This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
perldelta: Move compile-time const deref checking
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
f1300be0
YST
1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
8e07c86e
AD
5=head1 NAME
6
cb8c159f 7INSTALL - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
8e07c86e
AD
8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
ce80d64e
AD
12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
ce80d64e
AD
15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e
AD
25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
8e07c86e
AD
29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
cc65bb49
AD
31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
ff52061e
RGS
34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
668cbedd 39Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C compiler.
51eec7ec
MB
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
e0ddbfb2
RS
46If you're building perl from a git repository, you should also consult
47the documentation in pod/perlgit.pod for information on that special
48circumstance.
49
8d74ce1c 50If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 51L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 52
7beaa944 53For information on what's new in this release, see the
37ee6528 54pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 55specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 56
1ec51d55 57=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 58
c3edaffb 59This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55
CS
61read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
63
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
65 C<code> literal code
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 67 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 68
c42e3e15 69Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 70you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 71proceeding.
c3edaffb 72
ce80d64e
AD
73In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
74your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
75instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
dd3196cd
RGS
76system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
77for even more information.
c42e3e15 78
ce80d64e
AD
79For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
80L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
81directory.
d56c5707 82
ce80d64e 83=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 84
ce80d64e 85=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 86
37ee6528 87Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
ce80d64e
AD
88potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
89the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
37ee6528 90to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 91
fdd3cf50 92B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 93If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b
DM
94using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
95those extensions.
1b1c1ae2
GS
96
97Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 98without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 99L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
693762b4
AD
100
101The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
102
ce80d64e
AD
103On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
104in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
37ee6528 105pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 106installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
c75cfcf0
FC
107list of locally installed modules. Also see the L<CPAN> module's
108C<autobundle> function for one way to make a "bundle" of your currently
109installed modules.
16dc217a 110
aa689395 111=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e
AD
112
113Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268
JH
115you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
116almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
117since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
118the same function.
119
ce80d64e 120At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 121defaults from then on.
8e07c86e
AD
122
123After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 124*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 125
dd3196cd
RGS
126The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
127files.
128
ce80d64e 129=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 130
ce80d64e 131Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 132
ce80d64e 133 Configure -h
d6baa268 134
ce80d64e 135to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
d6baa268
JH
138=over 4
139
08854360 140=item C compiler
d6baa268 141
08854360
RGS
142To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
143system, you should run
8e07c86e
AD
144
145 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
146
08854360 147This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
8e07c86e
AD
148compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
149
d6baa268 150=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 151
8e07c86e 152By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 153/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 154and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
8d74ce1c
AD
155further details.)
156
157You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 158directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 159line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 160
25f94b33 161 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 162
d6baa268
JH
163If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
164directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
165prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
166/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec
JH
167for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
168or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 169
8d74ce1c
AD
170NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
171as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
172attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 173
d6baa268
JH
174=item /usr/bin/perl
175
176It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
177find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 178/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 179careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec
AD
180vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
181on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
182configured may be found with
183
184 perl -V:config_args
185
186(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e
AD
187spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
188at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 189
ce80d64e
AD
190By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
191version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 192
7d56c962 193 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 194
7d56c962 195or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 196
ce80d64e
AD
197In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
198(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a
MB
199into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
200obvious and convenient place.
201
71c4561b 202=item Building a development release
04d420f9 203
ce80d64e
AD
204For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
205use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
206because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
207Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
208sanity check.
d6baa268
JH
209
210=back
8e07c86e 211
203c3eec
AD
212If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
213output, you can run
214
215 sh Configure -des
216
dd3196cd 217=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 218
ce80d64e
AD
219For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
220be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
221have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
222after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
223For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
224invocations:
46bb10fb 225
08854360 226 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 227
5247441a 228To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
dd3196cd
RGS
229Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
230variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
231But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 232
ce80d64e 233For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 234
ce80d64e 235 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 236
ce80d64e 237=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 238
ce80d64e
AD
239There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
240system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
241Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
242some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 243
ce80d64e 244=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 245
ce80d64e
AD
246On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
247enable this, run
4633a7c4 248
ce80d64e 249 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 250
ce80d64e 251The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 252
47f9f84c
JH
253Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
254model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
255called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
256thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 257(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 258
ce80d64e 259The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
47f9f84c
JH
260'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
261ithreads model.
d6baa268 262
ce80d64e
AD
263When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
264the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
265This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
266fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
267PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
268way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 269C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 270
08854360 271=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 272
ce80d64e
AD
273Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2742 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
275support is on by default.
d6baa268 276
ce80d64e
AD
277This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
278seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
279using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
280be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
281parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 282will happen.
d6baa268 283
ce80d64e
AD
284There's also one known limitation with the current large files
285implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
286section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
287like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 288
71c4561b
RGS
289If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
290
291 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
292
08854360 293=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 294
08854360
RGS
295If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
296them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 297you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 298
ce80d64e
AD
299There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
300using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
301-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
302the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 303
ce80d64e
AD
304The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
30564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
306longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
307your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
308does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
309might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
310you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 311
ce80d64e
AD
312The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
313integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
314create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
315resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
316have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
317aware.
d6baa268 318
08854360 319Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
0e78eb44
MB
320On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
321is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
322Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 323options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 324
ce80d64e 325=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 326
ce80d64e
AD
327In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
328range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
329(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
330this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 331
aacf4ea2
JH
332Note that the exact format and range of long doubles varies:
333the most common is the x86 80-bit (64 bits of mantissa) format,
334but there are others, with different mantissa and exponent ranges.
335
ce80d64e 336=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 337
ce80d64e
AD
338You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
339and the long double support.
b367e8b0 340
ce80d64e 341=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1 342
e6b54db6
YO
343Perl 5.18 reworked the measures used to secure its hash function
344from algorithmic complexity attacks. By default it will build with
345all of these measures enabled along with support for controlling and
346disabling them via environment variables.
347
348You can override various aspects of this feature by defining various
349symbols during configure. An example might be:
350
351 Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
352
353B<Unless stated otherwise these options are considered experimental or
354insecure and are not recommended for production use.>
355
356Perl 5.18 includes support for multiple hash functions, and changed
357the default (to ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD), you can choose a different
358algorithm by defining one of the following symbols. Note that as of
359Perl 5.18 we can only recommend use of the default or SIPHASH. All
360the others are known to have security issues and are for research
361purposes only.
