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1=head1 NAME
2
3Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
4
5=head1 SYNOPSIS
6
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7First, make sure you are installing an up-to-date version of Perl. If
8you didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
9<URL:http://www.perl.com/CPAN/src/>.
10
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11The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system
12with all the defaults are:
8e07c86e 13
dc45a647 14 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 15 sh Configure -de
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16 make
17 make test
18 make install
36477c24 19
aa689395 20 # You may also wish to add these:
21 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
3e3baf6d 22 (installhtml --help)
aa689395 23 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
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24
25Each of these is explained in further detail below.
26
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27The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local or /opt, depending
28on the platform. If that's not okay with you, use
29
30 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
31 sh Configure
32 make
33 make test
34 make install
35
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36For information on non-Unix systems, see the section on
37L<"Porting information"> below.
7f678428 38
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39If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
41
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42For information on what's new in this release, see the
43pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
44changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 45
1ec51d55 46=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 47
c3edaffb 48This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
49structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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50read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
51by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
52
53 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
54 C<code> literal code
55 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
56
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57Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
58you should probably at least skim through this entire document before
1ec51d55 59proceeding.
c3edaffb 60
eed2e782 61If you're building Perl on a non-Unix system, you should also read
62the README file specific to your operating system, since this may
63provide additional or different instructions for building Perl.
64
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65If there is a hint file for your system (in the hints/ directory) you
66should also read that hint file for specific information for your
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67system. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh hint file.) If
68there is a README file for your platform, then you should read
69that too. Additional information is in the Porting/ directory.
203c3eec 70
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71=head1 WARNING: This version requires an extra step to build old extensions.
72
735.005_53 and later releases do not export unadorned
74global symbols anymore. This means you may need to build older
75extensions that have not been updated for the new naming convention
76with:
77
78 perl Makefile.PL POLLUTE=1
79
80Alternatively, you can enable CPP symbol pollution wholesale by
81building perl itself with:
82
83 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_POLLUTE
84
85pod/perldelta.pod contains more details about this.
86
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87=head1 WARNING: This version may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.005.
88
89Using the default Configure options for building perl should get you
90a perl that will be binary compatible with the 5.005 release.
693762b4 91
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92However, if you run Configure with any custom options, such as
93-Dusethreads, -Dusemultiplicity, -Dusemymalloc, -Ubincompat5005 etc.,
94the resulting perl will not be binary compatible. Under these
95circumstances, if you have dynamically loaded extensions that were
96built under perl 5.005, you will need to rebuild and reinstall all
97those extensions to use them with 5.6.
98
99Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
100without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
101L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
102L<"Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6"> for more details.
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103
104The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
105
1b1c1ae2 106On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the
693762b4 107changes in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
e02fdbd2 108pod/perldelta.pod (and pod/perl500Xdelta.pod) for a description of
c42e3e15 109what's changed. See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod
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110file for a (possibly incomplete) list of locally installed modules.
111Also see CPAN::autobundle for one way to make a "bundle" of your
112currently installed modules.
693762b4 113
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114=head1 WARNING: This version requires a compiler that supports ANSI C.
115
116If you find that your C compiler is not ANSI-capable, try obtaining
117GCC, available from GNU mirrors worldwide (e.g. ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu).
d6baa268 118Another alternative may be to use a tool like ansi2knr to convert the
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119sources back to K&R style, but there is no guarantee this route will get
120you anywhere, since the prototypes are not the only ANSI features used
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121in the Perl sources. ansi2knr is usually found as part of the freely
122available Ghostscript distribution. Another similar tool is
123unprotoize, distributed with GCC. Since unprotoize requires GCC to
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124run, you may have to run it on a platform where GCC is available, and move
125the sources back to the platform without GCC.
126
127If you succeed in automatically converting the sources to a K&R compatible
128form, be sure to email perlbug@perl.com to let us know the steps you
129followed. This will enable us to officially support this option.
130
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131Although Perl can be compiled using a C++ compiler, the Configure script
132does not work with some C++ compilers.
133
aa689395 134=head1 Space Requirements
eed2e782 135
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136The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 20 MB of disk space.
137After completing make, it takes up roughly 30 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 138total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
c42e3e15 139directories need something on the order of 20 MB, though again that
1ec51d55 140value is system-dependent.
8e07c86e 141
aa689395 142=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 143
edb1cbcb 144If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
145with the command
146
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147 make distclean
148
149or
150
edb1cbcb 151 make realclean
c3edaffb 152
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153The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
154your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
155
156The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
157files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
158change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
159you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 160not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 161
d6baa268 162 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 163
e57fd563 164If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
165version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
166the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
167includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
168name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
169Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
170probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't, presently.
171Similarly, if you used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version
172numbers, you will probably want to adjust them as well.
173
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174Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
175Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
176it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
177might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
178compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
179the architecture name.
e57fd563 180
181In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
182Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 183
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184If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
185installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
186using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
187settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
188also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
189
190 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 191
aa689395 192=head1 Run Configure
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193
194Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
195things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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196you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
197almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
198since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
199the same function.
200
201At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
202defaults from then on.
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203
204After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 205*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 206
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207=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
208
209For most users, all of the Configure defaults are fine. Configure
210also has several convenient options which are all described below.
