Commit | Line | Data |
---|---|---|
9ff7b177 JH |
1 | If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see. |
2 | It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially | |
3 | designed to be readable as is. | |
4 | ||
5 | =head1 NAME | |
6 | ||
7 | README.macosx - Perl under Mac OS X | |
8 | ||
9 | =head1 SYNOPSIS | |
10 | ||
11 | This document briefly describes perl under Mac OS X. | |
12 | ||
13 | ||
14 | =head1 DESCRIPTION | |
15 | ||
ffb8d87a DD |
16 | The latest Perl (5.8.8 as of this writing) builds without changes |
17 | under Mac OS X. Under the 10.4 "Tiger" release, all self-tests pass, | |
9ff7b177 JH |
18 | and all standard features are supported. |
19 | ||
ffb8d87a DD |
20 | Mac OS X releases prior to 10.3 "Panther" did not include a completely |
21 | thread-safe libc, so threading is not fully supported when Perl is built | |
22 | for these releases. Also, earlier releases included a | |
9ff7b177 JH |
23 | somewhat buggy libdb, so some of the DB_File tests are known to fail on |
24 | those releases. | |
25 | ||
26 | ||
f7451e23 | 27 | =head2 Installation Prefix |
9ff7b177 JH |
28 | |
29 | The default installation location for this release uses the traditional | |
30 | UNIX directory layout under /usr/local. This is the recommended location | |
31 | for most users, and will leave the Apple-supplied Perl and its modules | |
32 | undisturbed. | |
33 | ||
34 | Using an installation prefix of '/usr' will result in a directory layout | |
35 | that mirrors that of Apple's default Perl, with core modules stored in | |
36 | '/System/Library/Perl/${version}', CPAN modules stored in | |
37 | '/Library/Perl/${version}', and the addition of | |
38 | '/Network/Library/Perl/${version}' to @INC for modules that are stored | |
39 | on a file server and used by many Macs. | |
40 | ||
41 | ||
f7451e23 | 42 | =head2 libperl and Prebinding |
9ff7b177 JH |
43 | |
44 | Mac OS X ships with a dynamically-loaded libperl, but the default for | |
45 | this release is to compile a static libperl. The reason for this is | |
46 | pre-binding. Dynamic libraries can be pre-bound to a specific address in | |
47 | memory in order to decrease load time. To do this, one needs to be aware | |
48 | of the location and size of all previously-loaded libraries. Apple | |
49 | collects this information as part of their overall OS build process, and | |
50 | thus has easy access to it when building Perl, but ordinary users would | |
51 | need to go to a great deal of effort to obtain the information needed | |
52 | for pre-binding. | |
53 | ||
f7451e23 JH |
54 | You can override the default and build a shared libperl if you wish |
55 | (S<Configure ... -Duseshrlib>), but the load time will be | |
56 | significantly greater than either the static library, or Apple's | |
57 | pre-bound dynamic library. | |
9ff7b177 JH |
58 | |
59 | ||
ffb8d87a | 60 | =head2 Updating Apple-supplied Perl |
9ff7b177 | 61 | |
ffb8d87a DD |
62 | Apple ships a threaded build of perl 5.8.6 with Mac OS 10.4.x, "Tiger". |
63 | In most cases, if you need a newer Perl, it is preferable to install it in some | |
9ff7b177 | 64 | other location, such as /usr/local or /opt, rather than overwriting the |
f7451e23 JH |
65 | system Perl. The default location (no -Dprefix=... specified when running |
66 | Configure) is /usr/local. | |
9ff7b177 JH |
67 | |
68 | If you find that you do need to update the system Perl, there is one | |
69 | potential issue. If you upgrade using the default static libperl, you | |
70 | will find that the dynamic libperl supplied by Apple will not be | |
71 | deleted. If both libraries are present when an application that links | |
72 | against libperl is built, ld will link against the dynamic library by | |
73 | default. So, if you need to replace Apple's dynamic libperl with a | |
74 | static libperl, you need to be sure to delete the older dynamic library | |