362
363 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SIPHASH
364 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SDBM
365 PERL_HASH_FUNC_DJB2
366 PERL_HASH_FUNC_SUPERFAST
367 PERL_HASH_FUNC_MURMUR3
368 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME
369 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_HARD
370 PERL_HASH_FUNC_ONE_AT_A_TIME_OLD
371
372Perl 5.18 randomizes the order returned by keys(), values(), and each(),
373and allows controlling this behavior by using of the PERL_PERTURB_KEYS
374option. You can disable this option entirely with the define:
375
376 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DISABLED
377
378You can disable the environment variable checks and specify the type of
379key traversal randomization to be used by defining one of these:
380
381 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_RANDOM
382 PERL_PERTURB_KEYS_DETERMINISTIC
383
384In Perl 5.18 the seed used for the hash function is randomly selected
eb717850 385at process start which can be overridden by specifying a seed by setting
e6b54db6
YO
386the PERL_HASH_SEED environment variable.
387
388You can change this behavior by building perl with the
389
390 USE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT
391
392define, in which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED
393environment variable to enable the security feature or by adding
394
395 NO_HASH_SEED
396
397to the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
398Note these modes are poorly tested, insecure and not recommended.
504f80c1 399
3debabd9 400B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043
NC
401ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
4025. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 403be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 404randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 405between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
86358043
NC
406hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
407recommended.
504f80c1 408
e6b54db6
YO
409See L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED> and L<perlrun/PERL_PERTURB_KEYS> for details on
410the environment variables, and L<perlsec/Algorithmic Complexity Attacks> for
411further security details.
412
ce80d64e 413=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5
DH
414
415Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
416TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
417access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
71c4561b
RGS
418Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
419You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
420L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 421
ce80d64e 422=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 423
71c4561b
RGS
424By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
425If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
d6baa268
JH
426statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
427you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
7df75831
RGS
428With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
429(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 430
ce80d64e 431=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 432
433Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
434linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 435extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 436
08854360 437On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 438replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 439several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
440different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 441you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 442can share the same library.
443
444The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 445penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 446mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 447and upgrades.
448
449In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 450test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 451Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
452results.
453
454The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 455libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 456libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 457based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
458version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
459isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
460
c3edaffb 461You can elect to build a shared libperl by
462
ce80d64e
AD
463 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
464
465To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
466library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
f05550c0 467Darwin, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
ce80d64e
AD
468for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
469the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
470be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
471library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
472variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
473
474 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
475
476However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
477shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
478something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
479./perl:
480
04bd6448 481 ./perl -MTestInit t/misc/failing_test.t
08854360 482
ce80d64e 483or
08854360 484
ce80d64e
AD
485 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
486
487then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
488You can do this with
489
490 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
491
492for Bourne-style shells, or
493
494 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
495
496for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
497unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
498again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
499
500You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
501messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
502for example:
08854360
RGS
503
504 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
ce80d64e
AD
505
506There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
507want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
508with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
08854360
RGS
509install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
510try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
ce80d64e
AD
511the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
512ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
513libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
514that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
515in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
516equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
517with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
518LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
519Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
520_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
521
522In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
523with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
524previous build.
525
526A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
527architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
528You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
529point to your new architecture-dependent library.
530
575e1338
NC
531=head3 Environment access
532
533Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
534is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
535leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
536to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
537whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
538but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
539embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
33bb4a44
L
540by compiling with C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section
541L</"Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.">.
542You can force an embedded perl to use direct manipulation by setting
543C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the C<perl_construct()> call.
575e1338 544
ce80d64e
AD
545=head2 Installation Directories
546
547The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
be8498a1
RGS
548appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
549questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
550slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
551you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
552from then on. Alternatively, you can
ce80d64e
AD
553
554 grep '^install' config.sh
555
556after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
557
558The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
559people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
560distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
561need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
562you can safely skip the next section.
563
564The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
565
566=over 4
567
568=item Directories for the perl distribution
569
bab3f9d4 570By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.21.4.
ce80d64e 571$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
8891dd8d 5725.12.3, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
ce80d64e
AD
573determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
574variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
575
576 Configure variable Default value
577 $prefixexp /usr/local
578 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
579 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
580 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
581 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
582 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
583 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
584 $html1direxp (none)
585 $html3direxp (none)
586
587$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
588directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
589file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
590variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
591
592Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
593/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
594instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
595directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
596the common style is shown here.
597
598=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
599
600After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
601CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
602be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
603
979b4168
KW
604 Configure Default
605 variable value
606 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
607 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
608 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
609 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
610 $sitearchexp
611 $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
612 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
613 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
614 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
615 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
ce80d64e
AD
616
617By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
618modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
619
620=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
621
622Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
623distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
624for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
625
979b4168
KW
626 Configure Default
627 variable value
628 $vendorprefixexp (none)
629
630 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
631
632 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
633 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
634 $vendorlibexp $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
635 $vendorarchexp
636 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
637 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
638 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
639 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
640 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
ce80d64e
AD
641
642These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
643a vendor might choose the following settings:
644
979b4168
KW
645 $prefix /usr
646 $siteprefix /usr/local
647 $vendorprefix /usr
ce80d64e
AD
648
649This would have the effect of setting the following:
650
979b4168
KW
651 $binexp /usr/bin
652 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
653 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
654 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
655 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
656 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
657
658 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
659 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
660 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
661 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
662 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
663 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
664
665 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
666 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
667 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
668 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
669 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
670 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
ce80d64e
AD
671
672Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
668cbedd 673/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end user are in
ce80d64e
AD
674the /usr/local hierarchy.
675
676The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
677version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
678However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
679installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 680See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
ce80d64e
AD
681on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
682
683Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
684example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
685are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
686site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
687network. One way to do that would be something like
688
979b4168 689 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
ce80d64e
AD
690
691=item otherlibdirs
692
693As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
694variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
695directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
696Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
697version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
698
699For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
700installation, perhaps in a strange place:
701
702 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
703
704=item APPLLIB_EXP
705
706There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
707that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
708separated list of directories, like this
709
710 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
711
712The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
713ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
714modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
715touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
716version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
717present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
718directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
719run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
720
785aa5e3 721=item usesitecustomize
20ef40cf
GA
722
723Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
724
36de116d 725 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 726
785aa5e3
RGS
727which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
728When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
20ef40cf
GA
729anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
730entries to @INC.
