c86e 872
aa689395 873=item No sh
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874
875If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
876config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
877You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
878mechanism.
879
c3edaffb 880=item Porting information
881
2ae324a7 882Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
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883corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
884including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c3edaffb 885subdirectory.
886
7f678428 887Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 888http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 889various other operating systems.
890
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891=back
892
893=head1 make depend
894
895This will look for all the includes.
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896The output is stored in makefile. The only difference between
897Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at the bottom of
898makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
899makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads
900makefile first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
c3edaffb 901a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
902if in doubt.)
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903
904Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
905explicitly above.
906
907=head1 make
908
909This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
910
911If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 912If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
913the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
914send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
915perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 916See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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917
918=over 4
919
1ec51d55 920=item hints
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921
922If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
923for further tips and information.
924
1ec51d55 925=item extensions
8e07c86e 926
1ec51d55 927If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 928during the building of extensions, you should run
929
930 make minitest
931
932to test your version of miniperl.
933
e57fd563 934=item locale
935
936If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
937unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
938while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
939locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
940
1ec51d55 941=item malloc duplicates
c3edaffb 942
aa689395 943If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
944or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 945
7f678428 946=item varargs
c3edaffb 947
948If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
949correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
950and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
951running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 952forget to propagate your changes (see
953L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
954See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 955
1ec51d55 956=item croak
c3edaffb 957
958If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
959numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
960
961 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
962 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
963 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
964
965it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 966previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 967
9d67150a 968=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 969
970If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
971Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 972-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 973$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
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974and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
975Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 976environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 977your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 978the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
979
9d67150a 980=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
981
982If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 983it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
984L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 985
1ec51d55 986=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 987
988If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 989the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
990Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 991fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
992of your local set-up.
993
994=item dlopen: stub interception failed
995
996The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
997that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
998which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
999
aa689395 1000The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1001actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1002failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1003"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1004functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1005
aa689395 1006=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1007
1008If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1009try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1010with
1011
1012 sh Configure -Uusenm
1013
1014or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1015If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1016config.sh.
1017
7f678428 1018=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1019
1020If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1021problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1022version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1023(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1024d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1025
1026 d_vprintf='define'
1027
1028If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
1029on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
1030re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
1031
3fe9a6f1 1032=item do_aspawn
1033
1034If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1035problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1036fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous items
1037on L<"vsprintf"> and L<"nm extraction">.
1038
aa689395 1039=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1040
9d67150a 1041If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1042optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1043
1044 optimize='-O'
1045
1046to something like
1047
1048 optimize=' '
1049
1050then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1051with B<make depend; make>.
1052
1ec51d55 1053=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1054
1ec51d55 1055If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a -DCRIPPLED_CC
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1056flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
1057This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1058indigestion easily.
9d67150a 1059
1060=item Missing functions
1061
1062If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1063other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1064there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
1065likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1066
1ec51d55 1067=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1068
1ec51d55
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1069Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1070toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1071allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1072each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1073makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
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1074specific rule.
1075
7f678428 1076=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1077
c3edaffb 1078SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1079that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1080
f3d9a6ba 1081=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1082
1083If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1084the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1085then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1086Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1087systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1088For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1089unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
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1090they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1091reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1092process is continuing.
7f678428 1093
1094On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1095message
1096
f3d9a6ba 1097 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1098
1099then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1100the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1101extension without the -lgdbm library.
1102
1103It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1104this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1105quite that tightly coordinated.
1106
aa689395 1107=item sh: ar: not found
1108
1109This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1110was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1111make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1112is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1113directory.
1114
1115=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1116
1117Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1118with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1119bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1120
1ec51d55 1121=item Miscellaneous
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1122
1123Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1124
1125Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1126
1127NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1128
1ec51d55 1129UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
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1130
1131If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1132
1133Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1134
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1135=back
1136
1137=head1 make test
1138
1139This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
1140doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
1ec51d55 1141file t/README in the t subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
aa689395 1142tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
c3edaffb 1143
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1144If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1145by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1146bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
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1147
1148 ./perl op/groups.t
1149
aa689395 1150Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1151individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1152
1153 ./perl harness
1154
1ec51d55 1155(this assumes that most tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1156complicated constructs).
1157
c3edaffb 1158You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1159comments that apply to your system.