211However, if Configure doesn't have an option to do what you want,
212you can change Configure variables after the platform hints have been
213run, by using Configure's -A switch. For example, here's how to add
214a couple of extra flags to C compiler invocations:
215
216 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_Y2KWARN -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
217
218For more help on Configure switches, run:
219
220 sh Configure -h
221
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222=head2 Common Configure options
223
fb73857a 224Configure supports a number of useful options. Run B<Configure -h> to
225get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
226Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
227
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228=over 4
229
230=item gcc
231
232To compile with gcc you should run
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233
234 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
235
236This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
237compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
238
d6baa268 239=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 240
8e07c86e 241By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
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242/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
243and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
244further details.)
245
246You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
247directory, when Configure prompts you or by using the Configure command
248line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 249
25f94b33 250 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 251
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252If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
253directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
254prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
255/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
256for more details.
8e07c86e 257
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258NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
259as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
260attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 261
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262=item /usr/bin/perl
263
264It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
265find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 266/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
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267careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
268vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing.
269
270By default, Configure will arrange for /usr/bin/perl to be linked to
271the current version of perl. You can turn off that behavior by running
272
273 Configure -Uinstallusrbinperl
274
275or by answering 'no' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
276
277In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to
dd64f1c3 278put (symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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279into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
280obvious and convenient place.
281
d6baa268 282=item Overriding an old config.sh
04d420f9 283
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284If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
285with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
286
287=back
8e07c86e 288
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289If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
290output, you can run
291
292 sh Configure -des
293
294For my Solaris system, I usually use
295
296 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
297
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298=head2 GNU-style configure
299
1ec51d55 300If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
dc45a647 301use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
46bb10fb 302
693762b4 303 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
46bb10fb 304
dc45a647 305The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
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306options. Try
307
693762b4 308 ./configure.gnu --help
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309
310for a listing.
311
d6baa268 312Cross compiling and compiling in a different directory are not supported.
46bb10fb 313
dc45a647 314(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
693762b4 315that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
46bb10fb 316
aa689395 317=head2 Installation Directories
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318
319The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
320appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
321installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
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322Further, there are a number of additions to the installation
323directories since 5.005, so reusing your old config.sh may not
324be sufficient to put everything where you want it.
4633a7c4 325
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326I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
327everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
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328process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
329the defaults from then on.
330
331The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
332people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
333distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
334need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
335you can safely skip the next section.
336
337The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
338
339=over 4
340
341=item Directories for the perl distribution
342
c42e3e15 343By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.6.0.
d6baa268 344$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
0a08c020 3455.6.0 or 5.6.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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346determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
347variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
348
349 Configure variable Default value
350 $prefix /usr/local
351 $bin $prefix/bin
352 $scriptdir $prefix/bin
353 $privlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version
354 $archlib $prefix/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
355 $man1dir $prefix/man/man1
356 $man3dir $prefix/man/man3
357 $html1dir (none)
358 $html3dir (none)
359
360Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
361/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
362instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
363directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
364the common style is shown here.
365
366=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
367
368After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
369CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
c42e3e15 370be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
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371
372 Configure variable Default value
373 $siteprefix $prefix
374 $sitebin $siteprefix/bin
49c10eea 375 $sitescript $siteprefix/bin
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376 $sitelib $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
377 $sitearch $siteprefix/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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378 $siteman1 $siteprefix/man/man1
379 $siteman3 $siteprefix/man/man3
380 $sitehtml1 (none)
381 $sitehtml3 (none)
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382
383By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
273cf8d1 384modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
d6baa268 385
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386NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will use $sitelib and $sitearch,
387but will not use the other site-specific directories. Volunteers to
388fix this are needed.
389
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390=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
391
392Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
393distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
394for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
395
396 Configure variable Default value
397 $vendorprefix (none)
398 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
399 $vendorbin $vendorprefix/bin
49c10eea 400 $vendorscript $vendorprefix/bin
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401 $vendorlib $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
402 $vendorarch $vendorprefix/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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403 $vendorman1 $vendorprefix/man/man1
404 $vendorman3 $vendorprefix/man/man3
405 $vendorhtml1 (none)
406 $vendorhtml3 (none)
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407
408These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
409a vendor might choose the following settings:
410
411 $prefix /usr/bin
412 $siteprefix /usr/local/bin
413 $vendorprefix /usr/bin
414
415This would have the effect of setting the following:
416
417 $bin /usr/bin
418 $scriptdir /usr/bin
419 $privlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version
420 $archlib /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
421 $man1dir /usr/man/man1
422 $man3dir /usr/man/man3
423
424 $sitebin /usr/local/bin
49c10eea 425 $sitescript /usr/local/bin
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426 $sitelib /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
427 $sitearch /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
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428 $siteman1 /usr/local/man/man1
429 $siteman3 /usr/local/man/man3
d6baa268 430
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431 $vendorbin /usr/bin
432 $vendorscript /usr/bin
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433 $vendorlib /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
434 $vendorarch /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
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435 $vendorman1 /usr/man/man1
436 $vendorman3 /usr/man/man3
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437
438Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
439/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
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440the /usr/local hierarchy.