731
ce80d64e
AD
732=item Man Pages
733
be8498a1
RGS
734By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
735are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
736want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
ce80d64e
AD
737
738 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
739
ce80d64e
AD
740=item HTML pages
741
742Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
743HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
744add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
745variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
746documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
747eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
748
749=back
750
751Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
752to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
753architectures.
754
755Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
756directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
757filesystem.
c3edaffb 758
ce80d64e
AD
759Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
760development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 761discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 762
ce80d64e
AD
763If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
764library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
765suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 766
ce80d64e
AD
767Thus, for example, if you Configure with
768-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 769
ce80d64e
AD
770 Configure variable Default value
771 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
772 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
773 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
774 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 775
ce80d64e 776=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 777
ce80d64e 778Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 779associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
ce80d64e
AD
780will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
781sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
7df75831
RGS
782However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
783dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
784wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
785to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
786
787=over 4
788
789=item installprefix
c3edaffb 790
be8498a1
RGS
791To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
792command line:
c3edaffb 793
7df75831 794 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 795
ce80d64e 796(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 797
ce80d64e
AD
798Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
799modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
7df75831
RGS
800follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
801as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 802
7df75831 803=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 804
ce80d64e
AD
805If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
806to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
807multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
808archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
809using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
810automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
811simply do:
830717a7 812
ce80d64e
AD
813 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
814 make
815 make test
816 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
817 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
818 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 819
7df75831
RGS
820=back
821
32878f30
NP
822=head2 Relocatable @INC
823
824To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
825
826 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
827
828Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
829optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
830
831That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
832path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
833can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
834"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
835install is done to the original configured prefix.
836
79f7885c
RGS
837This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
838("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
839rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
840
ce80d64e 841=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 842
ce80d64e 843After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
7df75831
RGS
844answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
845If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
846defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
847directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 848generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 849different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3
DD
850you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
851example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
852as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 853
ce80d64e
AD
854Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
855answers, you should
c3edaffb 856
ce80d64e 857 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 858
ce80d64e 859to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 860
ce80d64e 861Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 862
ce80d64e
AD
863If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
864to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
865platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 866
ce80d64e 867=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 868
ce80d64e 869Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
7df75831
RGS
870installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
871and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
872being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
873variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 874
ce80d64e
AD
875To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
876modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 877
ce80d64e 878 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 879
274ca399
ZA
880If you do want to use modules from some previous perl versions, the variable
881must contain a space separated list of directories under the site_perl
882directory, and has to include architecture-dependent directories separately,
883eg.
884
4683a5d7 885 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list="5.16.0/x86_64-linux 5.16.0" ...
274ca399 886
ce80d64e 887When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
668cbedd 888PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 889
ce80d64e 890=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 891
ce80d64e
AD
892Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
893where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
894read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
895architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
896links) by
06c896bb 897
ce80d64e
AD
898 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
899 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
900 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 901
ce80d64e
AD
902This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
903pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
904unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 905
ce80d64e 906 make
7df75831
RGS
907 make test
908 make install
06c896bb 909
ce80d64e 910as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 911
3bf462b8
CS
912=head2 Building a debugging perl
913
914You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 915B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae
MB
916you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
917(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
7df75831
RGS
918system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
919use the parameter:
eaf812ae 920
08854360
RGS
921 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
922
923or
924
eaf812ae
MB
925 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
926
927For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
928for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
929to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
930
7df75831 931Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 932
7df75831 933=over 4
3bf462b8 934
eaf812ae
MB
935=item -DDEBUGGING
936
937=item -DEBUGGING
938
939=item -DEBUGGING=both
940
7df75831
RGS
941Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
942
943You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
944but usually it's convenient to have both.
eaf812ae
MB
945
946=item -DEBUGGING=-g
947
7df75831
RGS
948=item -Doptimize=-g
949
eaf812ae
MB
950Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
951
7df75831
RGS
952(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
953Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
954
eaf812ae
MB
955=item -DEBUGGING=none
956
7df75831
RGS
957=item -UDEBUGGING
958
eaf812ae
MB
959Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
960
961=back
962
3bf462b8 963If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 964versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 965
def5f8a5
DM
966Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be much bigger and will run
967much, much more slowly than a standard perl.
1db12997
DM
968
969=head2 DTrace support
970
979b4168 971On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
1db12997
DM
972using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
973subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
974simple D script that uses them:
975
976 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
977 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
978 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
979 }
980
981
8d74ce1c
AD
982=head2 Extensions
983
80c1f5de
AD
984Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
985in the ext/ subdirectory.
986
8d74ce1c
AD
987By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
988to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 989only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
ce80d64e
AD
990
991To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
992-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
47bd56ab
DM
993a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
994listed in
ce80d64e
AD
995C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
996the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
997extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
998certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
999examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1000these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c
AD
1001
1002Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1003the extensions you want.
1004
7df75831
RGS
1005If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1006running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1007extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1008it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1009has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1010extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1011convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1012you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1013dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1014Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
1015L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 1016
dd3196cd 1017If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
8d74ce1c
AD
1018adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1019for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1020you.
1021
8d74ce1c
AD
1022=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1023
7df75831
RGS
1024Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
1025dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 1026Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
7df75831 1027automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
27021420 1028to be specified explicitly (see L</Threads>).
7df75831
RGS
1029
1030Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
1031for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
1032compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
1033option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
1034directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
1035need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
1036by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1037
ce80d64e 1038=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c
AD
1039
1040=over 4
1041
1042=item gdbm in /usr/local
1043
1044Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1045GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c
AD
1046installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1047/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1048necessary steps out automatically.
1049
1050Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
7df75831
RGS
1051your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1052not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1053you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
8d74ce1c
AD
1054
1055If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1056linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1057-L/usr/local/lib.
1058
d6baa268
JH
1059Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1060you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1061/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1062
e8b9ce60
AD
1063=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1064
668cbedd 1065The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by Oracle installs in a
e8b9ce60
AD
1066version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1067/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1068-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1069and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1070Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1071add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1072add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1073BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1074
1075It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
8d74ce1c
AD
1076line):
1077
979b4168
KW
1078 sh Configure -de \
1079 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include \
1080 /usr/local/include' \
1081 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1082 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
8d74ce1c
AD
1083
1084locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1085Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1086
1087loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1088Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1089
e8b9ce60
AD
1090The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1091the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1092Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1093system.
