This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Fix perl_call_*() when !G_EVAL
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
8e07c86e
AD
1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
7f678428 7The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system are:
8e07c86e
AD
8
9 rm -f config.sh
10 sh Configure
11 make
12 make test
13 make install
36477c24 14
aa689395 15 # You may also wish to add these:
16 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
17 (cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>)
18 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
8e07c86e
AD
19
20Each of these is explained in further detail below.
21
7f678428 22For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
aa689395 23L<"Porting Information"> below.
7f678428 24
c3edaffb 25=head1 DESCRIPTION
26
edb1cbcb 27You should probably at least skim through this entire document before
28proceeding. Special notes specific to this release are identified
29by B<NOTE>.
30
c3edaffb 31This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
32structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
33read it as is with any pager or editor.
34
eed2e782 35If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
36the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
37provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
38
aa689395 39=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 40
c3edaffb 41The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 7 MB of disk space.
42The complete tree after completing C<make> takes roughly
4315 MB, though the actual total is likely to be quite
44system-dependent. The installation directories need something
45on the order of 7 MB, though again that value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 46
aa689395 47=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 48
edb1cbcb 49If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
50with the command
51
52 make realclean
c3edaffb 53
8e07c86e
AD
54The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh file. If
55you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you change
56systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if you are
57experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably I<not>
58re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or rename it, e.g.
59
60 mv config.sh config.sh.old
4633a7c4 61
e57fd563 62If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
63version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
64the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
65includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
66name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
67Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
68probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
69Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
70numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
71
72Also, be careful to check your architecture name. Some Linux systems
73call themselves i486, while others use i586. If you pick up a
74precompiled binary, it might not use the same name.
75
76In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
77Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 78
aa689395 79=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e
AD
80
81Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
82things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
83you about. To accept the default, just press C<RETURN>. The default
84is almost always ok.
85
86After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
87F<*.SH> files and offer to run B<make depend>.
88
89Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h>
90to get a listing. To compile with gcc, for example, you can run
91
92 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
93
94This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
95compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
96
4633a7c4
LW
97If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
98with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
99
8e07c86e
AD
100If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
101output, you can run
102
103 sh Configure -des
104
105By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
106/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. You can specify a different 'prefix' for
107the default installation directory, when Configure prompts you or by
108using the Configure command line option -Dprefix='/some/directory',
109e.g.
110
25f94b33 111 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4
LW
112
113If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the directories
114are simplified. For example, if you use prefix=/opt/perl,
115then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
4fdae800 116/opt/perl/lib/perl5/.
8e07c86e 117
aa689395 118By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
8e07c86e 119your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
56c6f531
JH
120statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
121you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
8e07c86e 122
46bb10fb
CS
123=head2 GNU-style configure
124
125If you prefer the GNU-style B<configure> command line interface, you can
126use the supplied B<configure> command, e.g.
127
128 CC=gcc ./configure
129
aa689395 130The B<configure> script emulates a few of the more common configure
46bb10fb
CS
131options. Try
132
133 ./configure --help
134
135for a listing.
136
aa689395 137Cross compiling is not supported.
46bb10fb
CS
138
139For systems that do not distinguish the files "Configure" and
140"configure", Perl includes a copy of B<configure> named
141B<configure.gnu>.
142
24b3df7f 143=head2 Extensions
144
edb1cbcb 145By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
146to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
147only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
5f05dabc 148DynaLoader, Fcntl, and IO are always built by default. Configure does
149not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX is always built
150by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can set the
151Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from the
152Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always built
153by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
c3edaffb 154useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
24b3df7f 155
56c6f531
JH
156Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
157DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
158version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
159
24b3df7f 160In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
161to turn off each extension:
162
163 DB_File i_db
56c6f531 164 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
24b3df7f 165 Fcntl (Always included by default)
166 GDBM_File i_gdbm
9d67150a 167 IO (Always included by default)
24b3df7f 168 NDBM_File i_ndbm
169 ODBM_File i_dbm
170 POSIX useposix
171 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
c3edaffb 172 Opcode useopcode
24b3df7f 173 Socket d_socket
174
175Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
176
177 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
178
179Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
180library.