75 | after you've installed the update. | |
76 | ||
77 | Note that this is only an issue when updating from an older build of the | |
ffb8d87a | 78 | same Perl version. If you're updating from (for example) 5.8.6 to 5.8.8, |
9ff7b177 JH |
79 | this issue won't affect you. |
80 | ||
ffb8d87a DD |
81 | =head2 64-bit Perl |
82 | ||
83 | By default, perl is built to use 32-bit integers and pointers. The hints file, | |
84 | F<hints/darwin.sh>, provides experimental support for 64-bit integers | |
85 | and pointers (on G5 processors only) when Configure is run with the | |
86 | C<-Duse64bitall> option. Expect many compiler warnings and a number | |
87 | of test failures. | |
88 | ||
89 | =head2 Intel processor support | |
90 | ||
91 | At the time of writing, the Perl developers have no knowledge of the | |
92 | behaviour (or misbehaviour) of the Perl build process when hosted by | |
93 | an Intel-based Macintosh. As far as we know, Apple ships Perl 5.8.6 | |
94 | with Intel developer builds of Mac OS X, so we presume that there | |
95 | are few or no problems in building that version of Perl. (The source | |
96 | package used by Apple may be found at L<http://opendarwin.org/>.) | |
97 | If you encounter problems in building a later version of Perl for an | |
98 | Intel-based Macintosh, please file a bug report, if possible by using | |
99 | the following command in the build directory: | |
100 | ||
101 | ./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug | |
102 | ||
103 | =head2 Universal binaries | |
104 | ||
105 | Apple's Xcode development tools, version 2.1 and later, provide | |
106 | support for the creation of I<universal binaries>, which contain | |
107 | code for both PowerPC and Intel architectures. (In the past, and on | |
108 | other platforms, such executable files have been known as I<fat | |
109 | binaries>.) Perl's build process currently provides no support for | |
110 | the production of universal binaries. | |
9ff7b177 | 111 | |
f7451e23 JH |
112 | =head2 Known problems |
113 | ||
114 | If you have installed extra libraries such as GDBM through Fink | |
115 | (in other words, you have libraries under F</sw/lib>), or libdlcompat | |
116 | to F</usr/local/lib>, you may need to be extra careful when running | |
117 | Configure to not to confuse Configure and Perl about which libraries | |
118 | to use. Being confused will show up for example as "dyld" errors about | |
119 | symbol problems, for example during "make test". The safest bet is to run | |
120 | Configure as | |
121 | ||
122 | Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth=/usr/lib | |
123 | ||
124 | to make Configure look only into the system libraries. If you have some | |
125 | extra library directories that you really want to use (such as newer | |
126 | Berkeley DB libraries in pre-Panther systems), add those to the libpth: | |
127 | ||
128 | Configure ... -Uloclibpth -Dlibpth='/usr/lib /opt/lib' | |
129 | ||
130 | The default of building Perl statically may cause problems with complex | |
131 | applications like Tk: in that case consider building shared Perl | |
132 | ||
133 | Configure ... -Duseshrplib | |
134 | ||
135 | but remember that there's a startup cost to pay in that case (see above | |
136 | "libperl and Prebinding"). | |
137 | ||
80626d0c | 138 | Starting with Tiger (Mac OS X 10.4), Apple shipped broken locale files for |
ffb8d87a DD |
139 | the eu_ES locale (Basque-Spain). In previous releases of Perl, this resulted in |
140 | failures in the C<lib/locale> test. These failures have been supressed | |
141 | in the current release of Perl by making the test ignore the broken locale. | |
142 | If you need to use the eu_ES locale, you should contact Apple support. | |
f7451e23 JH |
143 | |
144 | =head2 MacPerl | |
9ff7b177 JH |
145 | |