441
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442NOTE: As of 5.6.0, ExtUtils::MakeMaker does not use these directories.
443Volunteers to fix this are needed.
444
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445The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
446version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
447However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
448installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
449See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
450on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
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451
452Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
453example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
454are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
455site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
456network. One way to do that would be something like
457
458 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
459
460=item otherlibdirs
461
462As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
463variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
464directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be set to
465$prefix/site_perl if Configure detects that you have 5.004-era modules
466installed there. However, you can set it to anything you like.
467
468=item Man Pages
1ec51d55 469
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470In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
471pages in a version-specific directory, such as
472/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
473after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
474without resetting MANPATH.
4633a7c4 475
d6baa268 476You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
4633a7c4 477
0a08c020 478 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/man/man3
8d74ce1c 479
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480Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
481
482 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
483
484Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
485Configure.
486
487=item HTML pages
488
489As of perl5.005_57, the standard perl installation does not do
490anything with HTML documentation, but that may change in the future.
491Further, some add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The
492html Configure variables listed above are provided if you wish to
493specify where such documents should be placed. The default is "none",
494but will likely eventually change to something useful based on user
495feedback.
8d74ce1c 496
d6baa268 497=back
8d74ce1c 498
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499Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
500to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
501architectures.
4633a7c4 502
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503Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
504directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
505filesystem.
506
507Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
508development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
509discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
510
511If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
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512library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
513suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
8d74ce1c 514
d6baa268 515Thus, for example, if you Configure with
0a08c020 516-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.6.0 are
3a6175e1 517
d6baa268 518 Configure variable Default value
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519 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0
520 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.6.0/$archname
521 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0
522 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
4633a7c4 523
aa689395 524=head2 Changing the installation directory
525
526Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
527associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
528will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
529sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
1ec51d55 530However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
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531packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
532wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
533management software to move perl to its final destination. This
534section describes how to do that.
aa689395 535
0dcb58f4 536Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
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537could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
538/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
539following command line:
540
541 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
542
543(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
aa689395 544
693762b4 545Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
d6baa268 546modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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547follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
548that problem.
549
aa689395 550=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
551
552If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is
553convenient to compile it once and create an archive that can be
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554installed on multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to
555create an archive that can be installed in /opt/perl.
556Here's one way to do that:
aa689395 557
d6baa268 558 # Set up to install perl into a different directory,
aa689395 559 # e.g. /tmp/perl5 (see previous part).
d6baa268 560 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5 -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
aa689395 561 make
562 make test
d6c1b5d3 563 make install # This will install everything into /tmp/perl5.
aa689395 564 cd /tmp/perl5
d6c1b5d3 565 # Edit $archlib/Config.pm and $archlib/.packlist to change all the
fb73857a 566 # install* variables back to reflect where everything will
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567 # really be installed. (That is, change /tmp/perl5 to /opt/perl
568 # everywhere in those files.)
569 # Check the scripts in $scriptdir to make sure they have the correct
bfb7748a 570 # #!/wherever/perl line.
aa689395 571 tar cvf ../perl5-archive.tar .
572 # Then, on each machine where you want to install perl,
d6c1b5d3 573 cd /opt/perl # Or wherever you specified as $prefix
aa689395 574 tar xvf perl5-archive.tar
575
dc45a647 576=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
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577
578After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
579answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
580person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
581system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
582to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
583hint file for your system.
584
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585Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
586answers, you should
587
588 rm -f Policy.sh
589
590to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
591
592Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
593
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594If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
595to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
596platform-specific hints files.
597
c42e3e15 598Note: Since the directory hierarchy for 5.6.0 contains a number of
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599new vendor* and site* entries, your Policy.sh file will probably not
600set them to your desired values. I encourage you to run Configure
601interactively to be sure it puts things where you want them.
602
aa689395 603=head2 Configure-time Options
604
605There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
606system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
607Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
608some of the main things you can change.
609
693762b4 610=head2 Threads
aa689395 611
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612On some platforms, perl5.005 and later can be compiled with
613experimental support for threads. To enable this, read the file
614README.threads, and then try:
f7542a9d 615
693762b4 616 sh Configure -Dusethreads
aa689395 617
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618Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
619line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
620
621The default is to compile without thread support.
3fe9a6f1 622
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623As of v5.5.64, perl has two different internal threads implementations.
624The 5.005 version (5005threads) and an interpreter-based implementation
625(ithreads) with one interpreter per thread. By default, Configure selects
626ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified. However, you can select the old
6275005threads behavior instead by either
628
629 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
630
631or by
632 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Uuseithreads
633
634Eventually (by perl v5.6.0) this internal confusion ought to disappear,
635and these options may disappear as well.
636
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637=head2 Selecting File IO mechanisms
638
639Previous versions of perl used the standard IO mechanisms as defined in
1ec51d55 640stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl allow alternate IO
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641mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but the stdio mechanism is still
642the default and is the only supported mechanism.
643
644This PerlIO abstraction can be enabled either on the Configure command
645line with
646
647 sh Configure -Duseperlio
648
649or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
650
651If you choose to use the PerlIO abstraction layer, there are two
652(experimental) possibilities for the underlying IO calls. These have been
653tested to some extent on some platforms, but are not guaranteed to work
654everywhere.