181
182Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
aa689395 183the extensions you want.
24b3df7f 184
185Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
186remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
187executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
188well build all the ones that will work on your system.
189
8e07c86e
AD
190=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
191
4633a7c4
LW
192Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
193dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
194Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
195automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
196are B<not> included with perl. See the library documentation for
197how to obtain the libraries.
8e07c86e
AD
198
199I<Note:> If your database header (.h) files are not in a
200directory normally searched by your C compiler, then you will need to
201include the appropriate B<-I/your/directory> option when prompted by
202Configure. If your database library (.a) files are not in a directory
203normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to
204include the appropriate B<-L/your/directory> option when prompted by
205Configure. See the examples below.
206
207=head2 Examples
208
209=over 4
210
aa689395 211=item gdbm in /usr/local
8e07c86e
AD
212
213Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
214GDBM_File extension. This examples assumes you have F<gdbm.h>
215installed in F</usr/local/include/gdbm.h> and F<libgdbm.a> installed in
216F</usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a>. Configure should figure all the
217necessary steps out automatically.
218
219Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
220your C compiler, you should include C<-I/usr/local/include>.
221
222When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
223C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
224
225If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
226linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
227C<-L/usr/local/lib>.
228
229Again, this should all happen automatically. If you want to accept the
230defaults for all the questions and have Configure print out only terse
231messages, then you can just run
232
233 sh Configure -des
234
235and Configure should include the GDBM_File extension automatically.
236
237This should actually work if you have gdbm installed in any of
238(/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu, /opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
239
240=item gdbm in /usr/you
241
242Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
243but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
244have F</usr/you/include/gdbm.h> and F</usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a>. You
245still have to add B<-I/usr/you/include> to cc flags, but you have to take
246an extra step to help Configure find F<libgdbm.a>. Specifically, when
247Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
248F</usr/you/lib> to the list.
249
250It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
251line):
252
253 sh Configure -des \
254 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
255 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
256
257C<locincpth> is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
258Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-I> directives.
259
260C<loclibpth> is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
261Configure will automatically add the appropriate B<-L> directives. If
262you have some libraries under F</usr/local/> and others under
263F</usr/you>, then you have to include both, namely
264
265 sh Configure -des \
266 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
267 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
268
269=back
270
aa689395 271=head2 Installation Directories
4633a7c4
LW
272
273The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
274appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
275installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
276
277By default, Configure uses the following directories for
278library files (archname is a string like sun4-sunos, determined
279by Configure)
280
46bb10fb 281 /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004
4633a7c4 282 /usr/local/lib/perl5/
24b3df7f 283 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/archname
284 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl
4633a7c4
LW
285
286and the following directories for manual pages:
287
288 /usr/local/man/man1
289 /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3
290
291(Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
292/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
293instead.) The module man pages are stuck in that strange spot so that
294they don't collide with other man pages stored in /usr/local/man/man3,
295and so that Perl's man pages don't hide system man pages. On some
296systems, B<man less> would end up calling up Perl's less.pm module man
297page, rather than the B<less> program.
298
299If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
aa689395 300directory structure is simplified. For example, if you Configure with
301-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the defaults are
4633a7c4 302
46bb10fb 303 /opt/perl/lib/archname/5.004
4633a7c4
LW
304 /opt/perl/lib
305 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/archname
306 /opt/perl/lib/site_perl
307
308 /opt/perl/man/man1
309 /opt/perl/man/man3
310
311The perl executable will search the libraries in the order given
312above.
313
314The directories site_perl and site_perl/archname are empty, but are
315intended to be used for installing local or site-wide extensions. Perl
316will automatically look in these directories. Previously, most sites
317just put their local extensions in with the standard distribution.