8d74ce1c
AD
1094
1095=back
1096
b76ca5cc
BF
1097=head2 Specifying a logical root directory
1098
1099If you are cross-compiling, or are using a compiler which has it's own
1100headers and libraries in a nonstandard location, and your compiler
1101understands the C<--sysroot> option, you can use the C<-Dsysroot> option to
1102specify the logical root directory under which all libraries and headers
1103are searched for. This patch adjusts Configure to search under $sysroot, instead of /.
1104
1105--sysroot is added to ccflags and friends so that make in
1106ExtUtils::MakeMaker, and other extensions, will use it.
1107
ce80d64e
AD
1108=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1109
dd3196cd
RGS
1110If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1111Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1112need to use B<Configure -O>.
ce80d64e
AD
1113
1114=head2 GNU-style configure
1115
1116If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1117use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1118
1119 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1120
1121The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1122options. Try
1123
1124 ./configure.gnu --help
1125
1126for a listing.
1127
1128(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1129that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1130
ce80d64e
AD
1131=head2 Malloc Issues
1132
1133Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1134so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1135the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1136version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1137perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1138than your system malloc.
1139
1140However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1141experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1142that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1143(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1144
1145=over 4
1146
1147=item Using the system malloc
1148
1149To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1150
1151 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1152
1153or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1154
73d6d1b0
RGS
1155Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1156depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1157systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1158See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1159default is set.
1160
ce80d64e
AD
1161=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1162
1163NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1164run Configure to accept all the defaults.
ce80d64e
AD
1165
1166Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1167Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1168These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1169
1170If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1171will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1172sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1173been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1174
1175Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1176from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1177does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1178versions.
1179
1180=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1181
1182This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1183Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1184using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1185
7df75831 1186 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
AD
1187
1188to enable this option.
1189
1190=back
1191
8e07c86e
AD
1192=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1193
8d74ce1c 1194If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1195If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1196
8e07c86e
AD
1197=over 4
1198
25f94b33
AD
1199=item Running Configure Interactively
1200
1201If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1202Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1203guesses.
1204
1205All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1206have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1207flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33
AD
1208will use the defaults from then on.
1209
1210If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1211config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1212instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1213
aa689395 1214=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1215
a0a8d9d3
DD
1216Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1217
1218=over 4
1219
1220=item o
1221
1222The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1223library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1224and so on.
1225
1226=item o
1227
1228The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1229although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1230resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1231
1232=item o
1233
1234How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1235speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1236implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1237often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1238
1239=back
1240
1241The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1242in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1243will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1244not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
AD
1245
1246Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
AD
1247If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1248for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1249More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1250file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1251
1252Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1253Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1254
73d6d1b0 1255=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1256
82c11e95
RGS
1257If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1258different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1259always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1260on your system.
edb1cbcb 1261
1262For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1263and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1264Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a
AD
1265Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1266issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1267
1268 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1269 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1270 Keep the previous value? [y]
1271
1ec51d55 1272In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1273should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1274the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1275
8e07c86e
AD
1276=item Changing Compilers
1277
1278If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1279probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1280rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1281
c3edaffb 1282=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1283
1ec51d55
CS
1284If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1285them to all the .SH files by running
1286
1287 sh Configure -S
1288
1289You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1290
1291 make depend
1292 make
8e07c86e 1293
48370efc
JH
1294=item config.over and config.arch
1295
668cbedd 1296You can also supply a shell script config.over to override
48370efc
JH
1297Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1298before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1299however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1300This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1301
1302There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1303config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1304architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1305hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e
AD
1306
1307=item config.h
1308
1ec51d55
CS
1309Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1310Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1311The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1312
1ec51d55
CS
1313If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1314though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
AD
1315lost.
1316
1317=item cflags
1318
1319If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1320line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
5729ffdd
NC
1321optimizer on toke.c, find the switch structure marked 'or customize here',
1322and add a line for toke.c ahead of the catch-all *) so that it now reads:
1323
1324 : or customize here
1325
1326 case "$file" in
1327 toke) optimize='-g' ;;
1328 *) ;;
1329
1330You should not edit the generated file cflags directly, as your changes will
65c512c3 1331be lost the next time you run Configure, or if you edit config.sh.
8e07c86e 1332
f5b3b617
AD
1333To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1334see the file hints/README.hints.
1335
1336To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1337$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1338
1339 sh Configure -S
1340 make depend
8e07c86e 1341
aa689395 1342=item No sh
8e07c86e 1343
c42e3e15
GS
1344If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1345Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1346system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
AD
1347You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1348mechanism.
1349
c3edaffb 1350=item Porting information
1351
e6f03d26 1352Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1353corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1354including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1355subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1356
7f678428 1357Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1358http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1359various other operating systems.
1360
ce80d64e 1361If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1362section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
c222ef46 1363in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlgit.pod.
491517e0
JA
1364Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1365
8e07c86e
AD
1366=back
1367
ce80d64e 1368=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1369
1370You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1371CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1372command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1373
d3df0cfd 1374 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1375
1376or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1377then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1378The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
AD
1379This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1380extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1381extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1382
1383Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1384modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1385or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1386do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1387
1388Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1389dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1390For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1391headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1392process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1393
ce80d64e 1394=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1395
172dd959
JV
1396suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1397longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1398changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1399
8e07c86e
AD
1400=head1 make depend
1401
bfb7748a
AD
1402This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1403The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1404the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1405makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
AD
1406(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1407Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
AD
1408
1409Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1410explicitly above.
1411
1412=head1 make
1413
1414This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1415
8d410bc4
YST
1416=head2 Expected errors
1417
f5b5f377 1418These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1419
1420 ...
1421 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1422 ...
1423 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1424
8d74ce1c
AD
1425=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1426
8e07c86e 1427If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1428If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1429the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1430then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e
AD
1431
1432=over 4
1433
1ec51d55 1434=item hints
8e07c86e
AD
1435
1436If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1437for further tips and information.
1438
1ec51d55 1439=item extensions
8e07c86e 1440
1ec51d55 1441If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1442during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1443
3a6175e1 1444 make minitest
c3edaffb 1445
1446to test your version of miniperl.
1447
e57fd563 1448=item locale
1449
bfb7748a
AD
1450If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1451them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1452running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1453See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1454whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1455The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1456
1457 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1458 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1459 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1460 LANG = (unset)
1461 are supported and installed on your system.