655
656=over 4
657
658=item 1.
659
1ec51d55 660AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance to stdio.h in many
aa689395 661cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline" modules. Sfio
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662currently only builds on a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports.
663Because the data structures are completely different from stdio, perl
664extension modules or external libraries may not work. This
665configuration exists to allow these issues to be worked on.
666
667This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
bfb7748a 668A (fairly old) version of sfio is in CPAN.
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669
670You select this option by
671
672 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
673
674If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
675that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
676Configure.
677
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678Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
679detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
680this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
681Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
682_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
683your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
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684
685There also might be a more recent release of Sfio that fixes your
686problem.
687
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688=item 2.
689
690Normal stdio IO, but with all IO going through calls to the PerlIO
691abstraction layer. This configuration can be used to check that perl and
692extension modules have been correctly converted to use the PerlIO
693abstraction.
694
695This configuration should work on all platforms (but might not).
696
aa689395 697You select this option via:
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698
699 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Uusesfio
700
701If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure does not
702detect sfio, then this will be the default suggested by Configure.
703
704=back
705
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706=head2 Dynamic Loading
707
708By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
709your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
710statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
711you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
712
aa689395 713=head2 Building a shared libperl.so Perl library
c3edaffb 714
715Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
716linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
717extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
718such as -lm.
719
9d67150a 720On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
721replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 722several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
723different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 724you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 725can share the same library.
726
727The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 728penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 729mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 730and upgrades.
731
732In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 733test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 734Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
735results.
736
737The default name for the shared library is typically something like
a6006777 738libperl.so.3.2 (for Perl 5.003_02) or libperl.so.302 or simply
9d67150a 739libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 740based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
741version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
742isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
743
744For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
745for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
746
747You can elect to build a shared libperl by
748
749 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
750
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751To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
752library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
f556e5b9 753NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, SHLIB_PATH for
4fabb596 754HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
2bf2710f 755the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
d6baa268 756be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
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757library search settings.
758
759However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
760shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
761something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
762./perl:
763
764 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
765or
766 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
767
768then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
769You can do this with
c3edaffb 770
771 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
772
773for Bourne-style shells, or
774
775 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
776
2bf2710f 777for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
d6baa268 778unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.)
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779
780You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
781messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
782for example:
78318126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
c3edaffb 784
9d67150a 785There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
786want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
787with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
a6006777 788install a standard Perl 5.004 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
789try to build Perl 5.004 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
9d67150a 790the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
791ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
7f678428 792libperl.so.4 rather with the installed libperl.so.4? The answer is
9d67150a 793that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
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794in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
795equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
7beaa944 796with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux you can't. On Digital Unix, you can
0dcb58f4 797override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the _RLD_ROOT environment variable
7beaa944 798to point to the perl build directory.
9d67150a 799
800The only reliable answer is that you should specify a different
801directory for the architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING
fb73857a 802version of perl. You can do this by changing all the *archlib*
d6baa268 803variables in config.sh to point to your new architecture-dependent library.
9d67150a 804
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805=head2 Malloc Issues
806
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807Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
808so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
809the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
810version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
811perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
812than your system malloc.
55479bb6 813
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814However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
815experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
816that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
817(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
c3edaffb 818
aa689395 819=over 4
820
d6baa268 821=item Using the system malloc
2ae324a7 822
d6baa268 823To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
aa689395 824
d6baa268 825 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
aa689395 826
d6baa268 827or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
aa689395 828
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829=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
830
b2a6d19e
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831NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you
832asked for binary compatibility with version 5.005, or if you just
833run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms. You
834can refuse the automatic binary compatibility flags wholesale by
835running:
836
837 sh Configure -Ubincompat5005
838
839or by answering 'n' at the appropriate prompt.
840
d6baa268 841Perl's malloc family of functions are called Perl_malloc(),
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842Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree(). When this flag is
843not enabled, the names do not clash with the system versions of
844these functions.
d6baa268 845
b2a6d19e 846If enabled, Perl's malloc family of functions will have the same
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847names as the system versions. This may be sometimes required when you
848have libraries that like to free() data that may have been allocated
849by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
86058a2d 850
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851Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
852from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
853does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
854versions.
86058a2d 855
aa689395 856=back
857
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858=head2 Building a debugging perl
859
860You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 861B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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862you probably want to do
863
864 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
865
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866This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
867to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
868executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
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869cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
870your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
871variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
872internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
873if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
874old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
875ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
876L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
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877
878You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
879it's convenient to have both.
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880
881If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
882versions of perl under L<Building a shared libperl.so Perl library>.
883
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884=head2 Extensions
885
886By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
887to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
888only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
889B, DynaLoader, Fcntl, IO, and attrs are always built by default.
890Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
891is always built by default as well. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
892set the Configure variable useposix=false either in a hint file or from
893the Configure command line. Similarly, the Opcode extension is always
894built by default, but you can skip it by setting the Configure variable
895useopcode=false either in a hint file for from the command line.
896
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897If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
898running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
899extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
900it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
901has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
902extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
903convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
904you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
905dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
906
907You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
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908documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
909ext/ subdirectory.