318
46bb10fb 319In order to support using things like #!/usr/local/bin/perl5.004 after
4633a7c4
LW
320a later version is released, architecture-dependent libraries are
321stored in a version-specific directory, such as
46bb10fb 322/usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/5.004/. In Perl 5.000 and 5.001, these
a6006777 323files were just stored in /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/. If you will
324not be using 5.001 binaries, you can delete the standard extensions from
325the /usr/local/lib/perl5/archname/ directory. Locally-added extensions
326can be moved to the site_perl and site_perl/archname directories.
4633a7c4
LW
327
328Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
329Configure.
330
aa689395 331=head2 Changing the installation directory
332
333Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
334associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
335will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
336sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
337However, sites that use software such as B<depot> to manage software
338packages may also wish to install perl into a different directory and
339use that management software to move perl to its final destination.
340This section describes how to do this. Someday, Configure may support
341an option -Dinstallprefix=/foo to simplify this.
342
343Suppose you want to install perl under the F</tmp/perl5> directory.
344You can edit F<config.sh> and change all the install* variables to
345point to F</tmp/perl5> instead of F</usr/local/wherever>. You could
346also set them all from the Configure command line. Or, you can
347automate this process by placing the following lines in a file
348F<config.over> B<before> you run Configure (replace /tmp/perl5 by a
349directory of your choice):
350
351 installprefix=/tmp/perl5
352 test -d $installprefix || mkdir $installprefix
353 test -d $installprefix/bin || mkdir $installprefix/bin
354 installarchlib=`echo $installarchlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
355 installbin=`echo $installbin | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
356 installman1dir=`echo $installman1dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
357 installman3dir=`echo $installman3dir | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
358 installprivlib=`echo $installprivlib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
359 installscript=`echo $installscript | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
360 installsitelib=`echo $installsitelib | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
361 installsitearch=`echo $installsitearch | sed "s!$prefix!$installprefix!"`
362
363Then, you can Configure and install in the usual way:
364
365 sh Configure -des
366 make
367 make test
368 make install
369
370=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
371
372If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
373convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
374installed on multiple systems. Here's one way to do that:
375
376 # Set up config.over to install perl into a different directory,
377 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
378 sh Configure -des
379 make
380 make test
381 make install
382 cd /tmp/perl5
383 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
384 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
385 cd /usr/local # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
386 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
387
388=head2 Configure-time Options
389
390There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
391system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
392Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
393some of the main things you can change.
394
395=head2 Binary Compatibility With Earlier Versions of Perl 5
396
397If you have dynamically loaded extensions that you built under
398perl 5.003 and that you wish to continue to use with perl 5.004, then you
399need to ensure that 5.004 remains binary compatible with 5.003.
400
401Starting with Perl 5.003, all functions in the Perl C source code have
402been protected by default by the prefix Perl_ (or perl_) so that you
403may link with third-party libraries without fear of namespace
404collisions. This change broke compatibility with version 5.002, so
405installing 5.003 or 5.004 over 5.002 or earlier will force you to
406re-build and install all of your dynamically loadable extensions.
407(The standard extensions supplied with Perl are handled
408automatically). You can turn off this namespace protection by adding
409-DNO_EMBED to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
410
411Perl 5.003's namespace protection was incomplete, but this has
412been fixed in 5.004. However, some sites may need to maintain
413complete binary compatibility with Perl 5.003. If you are building
414Perl for such a site, then when B<Configure> asks if you want binary
415compatibility, answer "y".
416
417On the other hand, if you are embedding perl into another application
418and want the maximum namespace protection, then you probably ought to
419answer "n" when B<Configure> asks if you want binary compatibility.
420
421The default answer of "y" to maintain binary compatibility is probably
422appropriate for almost everyone.
423
46bb10fb
CS
424=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
425
426Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
427<stdio.h>. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
428mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
429the default and is the only supported mechanism.
430
431This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
432line with
433
434 sh Configure -Duseperlio
435
436or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
437
438If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
439(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
440tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
441everywhere.
442
443=over 4
444
445=item 1.
446
447AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to <stdio.h> in many
aa689395 448cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
46bb10fb
CS
449currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
450Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
451extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
452configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
453
454This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
455A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN, and work is in progress to make
456it more easily buildable by adding Configure support.