1462 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1463
1464at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1465
06aa495b
DM
1466=item other environment variables
1467
1468Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1469have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1470OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1471their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1472behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1473executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1474PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1475So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1476retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1477
7f678428 1478=item varargs
c3edaffb 1479
1480If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
AD
1481correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1482gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1483in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
AD
1484correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1485your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1486See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1487
bfb7748a 1488=item util.c
c3edaffb 1489
1490If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1491numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1492
19f4563d 1493 util.c: In function 'Perl_form':
bfb7748a
AD
1494 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1495 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1496
1497it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1498previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1499
1ec51d55 1500=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1501
1502If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1503the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1504Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1505fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
668cbedd 1506of your local setup.
c3edaffb 1507
aa689395 1508=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1509
1510If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1511try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1512with
1513
1514 sh Configure -Uusenm
1515
1516or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1517If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1518config.sh.
1519
bfb7748a
AD
1520=item umask not found
1521
1522If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1523is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1524Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1525this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1526try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1527
7f678428 1528=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1529
1530If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1531problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1532version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1533(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1534d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1535
1536 d_vprintf='define'
1537
1538If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1539on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1540the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1541
3fe9a6f1 1542=item do_aspawn
1543
1544If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1545problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1546fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1547on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1548
84902520
TB
1549=item __inet_* errors
1550
1551If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1552referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1553installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1554these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1555in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1556newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1557If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1558with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1559test process to avoid the problem.
1560
73d6d1b0 1561=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1562
1563On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
668cbedd 1564reentrant functions -- specifically networking-related ones -- being present
6d240721
JH
1565but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1566other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1567header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1568another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1569Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1570header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1571normally /usr/include).
84902520 1572
d6baa268
JH
1573=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1574
1575This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1576gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1577changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1578rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1579update your gcc installation.
1580
aa689395 1581=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1582
9d67150a 1583If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1584optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1585
1586 optimize='-O'
1587
bfb7748a 1588to
9d67150a 1589
1590 optimize=' '
1591
1592then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1593with B<make depend; make>.
1594
4bbc1586 1595=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1596
4bbc1586
AD
1597If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1598undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1599should look something like
1600
1601 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1602
1603The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1604need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1605will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1606need to start all over again. Run
1607
1608 make distclean
1609
1610and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1611what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1612Configure.
1613
0ff780f4
MB
1614If the libs variable is missing -lm, there is a chance that libm.so.1
1615is available, but the required (symbolic) link to libm.so is missing.
1616(same could be the case for other libraries like libcrypt.so). You
1617should check your installation for packages that create that link, and
1618if no package is installed that supplies that link or you cannot install
1619them, make the symbolic link yourself e.g.:
1620
c7121961
FC
1621 $ rpm -qf /usr/lib64/libm.so
1622 glibc-devel-2.15-22.17.1.x86_64
1623 $ ls -lgo /usr/lib64/libm.so
1624 lrwxrwxrwx 1 16 Jan 7 2013 /usr/lib64/libm.so -> /lib64/libm.so.6
0ff780f4 1625
c7121961 1626 or
0ff780f4 1627
c7121961 1628 $ sudo ln -s /lib64/libm.so.6 /lib64/libm.so
0ff780f4 1629
4bbc1586
AD
1630If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1631L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1632
668cbedd 1633If you still have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
0ff780f4
MB
1634need to add some library or other, make a symbolic link like described
1635above, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1636there but is defective or incomplete. If you used a hint file, see if
1637it has any relevant advice. You can also look through through config.h
1638for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1639
1ec51d55 1640=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1641
1ec51d55
CS
1642Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1643toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1644allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
668cbedd 1645each file in cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1ec51d55 1646makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1647specific rule.
1648
7f678428 1649=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1650
c3edaffb 1651SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1652that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1653
1bb125e2
MB
1654=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1655
1656Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1657error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1658
1659 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1660
1661 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1662
1663 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1664
1665 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1666 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1667 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1668
1669 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1670
1671 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1672 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1673
f3d9a6ba 1674=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1675
1676If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1677the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1678then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1679Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1680systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
AD
1681Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1682phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1683unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1684
1685On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1686message
1687
f3d9a6ba 1688 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1689
1690then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1691the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1692extension without the -lgdbm library.
1693
1694It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1695this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1696quite that tightly coordinated.
1697
aa689395 1698=item sh: ar: not found
1699
1700This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1701was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1702make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1703is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1704directory.
1705
1706=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1707
1708Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1709with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1710bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1711
6087ac44
JH
1712=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1713
11906ba0 1714If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1715V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1716also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1717to include the System V semaphores.
1718
11906ba0 1719=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1720
1721Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1722both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1723ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1724with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1725system.
1726
d6baa268
JH
1727=item GNU binutils
1728
1729If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1730tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1731with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1732may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1733under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1734to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1735vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1736Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1737
16dc217a
GS
1738=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1739
1740The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1741make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1742archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1743C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1744archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1745incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1746official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1747that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1748archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1749
16dc217a
GS
1750=item invalid token: ##
1751
ce80d64e
AD
1752You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1753need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1754file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1755options.
16dc217a 1756
1ec51d55 1757=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1758
7df75831 1759Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1760
1761Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1762
1763NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1764
668cbedd 1765UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and #undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1766
11906ba0 1767FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1768configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1769you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1770
6c8d78fb
HS
1771Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1772installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1773and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1774the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1775view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1776to avoid the BIND.
1777
8e07c86e
AD
1778=back
1779
58a21a9b
JH
1780=head2 Cross-compilation
1781
e7a3c61b 1782Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
30bba555 1783rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for several platforms: as of
f36edc68 1784January 2014, these include Android, Blackberry 10, PocketPC aka
30bba555
BF
1785WinCE, ARM Linux, and Solaris. Previous versions of
1786Perl also provided support for Open Zaurus, Symbian, and
1787the IBM OS/400, but it's unknown if those ports are still functional.