146 | Quite a bit has been written about MacPerl, the Perl distribution for | |
147 | "Classic MacOS" - that is, versions 9 and earlier of MacOS. Because it | |
148 | runs in environment that's very different from that of UNIX, many things | |
149 | are done differently in MacPerl. Modules are installed using a different | |
150 | procedure, Perl itself is built differently, path names are different, | |
151 | etc. | |
152 | ||
153 | From the perspective of a Perl programmer, Mac OS X is more like a | |
154 | traditional UNIX than Classic MacOS. If you find documentation that | |
155 | refers to a special procedure that's needed for MacOS that's drastically | |
156 | different from the instructions provided for UNIX, the MacOS | |
157 | instructions are quite often intended for MacPerl on Classic MacOS. In | |
158 | that case, the correct procedure on Mac OS X is usually to follow the | |
159 | UNIX instructions, rather than the MacPerl instructions. | |
160 | ||
161 | ||
f7451e23 | 162 | =head2 Carbon |
9ff7b177 JH |
163 | |
164 | MacPerl ships with a number of modules that are used to access the | |
165 | classic MacOS toolbox. Many of these modules have been updated to use | |
166 | Mac OS X's newer "Carbon" toolbox, and are available from CPAN in the | |
167 | "Mac::Carbon" module. | |
168 | ||
169 | ||
f7451e23 | 170 | =head2 Cocoa |
9ff7b177 JH |
171 | |
172 | There are two ways to use Cocoa from Perl. Apple's PerlObjCBridge | |
173 | module, included with Mac OS X, can be used by standalone scripts to | |
174 | access Foundation (i.e. non-GUI) classes and objects. | |
175 | ||
176 | An alternative is CamelBones, a framework that allows access to both | |
177 | Foundation and AppKit classes and objects, so that full GUI applications | |
178 | can be built in Perl. CamelBones can be found on SourceForge, at | |
179 | L<http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/camelbones/>. | |
180 | ||
181 | ||
6c8f3f7c JH |
182 | =head1 Starting From Scratch |
183 | ||
184 | Unfortunately it is not that difficult somehow manage to break one's | |
185 | Mac OS X Perl rather severely. If all else fails and you want to | |
186 | really, B<REALLY>, start from scratch and remove even your Apple Perl | |
187 | installation (which has become corrupted somehow), the following | |
188 | instructions should do it. B<Please think twice before following | |
189 | these instructions: they are much like conducting brain surgery to | |
190 | yourself. Without anesthesia.> We will B<not> come to fix your system | |
191 | if you do this. | |
192 | ||
193 | First, get rid of the libperl.dylib: | |
194 | ||
195 | # cd /System/Library/Perl/darwin/CORE | |
196 | # rm libperl.dylib | |
197 | ||
198 | Then delete every .bundle file found anywhere in the folders: | |
199 | ||
200 | /System/Library/Perl | |
201 | /Library/Perl | |
202 | ||
203 | You can find them for example by | |
204 | ||
205 | # find /System/Library/Perl /Library/Perl -name '*.bundle' -print | |
206 | ||
207 | After this you can either copy Perl from your operating system CDs | |
208 | (you will need at least the /System/Library/Perl and /usr/bin/perl), | |
209 | or rebuild Perl from the source code with C<Configure -Dprefix=/usr | |
210 | -Dusershrplib> NOTE: the C<-Dprefix=/usr> to replace the system Perl | |
211 | works much better with Perl 5.8.1 and later, in Perl 5.8.0 the | |
212 | settings were not quite right. | |
213 | ||
214 | ||
9ff7b177 JH |
215 | =head1 AUTHOR |
216 | ||
ffb8d87a DD |
217 | This README was written by Sherm Pendley E<lt>sherm@dot-app.orgE<gt>, |
218 | and subsequently updated by Dominic Dunlop E<lt>domo@computer.orgE<gt>. | |
6c8f3f7c JH |
219 | The "Starting From Scratch" recipe was contributed by John Montbriand |
220 | E<lt>montbriand@apple.comE<gt>. | |
9ff7b177 JH |
221 | |
222 | =head1 DATE | |
223 | ||
ffb8d87a | 224 | Last modified 2005-11-07. |