910
911Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
912DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
913version. (Configure will suggest this as the default.)
914
915In summary, here are the Configure command-line variables you can set
916to turn off each extension:
917
918 B (Always included by default)
919 DB_File i_db
920 DynaLoader (Must always be included as a static extension)
921 Fcntl (Always included by default)
922 GDBM_File i_gdbm
923 IO (Always included by default)
924 NDBM_File i_ndbm
925 ODBM_File i_dbm
926 POSIX useposix
927 SDBM_File (Always included by default)
928 Opcode useopcode
929 Socket d_socket
a2dab6bc 930 Threads use5005threads
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931 attrs (Always included by default)
932
933Thus to skip the NDBM_File extension, you can use
934
935 sh Configure -Ui_ndbm
936
937Again, this is taken care of automatically if you don't have the ndbm
938library.
939
940Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
941the extensions you want.
942
943Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
944DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
945this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
946releases of version 2.
947
948If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
949adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
950for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
951you.
952
953Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern Unix systems do)
954remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
955executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
956well build all the ones that will work on your system.
957
958=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
959
960Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
961dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
962Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
963automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
964are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
965how to obtain the libraries.
966
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967If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
968searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
969appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
970your database library (.a) files are not in a directory normally
971searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
972the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
973See the examples below.
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974
975=head2 Examples
976
977=over 4
978
979=item gdbm in /usr/local
980
981Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 982GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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983installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
984/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
985necessary steps out automatically.
986
987Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
988your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
989
990When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
991-L/usr/local/lib.
992
993If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
994linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
995-L/usr/local/lib.
996
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997Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
998you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
999/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
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1000
1001=item gdbm in /usr/you
1002
1003Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1004but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1005have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1006still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1007an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1008Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1009/usr/you/lib to the list.
1010
1011It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1012line):
1013
d6baa268 1014 sh Configure -de \
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1015 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1016 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1017
1018locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1019Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1020
1021loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1022Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1023you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1024/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1025
d6baa268 1026 sh Configure -de \
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1027 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1028 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1029
1030=back
1031
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1032=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1033
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1034If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
1035If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
1036
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1037=over 4
1038
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1039=item Running Configure Interactively
1040
1041If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1042Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1043guesses.
1044
1045All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1046have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1047flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1048will use the defaults from then on.
1049
1050If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1051config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1052instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1053
aa689395 1054=item Hint files
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1055
1056The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1057in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1058will offer to use that hint file.
1059
1060Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
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1061If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1062for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1063More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1064file.
8e07c86e 1065
edb1cbcb 1066=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1067
1068Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
10694.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1070standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1071will see a message:
1072
1073 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1074 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1075 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1076
1077You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1078relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1079overriding it.
1080
1081If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1082used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1083to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1084system.
1085
1086For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1087and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1088Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1089Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1090issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1091
1092 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1093 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1094 Keep the previous value? [y]
1095
1ec51d55 1096In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1097should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1098the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1099
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1100=item Changing Compilers
1101
1102If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1103probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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1104rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1105with the options you want to use.
1106
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1107This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1108gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1109
c3edaffb 1110=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1111
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1112If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1113them to all the .SH files by running
1114
1115 sh Configure -S
1116
1117You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1118
1119 make depend
1120 make
8e07c86e
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1121
1122=item config.over
1123
1124You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride Configure's
1125guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just before config.sh
1126is created. You have to be careful with this, however, as Configure
d6baa268 1127does no checking that your changes make sense.
8e07c86e
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1128
1129=item config.h
1130
1ec51d55
CS
1131Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1132Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1133The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1134
1ec51d55
CS
1135If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1136though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1137lost.
1138
1139=item cflags
1140
1141If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1142line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1143optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1144toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1145can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1146lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1147
f5b3b617
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1148To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1149see the file hints/README.hints.
1150
1151To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1152$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1153
1154 sh Configure -S
1155 make depend
8e07c86e 1156
aa689395 1157=item No sh
8e07c86e 1158
c42e3e15
GS
1159If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1160Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1161system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1162You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1163mechanism.
1164
d6baa268
JH
1165=item Environment variable clashes
1166
1167Configure uses a CONFIG variable that is reported to cause trouble on
1168ReliantUnix 5.44. If your system sets this variable, you can try
1169unsetting it before you run Configure. Configure should eventually
1170be fixed to avoid polluting the namespace of the environment.
1171
1172=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1173
1174In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1175
1176Build a threading Perl? [n]
1177Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1178
1179This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1180(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1181"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1182to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1183being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1184'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1185(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1186
1187=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1188
1189If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1190that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1191HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1192fail
1193
1194Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1195Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1196sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1197
1198and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1199libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1200
c3edaffb 1201=item Porting information
1202
2ae324a7 1203Specific information for the OS/2, Plan9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1204corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1205including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
c42e3e15 1206subdirectory. Especially Porting/Glossary should come in handy.
c3edaffb 1207
7f678428 1208Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
1ec51d55 1209http://www.perl.com/CPAN/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1210various other operating systems.
1211
491517e0
JA
1212If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture study carefully the
1213section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1214in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1215Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1216
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1217=back
1218
1219=head1 make depend
1220
bfb7748a
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1221This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1222The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1223the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
1224makefile, not Makefile since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
1225(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1226Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
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1227
1228Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1229explicitly above.