1788These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms, while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host> platforms.
e7a3c61b
JH
1789
1790What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1791cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1792up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1793(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1794awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
30bba555
BF
1795version 5.18.0, the Configure script also knows two ways of supporting
1796cross-compilation, so please keep reading.
e7a3c61b
JH
1797
1798See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1799the particular platforms:
1800
1801=over 4
1802
1803=item WinCE/PocketPC
1804
30bba555 1805L<README.ce or perlce|perlce>
e7a3c61b 1806
30bba555 1807=item Android
e7a3c61b 1808
30bba555 1809L<"Cross-compilation" in README.android or perlandroid|perlandroid/Cross-compilation>
e7a3c61b 1810
30bba555 1811=item Blackberry
e7a3c61b 1812
30bba555 1813L<"Cross-compilation" in README.qnx or perlqnx|perlqnx/Cross-compilation>
e7a3c61b 1814
30bba555 1815=item Solaris
e7a3c61b 1816
30bba555
BF
1817L<"CROSS-COMPILATION" in README.solaris or perlsolaris|perlsolaris/CROSS-COMPILATION>
1818
1819=item Linux
1820
1821This document; See below.
e7a3c61b
JH
1822
1823=back
1824
1825Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1826modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1827cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1828platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1829L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1830of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1831
1832For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1833C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1834directory>.
1835
30bba555
BF
1836About the cross-compilation support of Configure: There's two forms.
1837The more common one requires some way of transferring and running executables
1838in the target system, such as an ssh connection; this is the
1839C<./Configure -Dusecrosscompile -Dtargethost=...> route. The second method
1840doesn't need access to the target system, but requires you to provide
1841a config.sh, and and a canned Makefile; the rest of this section describes
1842the former.
e7a3c61b 1843
30bba555
BF
1844This cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1845a wide variety of setups, such as a 64-bit OS X host for an Android ARM target, or
1846an amd64 Linux host targeting x86 Solaris, or even Windows.
e7a3c61b
JH
1847
1848To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
30bba555 1849has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>:
58a21a9b
JH
1850
1851 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1852
1853This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
30bba555 1854symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
58a21a9b
JH
1855
1856During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1857into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1858cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1859target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1860transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1861the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1862methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1863F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1864
1865To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1866the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1867happens), supply Configure with
1868
1869 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1870
1871The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1872must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1873You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1874
1875 -Dtargetuser=luser
1876
30bba555
BF
1877but in case you don't, "root" will be used. Similarly, you can specify
1878a non-standard (i.e. not 22) port for the connection, if applicable, through
1879
1880 -Dtargetport=2222
58a21a9b 1881
30bba555
BF
1882If the name of C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1883compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the target architecture (C<targetarch>),
1884plus names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and C<ranlib> will also be automatically
1885chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
1886(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1887as appropriate). This will also aid in guessing the proper
1888operating system name for the target, which has other repercussions, like
1889better defaults and possibly critical fixes for the platform. If Configure
1890isn't guessing the OS name properly, you may need to either add a hint file
1891redirecting Configure's guess, or modify Configure to make the correct choice.
1892
1893If your compiler doesn't follow that convention, you will also need to
1894specify which target environment to use, as well as C<ar> and friends:
58a21a9b
JH
1895
1896 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
30bba555
BF
1897 -Dcc=mycrossgcc
1898 -Dar=...
1899
1900Additionally, a cross-compilation toolchain will usually install it's own
1901logical system root somewhere -- that is, it'll create a directory somewhere
1902which includes subdirectories like 'include' or 'lib'. For example, you
1903may end up with C</skiff/local/arm-linux>, where
1904C</skiff/local/arm-linux/bin> holds the binaries for cross-compilation,
1905C</skiff/local/arm-linux/include> has the headers, and
1906C</skiff/local/arm-linux/lib> has the library files.
1907If this is the case, and you are using a compiler that understands
1908C<--sysroot>, like gcc or clang, you'll want to specify the
1909C<-Dsysroot> option for Configure:
1910
1911 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux
1912
1913However, if your don't have a suitable directory to pass to C<-Dsysroot>,
1914you will also need to specify which target environment to use:
1915
58a21a9b
JH
1916 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1917 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1918 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1919
58a21a9b
JH
1920In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1921choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1922for example:
1923
1924 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1925
1926Putting it all together:
1927
1928 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa 1929 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
30bba555 1930 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1931 -Dtargetuser=root \
1932 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1933 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
30bba555 1934 -Dsysroot=/skiff/local/arm-linux \
58a21a9b
JH
1935 -D...
1936
e7a3c61b 1937or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1938
1939 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1940 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1941 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1942 -D...
1943
e7a3c61b
JH
1944Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1945F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1946
1947 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1948 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1949 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
30bba555
BF
1950 -Dsysroot=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5
1951
1952There is also a C<targetenv> option for Configure which can be used
1953to modify the environment of the target just before testing begins
1954during 'make test'. For example, if the target system has a nonstandard
1955/tmp location, you could do this:
1956
1957 -Dtargetenv="export TMPDIR=/other/tmp;"
1958
1959If you are planning on cross-compiling to several platforms, or some other
1960thing that would involve running Configure several times, there are two
1961options that can be used to speed things up considerably.
1962As a bit of background, when you
1963call Configure with C<-Dusecrosscompile>, it begins by actually partially
1964building a miniperl on the host machine, as well as the generate_uudmap
1965binary, and we end up using that during the build.
1966So instead of building that new perl every single time, you can build it just
1967once in a separate directory, and then pass the resulting binaries to
1968Configure like this:
1969
1970 -Dhostperl=/path/to/second/build/dir/miniperl
1971 -Dhostgenerate=/path/to/second/build/dir/generate_uudmap
1972
1973Much less commonly, if you are cross-compiling from an ASCII host to an
1974EBCDIC target, or vise versa, you'll have to pass C<-Uhostgenerate> to
1975Configure, to signify that you want to build a generate_uudmap binary
1976that, during make, will be run on the target system.
e7a3c61b 1977
8e07c86e
AD
1978=head1 make test
1979
d6baa268
JH
1980This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1981'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
36bded94 1982wrong.
84902520 1983
84902520 1984Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1985opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1986a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1987
c4f23d77
AD
1988=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1989
1ec51d55 1990If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
36bded94 1991by hand to see if it makes any difference.
8e07c86e 1992
36bded94
AD
1993One way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1994individual subtests is to run the harness from the t directory:
aa689395 1995
785aa5e3 1996 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1997
fb73857a 1998(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1999complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
2000will run all tests.