457
458You select this option by
459
460 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
461
462If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
463that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
464Configure.
465
33e6ee5f
AD
466I<Note:> On some systems, sfio's B<iffe> configuration script fails
467to detect that you have an C<atexit> function (or equivalent).
468Apparently, this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux
469and SunOS 4.
470
471You can test if you have this problem by trying the following shell
472script. (You may have to add some extra cflags and libraries. A
473portable version of this may eventually make its way into Configure.)
474
475 #!/bin/sh
476 cat > try.c <<'EOCP'
477 #include <stdio.h>
478 main() { printf("42\n"); }
479 EOCP
480 cc -o try try.c -lsfio
481 val=`./try`
482 if test X$val = X42; then
483 echo "Your sfio looks ok"
484 else
485 echo "Your sfio has the exit problem."
486 fi
487
488If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to your sfio sources
489and correct iffe's guess about atexit (or whatever is appropriate for
490your platform.)
491
492There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
493problem.
494
46bb10fb
CS
495=item 2.
496
497Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
498abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
499extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
500abstraction.
501
502This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
503
aa689395 504You select this option via:
46bb10fb
CS
505
506 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
507
508If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
509detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
510
511=back
512
aa689395 513=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 514
515Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
516linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
517extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
518such as -lm.
519
9d67150a 520On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
521replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 522several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
523different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 524you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 525can share the same library.
526
527The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 528penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 529mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 530and upgrades.
531
532In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 533test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 534Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
535results.
536
537The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 538libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 539libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 540based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
541version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
542isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
543
544For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
545for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
546
547You can elect to build a shared libperl by
548
549 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
550
551To actually build perl, you must add the current working directory to your
aa689395 552LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable before running make. You can do
c3edaffb 553this with
554
555 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
556
557for Bourne-style shells, or
558
559 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
560
561for Csh-style shells. You *MUST* do this before running make.
562Folks running NeXT OPENSTEP must substitute DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
563LD_LIBRARY_PATH above.
564
9d67150a 565There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
566want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
567with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 568install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
569try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 570the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
571ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 572libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 573that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
56c6f531
JH
574in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
575equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
576with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't.
9d67150a 577
578The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
579directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
580version of perl. You can do this with by changing all the *archlib*
581variables in config.sh, namely archlib, archlib_exp, and
582installarchlib, to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
583
55479bb6
AD
584=head2 Malloc Issues
585
586Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed, so
587perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
588the malloc function on your system.
589
590The perl source is shipped with a version of malloc that is very fast
591but somewhat wasteful of space. On the other hand, your system's
592malloc() function is probably a bit slower but also a bit more frugal.
593
594For many uses, speed is probably the most important consideration, so
595the default behavior (for most systems) is to use the malloc supplied
596with perl. However, if you will be running very large applications
597(e.g. Tk or PDL) or if your system already has an excellent malloc, or
598if you are experiencing difficulties with extensions that use
599third-party libraries that call malloc, then you might wish to use
600your system's malloc. (Or, you might wish to explore the experimental
601malloc flags discussed below.)
602
603To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
604
605 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
606
607or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
608
aa689395 609=head2 Malloc Performance Flags
c3edaffb 610
55479bb6
AD
611If you are using Perl's malloc, you may add one or
612more of the following items to your C<cflags> config.sh variable
613to change its behavior in potentially useful ways. You can find out
614more about these flags by reading the F<malloc.c> source.