1230
1231=head1 make
1232
1233This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1234
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1235=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1236
8e07c86e 1237If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1238If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c
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1239the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
1240then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8e07c86e
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1241
1242=over 4
1243
1ec51d55 1244=item hints
8e07c86e
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1245
1246If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1247for further tips and information.
1248
1ec51d55 1249=item extensions
8e07c86e 1250
1ec51d55 1251If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
c3edaffb 1252during the building of extensions, you should run
1253
3a6175e1 1254 make minitest
c3edaffb 1255
1256to test your version of miniperl.
1257
e57fd563 1258=item locale
1259
bfb7748a
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1260If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1261them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1262running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1263See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1264whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1265The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1266
1267 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1268 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1269 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1270 LANG = (unset)
1271 are supported and installed on your system.
1272 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1273
1274at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1275
7f678428 1276=item varargs
c3edaffb 1277
1278If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1279correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1280gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
1281in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by running fixincludes
1282correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1283your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1284See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1285
bfb7748a 1286=item util.c
c3edaffb 1287
1288If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1289numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1290
bfb7748a
AD
1291 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1292 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1293 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1294
1295it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1296previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1297
9d67150a 1298=item Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading
c3edaffb 1299
1300If you have problems with dynamic loading using gcc on SunOS or
1301Solaris, and you are using GNU as and GNU ld, you may need to add
1ec51d55 1302-B/bin/ (for SunOS) or -B/usr/ccs/bin/ (for Solaris) to your
c3edaffb 1303$ccflags, $ldflags, and $lddlflags so that the system's versions of as
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1304and ld are used. Note that the trailing '/' is required.
1305Alternatively, you can use the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX
c3edaffb 1306environment variable to ensure that Sun's as and ld are used. Consult
1ec51d55 1307your gcc documentation for further information on the -B option and
c3edaffb 1308the GCC_EXEC_PREFIX variable.
1309
7beaa944
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1310One convenient way to ensure you are not using GNU as and ld is to
1311invoke Configure with
1312
1313 sh Configure -Dcc='gcc -B/usr/ccs/bin/'
1314
1315for Solaris systems. For a SunOS system, you must use -B/bin/
1316instead.
1317
84902520
TB
1318Alternatively, recent versions of GNU ld reportedly work if you
1319include C<-Wl,-export-dynamic> in the ccdlflags variable in
1320config.sh.
1321
9d67150a 1322=item ld.so.1: ./perl: fatal: relocation error:
1323
1324If you get this message on SunOS or Solaris, and you're using gcc,
7f678428 1325it's probably the GNU as or GNU ld problem in the previous item
1326L<"Solaris and SunOS dynamic loading">.
9d67150a 1327
1ec51d55 1328=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1329
1330If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1331the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1332Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1333fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1334of your local set-up.
1335
1336=item dlopen: stub interception failed
1337
1338The primary cause of the 'dlopen: stub interception failed' message is
1339that the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable includes a directory
1340which is a symlink to /usr/lib (such as /lib).
1341
aa689395 1342The reason this causes a problem is quite subtle. The file libdl.so.1.0
c3edaffb 1343actually *only* contains functions which generate 'stub interception
1344failed' errors! The runtime linker intercepts links to
1345"/usr/lib/libdl.so.1.0" and links in internal implementation of those
1346functions instead. [Thanks to Tim Bunce for this explanation.]
1347
aa689395 1348=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1349
1350If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1351try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1352with
1353
1354 sh Configure -Uusenm
1355
1356or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1357If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1358config.sh.
1359
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1360=item umask not found
1361
1362If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1363is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1364Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1365this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1366try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1367
7f678428 1368=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1369
1370If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1371problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1372version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1373(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1374d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1375
1376 d_vprintf='define'
1377
1378If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1379on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1380the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1381
3fe9a6f1 1382=item do_aspawn
1383
1384If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1385problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1386fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1387on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1388
84902520
TB
1389=item __inet_* errors
1390
1391If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1392referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1393installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1394these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1395in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
1396newer version of BIND. If you can't, you can either link with the
1397updated resolver library provided with BIND 8.1 or rename
1398/usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and test process to
1399avoid the problem.
1400
d6baa268
JH
1401=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1402
1403This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1404gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1405changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1406rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1407update your gcc installation.
1408
aa689395 1409=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1410
9d67150a 1411If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1412optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1413
1414 optimize='-O'
1415
bfb7748a 1416to
9d67150a 1417
1418 optimize=' '
1419
1420then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1421with B<make depend; make>.
1422
1ec51d55 1423=item CRIPPLED_CC
9d67150a 1424
1b1c1ae2
GS
1425If you still can't compile successfully, try:
1426
1427 sh Configure -Accflags=-DCRIPPLED_CC
1428
1429This flag simplifies some complicated expressions for compilers that get
1430indigestion easily. (Just because you get no errors doesn't mean it
1431compiled right!)