10c7e831 2001
36bded94
AD
2002If individual tests fail, you can often run them by hand (from the main
2003perl directory), e.g.,
2004
2005 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
2006
fb73857a 2007You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
2008comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2009shared library path if you get errors like:
2010
2011 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2012
36bded94
AD
2013The file t/README in the t subdirectory contains more information about
2014running and modifying tests.
2015
10c7e831 2016See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2017
c4f23d77
AD
2018=over 4
2019
2020=item locale
2021
1ec51d55 2022Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2023may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 2024'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2025one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2026LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2027are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2028
2029If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2030
2031 setenv LC_ALL C
2032
2033(for C shell) or
2034
2035 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2036
1ec51d55
CS
2037for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2038make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2039is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2040shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2041things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2042open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2043external program.
eed2e782 2044
0740bb5b
AD
2045=item Timing problems
2046
c29923ff
JH
2047Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2048sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2049If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2050these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2051with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2052and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
2053F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
2054F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 2055F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2056
f89caa8d
RGS
2057You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
2058perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
2059different.
2060
c4f23d77
AD
2061=item Out of memory
2062
2063On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2064of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2065For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2066test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
2067
2068Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2069
04bd6448 2070 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
2071
2072to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2073test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2074tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2075and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2076
a55bb48b
AD
2077=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
2078
2079This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
2080a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
2081(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
2082shared library should fix the problem.
2083
4f76e5ba
AD
2084=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2085
2086First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2087real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2088
2089Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2090directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2091systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2092run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2093test').
2094
2095The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2096
2097(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2098other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2099
2100This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
668cbedd 2101unpacked in such a way that the user IDs in the distribution package
4f76e5ba
AD
2102are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2103
2104(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2105by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2106UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2107add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2108used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2109set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2110file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2111others.)
2112
2113This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2114permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2115also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2116is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2117should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2118supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2119used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
212011.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2121on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2122local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2123
b2b23189
JH
2124(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2125any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2126directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
2127(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2128building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2129module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2130
2131See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2132about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2133
c4f23d77
AD
2134=back
2135
5ee651a9
NC
2136The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2137Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2138your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2139C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2140
2141 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2142
2143An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2144L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2145scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2146interact with their job schedulers.
2147
8e07c86e
AD
2148=head1 make install
2149
2150This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2151Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2152to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2153pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
2154are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2155in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2156
19f4563d 2157If "make install" just says "'install' is up to date" or something
ce80d64e
AD
2158similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2159and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2160by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2161
dd64f1c3
AD
2162=head2 Installing perl under different names
2163
2164If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2165when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2166indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2167
2168 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2169
beb13193 2170You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2171"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2172
2173 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2174
5cda700b
AD
2175This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2176avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2177Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2178
ce80d64e
AD
2179=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2180
2181You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2182the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2183
2184 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2185
2186DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2187the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2188
dd64f1c3
AD
2189=head2 Installed files
2190
8e07c86e
AD
2191If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2192anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2193
8e07c86e
AD
2194 ./perl installperl -n
2195 ./perl installman -n
2196
1ec51d55 2197make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2198
d56c5707
JH
2199 binaries
2200
8e07c86e 2201 perl,
be8498a1 2202 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2203 will be a link to perl.
668cbedd 2204 a2p awk-to-perl translator.
d56c5707
JH
2205
2206 scripts
2207
979b4168
KW
2208 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P,
2209 if your cc -E can't read from stdin.
2210 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header
2211 files.
979b4168
KW
2212 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with
2213 different
668cbedd
KW
2214 versions of perl.
2215 cpan The CPAN shell.
668cbedd
KW
2216 enc2xs Encoding module generator.
2217 find2perl find-to-perl translator.
979b4168
KW
2218 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C
2219 headers.
8e07c86e 2220 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2221 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2222 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2223 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2224 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
668cbedd 2225 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure.
73d6d1b0 2226 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
668cbedd
KW
2227 utility iconv.
2228 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules.
8e07c86e 2229 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
d56c5707
JH
2230 pod2man,
2231 pod2text,
d56c5707 2232 pod2usage
668cbedd
KW
2233 podchecker POD syntax checker.
2234 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation.
2235 prove A command-line tool for running tests.
2236 psed A Perl implementation of sed.
2237 ptar A Perl implementation of tar.
2238 ptardiff A diff for tar archives.
2239 ptargrep A grep for tar archives.
2240 s2p sed-to-perl translator.
2241 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums.
2242 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors.
2243 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
979b4168 2244 zipdetails display the internal structure of zip files
8e07c86e 2245
d56c5707
JH
2246 library files
2247
2248 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2249 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2250
2251 documentation
2252
d6baa268
JH
2253 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2254 module man
2255 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2256 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2257
33cceb07 2258installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2259in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2260
d56c5707 2261Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2262under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2263optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2264program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2265
33cceb07
RGS
2266=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2267
d56c5707
JH
2268Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2269installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2270perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2271disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2272To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2273
2274 Configure -Dversiononly
2275
2276or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2277you can just manually run
2278
2279 ./perl installperl -v
2280
2281and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2282
d56c5707
JH
2283See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2284approach.
2285
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2286=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2287
2288Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2289system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2290header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2291by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2292library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2293
668cbedd 2294Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2295of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2296hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2297For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2298structures.
2299
2300=head1 installhtml --help
2301
2302Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2303format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2304documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2305
2306Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2307html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2308
2309The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2310perl documentation:
2311
2312 ./installhtml \
2313 --podroot=. \
2314 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2315 --recurse \
2316 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2317 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2318 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2319 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2320 --verbose
2321
2322See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2323many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2324see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2325resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2326(and would welcome patches for them).
2327
2328You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2329the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2330
2331=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2332
2333Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2334available in TeX format. Type
2335
2336 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2337
2338=head1 Starting all over again
2339
668cbedd 2340If you wish to rebuild perl from the same build directory, you should
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2341clean it out with the command
2342
2343 make distclean
2344
2345or
2346
2347 make realclean
2348
2349The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
c23a69e8
AD
2350your old config.sh and Policy.sh files. (A plain 'make clean' will not
2351delete the makefiles used for rebuilding perl, and will also not delete
2352a number of library and utility files extracted during the build process.)
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2353
2354If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2355change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
668cbedd 2356you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not reuse
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2357your old config.sh.
2358
2359If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2360installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2361using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2362settings"> above.
2363
ff52061e
RGS
2364=head1 Reporting Problems
2365
2366Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2367to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2368information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2369more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2370carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2371on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2372you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2373message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2374get advice.