615In a future version of perl, these might be enabled by default.
c3edaffb 616
aa689395 617=over 4
618
619=item -DEMERGENCY_SBRK
620
621If this macro is defined, running out of memory need not be a fatal
622error: a memory pool can allocated by assigning to the special
55479bb6 623variable C<$^M>.
aa689395 624
625=item -DPACK_MALLOC
626
55479bb6
AD
627If C<PACK_MALLOC> is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
628algorithm for small allocations (up to 64 bytes long). Such small
629allocations are quite common in typical Perl scripts.
aa689395 630
55479bb6
AD
631The expected memory savings (with 8-byte alignment in C<alignbytes>) is
632about 20% for typical Perl usage. The expected slowdown due to the
633additional malloc overhead is in fractions of a percent. (It is hard
634to measure because of the effect of the saved memory on speed).
aa689395 635
636=item -DTWO_POT_OPTIMIZE
637
55479bb6
AD
638If C<TWO_POT_OPTIMIZE> is defined, malloc.c uses a slightly different
639algorithm for large allocations that are close to a power of two
640(starting with 16K). Such allocations are typical for big hashes and
641special-purpose scripts, especially image processing. If you will be
642manipulating very large blocks with sizes close to powers of two, it
643might be wise to define this macro.
aa689395 644
55479bb6
AD
645The expected saving of memory is 0-100% (100% in applications which
646require most memory in such 2**n chunks). The expected slowdown is
aa689395 647negligible.
648
649=back
650
651=head2 Other Compiler Flags
652
653For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. However,
654you can change a number of factors in the way perl is built
655by adding appropriate B<-D> directives to your ccflags variable in
656config.sh.
657
658For example, you can replace the rand() and srand() functions in the
659perl source by any other random number generator by a trick such as the
660following:
661
662 sh Configure -Dccflags='-Drand=random -Dsrand=srandom'
663
664or by adding C<-Drand=random> and C<-Dsrandom=srandom> to your ccflags
665at the appropriate Configure prompt. (You may also have to adjust
666Configure's guess for 'randbits' as well.)
c3edaffb 667
8e07c86e
AD
668=head2 What if it doesn't work?
669
670=over 4
671
25f94b33
AD
672=item Running Configure Interactively
673
674If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
675Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
676guesses.
677
678All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 679have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
680flags) you can type C<&-d> at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33
AD
681will use the defaults from then on.
682
683If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
684config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
685instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
686
aa689395 687=item Hint files
8e07c86e
AD
688
689The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
690in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
691will offer to use that hint file.
692
693Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
694If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint
695file for further information. See F<hints/solaris_2.sh> for an
696extensive example.
697
edb1cbcb 698=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
699
700Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
7014.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
702standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
703will see a message:
704
705 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
706 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
707 Keep the recommended value? [y]
708
709You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
710relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
711overriding it.
712
713If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
714used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
715to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
716system.
717
718For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
719and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
720Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
721Now, Configure will find your gdbm library and will issue a message:
722
723 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
724 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
725 Keep the previous value? [y]
726
727In this case, you do I<not> want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 728should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 729the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
730
8e07c86e
AD
731=item Changing Compilers
732
733If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
734probably I<not> re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
735rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
736with the options you want to use.
737
738This is a common source of problems. If you change from B<cc> to
739B<gcc>, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
740
c3edaffb 741=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 742
56c6f531 743If you make any changes to F<config.sh>, you should propagate
9d67150a 744them to all the .SH files by running B<sh Configure -S>. You will
745then have to rebuild by running
746
747 make depend
748 make
8e07c86e
AD
749
750=item config.over
751
752You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
753guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
754is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d52d4e46 755does no checking that your changes make sense. See the section on
7f678428 756L<"Changing the installation directory"> for an example.
8e07c86e
AD
757
758=item config.h
759
760Many of the system dependencies are contained in F<config.h>.
761F<Configure> builds F<config.h> by running the F<config_h.SH> script.
762The values for the variables are taken from F<config.sh>.
763
764If there are any problems, you can edit F<config.h> directly. Beware,
765though, that the next time you run B<Configure>, your changes will be
766lost.
767
768=item cflags
769
770If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
771line, they can be made in F<cflags.SH>. For instance, to turn off the
772optimizer on F<toke.c>, find the line in the switch structure for
773F<toke.c> and put the command C<optimize='-g'> before the C<;;>. You
774can also edit F<cflags> directly, but beware that your changes will be
775lost the next time you run B<Configure>.
776
777To change the C flags for all the files, edit F<config.sh>
778and change either C<$ccflags> or C<$optimize>,
25f94b33 779and then re-run B<sh Configure -S ; make depend>.