9d67150a 1432
1433=item Missing functions
1434
1435If you have missing routines, you probably need to add some library or
1436other, or you need to undefine some feature that Configure thought was
1437there but is defective or incomplete. Look through config.h for
bfb7748a
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1438likely suspects. If Configure guessed wrong on a number of functions,
1439you might have the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
8e07c86e 1440
1ec51d55 1441=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1442
1ec51d55
CS
1443Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1444toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1445allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1446each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1447makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
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1448specific rule.
1449
7f678428 1450=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1451
c3edaffb 1452SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1453that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1454
f3d9a6ba 1455=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1456
1457If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1458the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1459then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1460Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1461systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1462For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1463unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1464they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1465reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1466process is continuing.
7f678428 1467
1468On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1469message
1470
f3d9a6ba 1471 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1472
1473then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1474the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1475extension without the -lgdbm library.
1476
1477It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1478this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1479quite that tightly coordinated.
1480
aa689395 1481=item sh: ar: not found
1482
1483This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1484was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1485make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1486is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1487directory.
1488
1489=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1490
1491Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1492with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1493bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1494
6087ac44
JH
1495=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1496
1497If you get this error message from the lib/ipc_sysv test, your System
1498V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1499also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1500to include the System V semaphores.
1501
220f3621
GS
1502=item lib/ipc_sysv........semget: No space left on device
1503
1504Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1505both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1506ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1507with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1508system.
1509
d6baa268
JH
1510=item GNU binutils
1511
1512If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1513tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1514with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1515may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1516under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1517to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1518vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1519Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1520
1ec51d55 1521=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e
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1522
1523Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1524
1525Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1526
1527NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1528
1ec51d55 1529UTS may need one or more of -DCRIPPLED_CC, -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1530
220f3621
GS
1531FreeBSD can fail the lib/ipc_sysv.t test if SysV IPC has not been
1532configured to the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
1533you will get a message telling what to do.
6087ac44 1534
8e07c86e
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1535If you get syntax errors on '(', try -DCRIPPLED_CC.
1536
1537Machines with half-implemented dbm routines will need to #undef I_ODBM
1538
d6baa268
JH
1539HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1540Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1541tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1542break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1543(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1544
8e07c86e
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1545=back
1546
1547=head1 make test
1548
d6baa268
JH
1549This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1550'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1551wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1552
84902520 1553Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1554opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1555a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1556
c4f23d77
AD
1557=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1558
1ec51d55
CS
1559If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1560by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1561bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
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1562
1563 ./perl op/groups.t
1564
aa689395 1565Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1566individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1567
1568 ./perl harness
1569
fb73857a 1570(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
aa689395 1571complicated constructs).
1572
fb73857a 1573You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
c3edaffb 1574comments that apply to your system.
1575
c4f23d77
AD
1576=over 4
1577
1578=item locale
1579
1ec51d55 1580Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1581may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 1582B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1583one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1584LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1585are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1586
1587If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1588
1589 setenv LC_ALL C
1590
1591(for C shell) or
1592
1593 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1594
1ec51d55
CS
1595for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1596make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1597is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1598shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1599things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1600open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1601external program.
eed2e782 1602
c4f23d77
AD
1603=item Out of memory
1604
1605On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1606of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1607For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1608test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1609
1610Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1611
1612 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
1613
1614to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1615test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1616tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1617and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1618
c4f23d77
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1619=back
1620
8e07c86e
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1621=head1 make install
1622
1623This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 1624Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 1625to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 1626pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
8e07c86e
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1627are not root, you must own the directories in question and you should
1628ignore any messages about chown not working.
1629
dd64f1c3
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1630=head2 Installing perl under different names
1631
1632If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
1633when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
1634indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
1635
1636 make install PERLNAME=myperl
1637
beb13193
RS
1638You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
1639"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
1640
1641 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
1642
1643This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (due to an
1644ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor, eg). Without this
1645the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
1646
dd64f1c3
AD
1647=head2 Installed files
1648
8e07c86e
AD
1649If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
1650anything, you can run
4633a7c4 1651
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1652 ./perl installperl -n
1653 ./perl installman -n
1654
1ec51d55 1655make install will install the following:
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1656
1657 perl,
1658 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
1659 will be a link to perl.
1660 suidperl,
1661 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
1662 a2p awk-to-perl translator
1663 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
1664 read from stdin.
1665 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
1666 s2p sed-to-perl translator
1667 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 1668 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 1669 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 1670 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 1671 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 1672 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 1673 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 1674 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
1675 pod2man, and
1676 pod2text
1677 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 1678 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
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1679
1680 library files in $privlib and $archlib specified to
1681 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
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1682 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
1683 module man
1684 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
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1685 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
1686
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1687Installperl will also create the directories listed above
1688in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 1689
56c6f531 1690Perl's *.h header files and the libperl.a library are also installed
d6baa268 1691under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
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1692optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
1693program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 1694
aa689395 1695=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 1696
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1697In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
16985.004_04) to another similar version (e.g. 5.004_05) without re-compiling
1699all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
1700around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
1701For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
dc45a647 1702with 5.004_04, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
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1703top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
1704#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.00404.