1160
1ec51d55 1161Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1162may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1163B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
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1164one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1165LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1166are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1167
1168If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1169
1170 setenv LC_ALL C
1171
1172(for C shell) or
1173
1174 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1175
1ec51d55
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1176for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1177make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1178is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1179shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
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1180things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1181open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1182external program.
eed2e782 1183
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1184=head1 make install
1185
1186This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1187Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1188to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1189pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
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1190are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1191ignore any messages about chown not working.
1192
1193If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1194anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1195
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1196 ./perl installperl -n
1197 ./perl installman -n
1198
1ec51d55 1199make install will install the following:
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1200
1201 perl,
1202 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1203 will be a link to perl.
1204 suidperl,
1205 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1206 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1207 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1208 read from stdin.
1209 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1210 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1211 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1212 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1213 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1214 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1215 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1216 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1217 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1218 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1219 pod2man, and
1220 pod2text
1221 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
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1222
1223 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1224 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1225 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1226 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1227 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1228 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1229 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1230
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1231Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1232$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1233 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1234 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
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1235where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1236will be used for installing extensions.
1237
56c6f531
JH
1238Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1239under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1240optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1241program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1242
aa689395 1243=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1244
eed2e782 1245You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
56c6f531 1246under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
eed2e782 1247starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
56c6f531 1248#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
a6006777 1249If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
eed2e782 1250need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1251since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1252in incompatible ways.
4633a7c4 1253
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1254The old architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
1255directory (such as /usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.003) so that they
1256will still be accessible even after a later version is installed.
1257(Note: Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not put their architecture-dependent
1258libraries in a version-specific directory. They are simply in
1259/usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname. If you will not be using 5.000 or
12605.001, you may safely remove those files.)
1261
1262In general, the standard library files in /usr/local/lib/perl5 should
1263be usable by all versions of perl5. However, the diagnostics.pm module
1264uses the /usr/local/lib/perl5/pod/perldiag.pod documentation file, so
1265the C<use diagnostics;> pragma and the splain script will only identify
1266and explain any warnings or errors that the most recently-installed
1267version of perl can generate.
4633a7c4 1268
d52d4e46 1269Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
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LW
1270version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1271to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1272those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
1ec51d55 1273/usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
aa689395 1274files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
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LW
1275newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1276
1ec51d55 1277Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d52d4e46 1278separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1279using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1280
46bb10fb 1281 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1282
46bb10fb 1283and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1284may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1285scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1286
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1287If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1288seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1289subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1290yet.
1291
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1292=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1293
1294You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1295
1ec51d55
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1296By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1297they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
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1298
1299In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1300perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
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1301process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1302However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1ec51d55 1303the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036
edb1cbcb 1304(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1305for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1306
aa689395 1307=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1308
1309Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1310the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1311header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
aa689395 1312by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1ec51d55
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1313you specified to Configure; by default this is
1314/usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION, where ARCH is your architecture
1315(such as sun4-solaris) and VERSION is the version of perl you are
1316building (for example, 5.004).
aa689395 1317
1ec51d55 1318Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
aa689395 1319conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1320to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1321correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1322certain structures.
1323
1324=head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
1325
1326Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1327available in HTML format. Type
1328
1329 cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
1330
1331where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
1332
1333=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1334
1335Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1336available in TeX format. Type
1337
1338 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1339
1340=head1 Reporting Problems
1341
1342If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1343file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1344manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1345message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1346perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1347
1ec51d55 1348Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script
aa689395 1349that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1ec51d55 1350perlbug program that comes with the perl distribution,
aa689395 1351but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1352
1ec51d55 1353You might also find helpful information in the Porting
aa689395 1354directory of the perl distribution.
1355
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1356=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1357
1358Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1359in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1360build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1ec51d55 1361can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This
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1362is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1363
1ec51d55
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1364Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
1365along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory
34a2a22e
RM
1366and running (either):
1367
1368 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1369 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e
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1370
1371This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1372(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1373set-up.)
34a2a22e
RM
1374
1375Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1376running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1377generate the documentation.
1378
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1379=head1 AUTHOR
1380
1ec51d55
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1381Andy Dougherty doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu , borrowing very heavily
1382from the original README by Larry Wall, and also with lots of helpful
1383feedback from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
8e07c86e 1384
a5f75d66 1385=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1386
6877a1cf 1387$Id: INSTALL,v 1.15 1997/04/16 20:49:24 doughera Exp $