8e07c86e 780
aa689395 781=item No sh
8e07c86e
AD
782
783If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file config_H to
784config.h and edit the config.h to reflect your system's peculiarities.
785You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
786mechanism.
787
c3edaffb 788=item Porting information
789
aa689395 790Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports are in the
791corresponding subdirectories. Additional information, including
c3edaffb 792a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
793subdirectory.
794
7f678428 795Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1bb2ced4 796L<"http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports"> for current information on ports to
7f678428 797various other operating systems.
798
8e07c86e
AD
799=back
800
801=head1 make depend
802
803This will look for all the includes.
804The output is stored in F<makefile>. The only difference between
805F<Makefile> and F<makefile> is the dependencies at the bottom of
806F<makefile>. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
807F<makefile>, not F<Makefile> since the Unix B<make> command reads
c3edaffb 808F<makefile> first. (On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in
809a different file. Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh
810if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
AD
811
812Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
813explicitly above.
814
815=head1 make
816
817This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
818
819If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 820If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
821the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help, you can
822send a message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
823perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 824See L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e
AD
825
826=over 4
827
828=item *
829
830If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
831for further tips and information.
832
833=item *
834
c3edaffb 835If you can successfully build F<miniperl>, but the process crashes
836during the building of extensions, you should run
837
838 make minitest
839
840to test your version of miniperl.
841
e57fd563 842=item locale
843
844If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try
845unsetting them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang
846while running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C
847locale. See the discussion under L<make test> below about locales.
848
c3edaffb 849=item *
850
aa689395 851If you get duplicates upon linking for malloc et al, add -DHIDEMYMALLOC
852or -DEMBEDMYMALLOC to your ccflags variable in config.sh.
c3edaffb 853
7f678428 854=item varargs
c3edaffb 855
856If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
857correctly. When using gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define'
858and i_varargs='undef' in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by
859running fixincludes correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't
7f678428 860forget to propagate your changes (see
861L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
862See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 863
864=item *
865
866If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
867numbers will vary in different versions of perl):
868
869 util.c: In function `Perl_croak':
870 util.c:962: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
871 proto.h:45: prototype declaration
872
873it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 874previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 875
9d67150a 876=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 877
878If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
879Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
880B<-B/bin/> (for SunOS) or B<-B/usr/ccs/bin/> (for Solaris) to your
881$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
882and ld are used. Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
883environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
884your gcc documentation for further information on the B<-B> option and
885the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
886
9d67150a 887=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
888
889If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 890it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
891L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 892
c3edaffb 893=item *
894
895If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 896the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
897Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 898fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
899of your local set-up.
900
901=item dlopen: stub interception failed
902
903The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
904that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
905which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
906
aa689395 907The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 908actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
909failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
910"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
911functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
912
aa689395 913=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 914
915If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
916try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
917with
918
919 sh Configure -Uusenm
920
921or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
922If you have previously run Configure, you should I<not> reuse your old
923config.sh.
924
7f678428 925=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 926
927If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
928problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
929version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
930(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
931d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
932
933 d_vprintf='define'
934
935If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
936on a number of other common functions too. You are probably better off
937re-running Configure without using nm extraction (see previous item).
938
aa689395 939=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 940
9d67150a 941If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 942optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 943
944 optimize='-O'
945
946to something like
947
948 optimize=' '
949
950then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
951with B<make depend; make>.
952
953=item *
954
56c6f531
JH
955If you still can't compile successfully, try adding a C<-DCRIPPLED_CC>
956flag. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it compiled right!)
957This simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
958indigestion easily.
9d67150a 959
960=item Missing functions
961
962If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
963other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
964there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
965likely suspects.
8e07c86e
AD
966
967=item *
968
969Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files without
970some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or allocate larger
971internal tables. You can customize the switches for each file in
972F<cflags>. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
973F<makefile> since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
974specific rule.