1705
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1706Most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
1707with a newer version of perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
1708(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
1709
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1710Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
1711searched by 5.005_03 are
1712
1713 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
1714 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
1715 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1716 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1717
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1718Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
1719fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
1720searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 1721
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1722 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
1723 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
1724 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1725 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
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1726
1727 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1728 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 1729 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 1730
c42e3e15 1731Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
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1732of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
1733directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 1734to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 1735suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
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1736present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
1737/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 1738but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 1739
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1740The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
17415.6.0 will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 1742
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1743Lastly, suppose you now install version 5.6.1, which we'll assume is
1744binary compatible with 5.6.0 and 5.005. The directories searched
1745by 5.6.1 (if you don't change the Configure defaults) will be:
d6baa268 1746
265f5c4a
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1747 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1/$archname
1748 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.1
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1749 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1/$archname
1750 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.1
1751
1752 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
1753 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
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1754
1755 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
1756 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
1757 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 1758
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1759Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
17605.005 after you installed 5.6.1, you can continue to install add-on
1761extensions using any of perl 5.6.1, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
1762of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the newer
1763versions of perl are automatically set up to search the site libraries of
1764the older ones. This means that installing a new extension with 5.005
1765will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you install the
1766same extension using, say, perl 5.6.1, it will override the 5.005-installed
1767version, but only for perl 5.6.1.
1768
1769This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
1770to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
1771versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
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1772
1773=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 1774
1ec51d55 1775Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 1776separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
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1777won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
1778libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
1779way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 1780
46bb10fb 1781 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.004
d52d4e46 1782
46bb10fb 1783and adding /opt/perl5.004/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 1784may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
1785scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
1786
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1787Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
1788(e.g. 5.004 for all 5.004_0x versions), but change directory with
1789each major version.
1790
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1791If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
1792seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
1793subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
1794yet.
1795
0a08c020 1796=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 to 5.6.0
693762b4 1797
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1798Most extensions built and installed with versions of perl
1799prior to 5.005_50 will not need to be recompiled to be used with
18005.6.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with 5.6.0,
1801you may safely do so without disturbing the 5.005 installation.
1802(See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> above.)
1803
1804See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
1805incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
1806perllocal.pod not perllocale.pod for installed module information.
693762b4 1807
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1808=head1 Coexistence with perl4
1809
1810You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
1811
1ec51d55
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1812By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
1813they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
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1814
1815In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 1816perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
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1817process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
1818However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
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1819the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
1820whatever the appropriate pathname is). See pod/perltrap.pod for
1821possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 1822
aa689395 1823=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
1824
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1825Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
1826system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 1827header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
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1828by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
1829library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 1830
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1831Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
1832of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
1833hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
1834For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
1835structures.
aa689395 1836
fb73857a 1837=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 1838
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1839Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
1840format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 1841documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 1842
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1843Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
1844html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
1845
fb73857a 1846The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 1847perl documentation:
aa689395 1848
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1849 ./installhtml \
1850 --podroot=. \
1851 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
1852 --recurse \
1853 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
1854 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
1855 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
1856 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
1857 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
1858 --verbose
1859
1860See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
1861many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
1862see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
1863resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
1864(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 1865
fb73857a 1866You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
1867the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
1868
aa689395 1869=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
1870
1871Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
1872available in TeX format. Type
1873
1874 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
1875
1876=head1 Reporting Problems
1877
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1878If you have difficulty building perl, and none of the advice in this file
1879helps, and careful reading of the error message and the relevant manual
1880pages on your system doesn't help either, then you should send a message
1881to either the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup or to perlbug@perl.com with
1882an accurate description of your problem.
aa689395 1883
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1884Please include the output of the ./myconfig shell script that comes with
1885the distribution. Alternatively, you can use the perlbug program that
1886comes with the perl distribution, but you need to have perl compiled
1887before you can use it. (If you have not installed it yet, you need to
f5b3b617 1888run C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug> instead of a plain C<perlbug>.)
aa689395 1889
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1890Please try to make your message brief but clear. Trim out unnecessary
1891information. Do not include large files (such as config.sh or a complete
1892Configure or make log) unless absolutely necessary. Do not include a
1893complete transcript of your build session. Just include the failing
d6baa268 1894commands, the relevant error messages, and whatever preceding commands
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1895are necessary to give the appropriate context. Plain text should
1896usually be sufficient--fancy attachments or encodings may actually
1897reduce the number of people who read your message. Your message
1898will get relayed to over 400 subscribers around the world so please
1899try to keep it brief but clear.
aa689395 1900
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1901=head1 DOCUMENTATION
1902
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1903Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
1904is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 1905build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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1906can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
1907sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 1908
1ec51d55 1909Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
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1910along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
1911running (either):
34a2a22e
RM
1912
1913 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 1914 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
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RM
1915
1916This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 1917(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
1918set-up.)
34a2a22e 1919
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1920Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
1921the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
1922the documentation.
34a2a22e 1923
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1924=head1 AUTHOR
1925
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1926Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
1927heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
1928feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 1929
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1930If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
1931L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
1932
1933=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
1934
1935This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 1936the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 1937If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
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1938a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
1939and the contact information to match your distribution.
8e07c86e 1940
a5f75d66 1941=head1 LAST MODIFIED
24b3df7f 1942
d6baa268 1943$Id: INSTALL,v 1.58 1999/07/23 14:43:00 doughera Exp $