2375
2376The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2377completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2378C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2379C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2380run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2381directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2382
2383If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2384B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2385an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2386
2387If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2388(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2389description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
668cbedd 2390-- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
ff52061e
RGS
2391
2392Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2393reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
668cbedd 2394written English is not great -- what matters is how well you describe
ff52061e
RGS
2395the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2396not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2397
2398Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2399config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2400necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2401session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2402messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
668cbedd 2403appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient -- fancy
ff52061e
RGS
2404attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2405read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2406subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2407
5acb7768
NC
2408If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2409inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2410it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2411unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2412to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2413co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2414platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2415issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2416
ff52061e
RGS
2417If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2418report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2419http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2420
7df75831 2421=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2422
bab3f9d4 2423Perl 5.21.4 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2424In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2425
693762b4 2426In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
24275.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2428re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2429version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2430
be8498a1
RGS
2431Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2432used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2433(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2434
33cceb07
RGS
2435Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2436searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2437
33cceb07
RGS
2438 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2439 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2440 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2441 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2442
33cceb07
RGS
2443Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2444searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2445
33cceb07
RGS
2446 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2447 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2448 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2449 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2450
33cceb07
RGS
2451 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2452 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2453 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2454
c42e3e15 2455Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2456of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2457directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2458to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2459suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2460present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2461/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2462but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2463
c42e3e15 2464The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 24655.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2466
33cceb07
RGS
2467Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2468with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2469Configure defaults) will be:
2470
33cceb07
RGS
2471 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2472 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2473 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2474 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2475
33cceb07 2476 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2477
33cceb07 2478 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2479
d6baa268 2480 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2481
cc65bb49
AD
2482Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2483modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2484
0a08c020
GS
2485This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2486to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2487versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2488
2489=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2490
1ec51d55 2491Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2492separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2493won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2494libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2495way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2496
bab3f9d4 2497 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.21.4
d52d4e46 2498
bab3f9d4 2499and adding /opt/perl5.21.4/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2500may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2501scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2502
693762b4 2503Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2504(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2505each major version.
2506
6877a1cf
AD
2507If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2508seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2509subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2510yet.
2511
a956158c 2512=head2 Upgrading from 5.21.3 or earlier
693762b4 2513
a956158c 2514B<Perl 5.21.4 may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.21.3 or
4683a5d7 2515earlier Perl releases.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2516(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
bab3f9d4
PM
2517used with 5.21.4. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
25185.21.4, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2519installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2520above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2521
2522See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2523incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2524perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2525
8ebf57cf
JH
2526=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2527
2528The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2529Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2530operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2531
c8214fdf 2532Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2533Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2534space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2535Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2536programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2537depends on what do you need to do.
2538
8ebf57cf
JH
2539In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2540recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2541depends on what you need.
2542
2543Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2544
2545 use strict;
2546 use warnings;
2547 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2548 print("$f\n");
2549 }
2550
bab3f9d4 2551in Linux with perl-5.21.4 is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2552
2553 ./bin/perl
bab3f9d4
PM
2554 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/strict.pm
2555 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/warnings.pm
2556 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2557 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/feature.pm
2558 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/XSLoader.pm
2559 ./lib/perl5/5.21.4/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2560
00930d57
AD
2561Secondly, for perl-5.10.1, the Debian perl-base package contains 591 files,
2562(of which 510 are for lib/unicore) totaling about 3.5MB in its i386 version.
2563Omitting the lib/unicore/* files for brevity, the remaining files are:
8ebf57cf 2564
bfe08c74 2565 /usr/bin/perl
00930d57
AD
2566 /usr/bin/perl5.10.1
2567 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config.pm
2568 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_git.pl
2569 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_heavy.pl
2570 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Cwd.pm
2571 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/DynaLoader.pm
2572 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Errno.pm
2573 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Fcntl.pm
2574 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/File/Glob.pm
2575 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Hash/Util.pm
2576 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO.pm
2577 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/File.pm
2578 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Handle.pm
2579 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2580 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2581 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Select.pm
2582 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket.pm
2583 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2584 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2585 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/List/Util.pm
2586 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/POSIX.pm
2587 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Scalar/Util.pm
2588 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Socket.pm
2589 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/XSLoader.pm
2590 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2591 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2592 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2593 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2594 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2595 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2596 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2597 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Hash/Util/Util.so
2598 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2599 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/List/Util/Util.so
2600 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2601 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2602 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2603 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2604 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/lib.pm
2605 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/re.pm
8ebf57cf 2606 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2607 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
00930d57 2608 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
8ebf57cf 2609 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2610 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
00930d57 2611 /usr/share/lintian/overrides/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2612 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
00930d57
AD
2613 /usr/share/man/man1/perl5.10.1.1.gz
2614 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/AutoLoader.pm
2615 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp.pm
2616 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2617 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter.pm
2618 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2619 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec.pm
2620 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2621 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/FileHandle.pm
2622 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2623 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2624 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2625 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/SelectSaver.pm
2626 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Symbol.pm
2627 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/ParseWords.pm
2628 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2629 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2630 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Tie/Hash.pm
2631 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/attributes.pm
2632 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/base.pm
2633 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes.pm
2634 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes_heavy.pl
2635 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/constant.pm
2636 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/fields.pm
2637 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/integer.pm
2638 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/locale.pm
2639 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/overload.pm
2640 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/strict.pm
2641 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/unicore/*
2642 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8.pm
2643 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8_heavy.pl
2644 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/vars.pm
2645 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings.pm
2646 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2647
e7a3c61b
JH
2648A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2649need to run a Perl program is
2650
a0a8d9d3 2651 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2652
2653(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2654it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2655use something like the below
2656
979b4168
KW
2657 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 \
2658 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
e7a3c61b
JH
2659
2660(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2661and 'ktrace'.)
2662
c19ccd8c
RGS
2663=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2664
2665If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2666F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2667by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2668completely removed.
2669
8e07c86e
AD
2670=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2671
bfb7748a
AD
2672Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2673is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2674build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2675can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2676sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e
AD
2677
2678=head1 AUTHOR
2679
bfb7748a
AD
2680Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2681heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2682feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2683
f5b3b617
AD
2684If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2685L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2686
2687=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2688
2689This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2690the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2691If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2692a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2693and the contact information to match your distribution.