975
7f678428 976=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 977
c3edaffb 978SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
979that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 980
7f678428 981=item Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lposix
982
983If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
984the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
985then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
986Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 987systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 988For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
989unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
990they don't have. The message 'will try anyway' is intended to
991reassure you that the process is continuing.
992
993On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
994message
995
996 Warning (will try anyway): No library found for -lgdbm
997
998then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
999the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1000extension without the -lgdbm library.
1001
1002It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1003this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1004quite that tightly coordinated.
1005
aa689395 1006=item sh: ar: not found
1007
1008This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1009was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1010make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1011is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the F</usr/ccs/bin>
1012directory.
1013
1014=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1015
1016Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1017with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1018bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1019
8e07c86e
AD
1020=item *
1021
1022Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1023
1024Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1025
1026NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1027
aa689395 1028UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, B<-K> or B<-g>, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e
AD
1029
1030If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1031
1032Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1033
8e07c86e
AD
1034=back
1035
1036=head1 make test
1037
1038This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If it
1039doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went wrong. See the
aa689395 1040file F<t/README> in the F<t> subdirectory. Note that you can't run the
1041tests in background if this disables opening of /dev/tty.
c3edaffb 1042
1043If B<make test> bombs out, just B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
aa689395 1044F<./TEST> by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1045bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
AD
1046
1047 ./perl op/groups.t
1048
aa689395 1049Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1050individual subtests is to B<cd> to the F<t> directory and run
1051
1052 ./perl harness
1053
1054(this assumes that I<most> tests succeed, since F<harness> uses
1055complicated constructs).
1056
c3edaffb 1057You can also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
1058comments that apply to your system.
1059
aa689395 1060B<Note>: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1061may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
c3edaffb 1062C<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
aa689395 1063one or more of these environment variables set: C<LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
56c6f531 1064LC_COLLATE LANG>. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1065are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1066
1067If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1068
1069 setenv LC_ALL C
1070
1071(for C shell) or
1072
1073 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1074
1075for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry C<make
e57fd563 1076test>. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1077is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1078shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
aa689395 1079things like: C<exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...")> or
e57fd563 1080C<open("...|")>. All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
1081external program.
eed2e782 1082
8e07c86e
AD
1083=head1 make install
1084
1085This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1086B<Configure>; by default this is F</usr/local/bin>. It will also try
1087to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1088pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e
AD
1089are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1090ignore any messages about chown not working.
1091
1092If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1093anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1094
8e07c86e
AD
1095 ./perl installperl -n
1096 ./perl installman -n
1097
1098B<make install> will install the following:
1099
1100 perl,
1101 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1102 will be a link to perl.
1103 suidperl,
1104 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1105 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1106 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1107 read from stdin.
1108 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1109 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1110 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1111 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1112 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1113 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1114 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1115 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1116 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1117 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1118 pod2man, and
1119 pod2text
1120 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
8e07c86e
AD
1121
1122 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1123 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
1124 man pages in the location specified to Configure, usually
1125 something like /usr/local/man/man1.
1126 module in the location specified to Configure, usually
1127 man pages under /usr/local/lib/perl5/man/man3.
1128 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1129
4633a7c4
LW
1130Installperl will also create the library directories $siteperl and
1131$sitearch listed in config.sh. Usually, these are something like
24b3df7f 1132 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
1133 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$archname
4633a7c4
LW
1134where $archname is something like sun4-sunos. These directories
1135will be used for installing extensions.
1136
56c6f531
JH
1137Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
1138under $archlib so that any user may later build new extensions, run the
1139optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1140program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1141
aa689395 1142=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1143
eed2e782 1144You can safely install the current version of perl5 and still run scripts
56c6f531 1145under the old binaries for versions 5.003 and later ONLY. Instead of
eed2e782 1146starting your script with #!/usr/local/bin/perl, just start it with
56c6f531 1147#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.003 (or whatever version you want to run.)
a6006777 1148If you want to retain a version of Perl 5 prior to 5.003, you'll
eed2e782 1149need to install the current version in a separate directory tree,
1150since some of the architecture-independent library files have changed
1151in incompatible ways.
4633a7c4
LW
1152
1153The architecture-dependent files are stored in a version-specific
46bb10fb 1154directory (such as F</usr/local/lib/perl5/sun4-sunos/5.004>) so that
aa689395 1155they are still accessible. I<Note:> Perl 5.000 and 5.001 did not
4633a7c4
LW
1156put their architecture-dependent libraries in a version-specific
1157directory. They are simply in F</usr/local/lib/perl5/$archname>. If
1158you will not be using 5.000 or 5.001, you may safely remove those
1159files.
1160
1161The standard library files in F</usr/local/lib/perl5>
c3edaffb 1162should be usable by all versions of perl5.
4633a7c4 1163
d52d4e46 1164Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use with a newer
4633a7c4
LW
1165version of perl. If you do run into problems, and you want to continue
1166to use the old version of perl along with your extension, simply move
1167those extension files to the appropriate version directory, such as
aa689395 1168F</usr/local/lib/perl/archname/5.003>. Then Perl 5.003 will find your
1169files in the 5.003 directory, and newer versions of perl will find your
4633a7c4
LW
1170newer extension in the site_perl directory.
1171
d52d4e46 1172Some users may prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
1173separate directories. One convenient way to do this is by
1174using a separate prefix for each version, such as
1175
46bb10fb 1176 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1177
46bb10fb 1178and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1179may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1180scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1181
8e07c86e
AD
1182=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1183
1184You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1185
1186By default, the perl5 libraries go into F</usr/local/lib/perl5/>, so
1187they don't override the perl4 libraries in F</usr/local/lib/perl/>.
1188
1189In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1190F<perl4.036>. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
1191process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1192However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
1193the C<#!> line at the top of them by C<#!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036>
edb1cbcb 1194(or whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod
1195for possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1196
aa689395 1197=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1198
1199Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from
1200the system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1201header files in F</usr/include> into files that can be easily interpreted
1202by perl. These files will be placed in the architectural library directory
1203you specified to B<Configure>; by default this is
1204F</usr/local/lib/perl5/ARCH/VERSION>, where B<ARCH> is your architecture
1205(such as C<sun4-solaris>) and B<VERSION> is the version of perl you are
1206building (for example, C<5.004>).
1207
1208B<Note:> Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the
1209conversion of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have
1210to hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse
1211correctly. For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and
1212certain structures.
1213
1214=head1 cd pod && make html && mv *.html (www home dir)
1215
1216Some sites may wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1217available in HTML format. Type
1218
1219 cd pod && make html && mv *.html <www home dir>
1220
1221where F<www home dir> is wherever your site keeps HTML files.
1222
1223=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1224
1225Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1226available in TeX format. Type
1227
1228 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1229
1230=head1 Reporting Problems
1231
1232If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this
1233file helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant
1234manual pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a
1235message to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to
1236perlbug@perl.com with an accurate description of your problem.
1237
1238Please include the I<output> of the B<./myconfig> shell script
1239that comes with the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the
1240B<perlbug> program that comes with the perl distribution,
1241but you need to have perl compiled and installed before you can use it.
1242
1243You might also find helpful information in the F<Porting>
1244directory of the perl distribution.
1245
8e07c86e
AD
1246=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1247
1248Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation is
1249in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
1250build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
1251can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied B<perldoc> script. This
1252is sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
1253
34a2a22e
RM
1254Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form
1255along with its I<Table of Contents> by going to the pod/ subdirectory
1256and running (either):
1257
1258 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1259 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e
RM
1260
1261This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1262(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1263set-up.)
34a2a22e
RM
1264
1265Note that you must have performed the installation already before
1266running the above, since the script collects the installed files to
1267generate the documentation.
1268
8e07c86e
AD
1269=head1 AUTHOR
1270
1271Andy Dougherty <doughera@lafcol.lafayette.edu>, borrowing I<very> heavily
1272from the original README by Larry Wall.
1273
a5f75d66 1274=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1275
33e6ee5f 1276$Id: INSTALL,v 1.3 1997/02/28 16:34:11 doughera Released $