This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
With the demise of ByteLoader in blead, unshare_hek can return to the
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
CommitLineData
f1300be0
YST
1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
8e07c86e
AD
5=head1 NAME
6
7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
8
40dd8381
NC
9=head1 Reporting Problems
10
11Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
12to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
13information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
14more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
15carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
16on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
17you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
18message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
19get advice.
20
21The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
22completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
23C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
24C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
25run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
26directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
27
28If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
29B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
30an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
31
ce80d64e 32If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
40dd8381 33(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
ce80d64e 34description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
40dd8381
NC
35- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
36
37Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
38reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
39written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
40the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
41not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
42
ce80d64e
AD
43Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
44config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
45necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
46session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
40dd8381
NC
47messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
48appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
49attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
50read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
51subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
52
53If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
54report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
55http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
56
8e07c86e
AD
57=head1 SYNOPSIS
58
ce80d64e
AD
59First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
60didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
61http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
62subreleases (like 5.6.x and 5.8.x) are stable maintenance releases and
63odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
64development releases. Development releases should not be used in
65production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
66tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
67worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 68
ce80d64e
AD
69The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
70the defaults are:
8e07c86e 71
dc45a647 72 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 73 sh Configure -de
8e07c86e
AD
74 make
75 make test
76 make install
36477c24 77
8e07c86e
AD
78Each of these is explained in further detail below.
79
cc65bb49
AD
80The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
81platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
ce80d64e 82If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively and use
491517e0
JA
83
84 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
85 sh Configure
86 make
87 make test
88 make install
89
ce80d64e
AD
90 # You may also wish to add these:
91 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
92 (installhtml --help)
93 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
adbebc0b 94
ce80d64e 95or you can use some of the Configure options described below.
7f678428 96
8d74ce1c 97If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40dd8381 98L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 99
7beaa944
AD
100For information on what's new in this release, see the
101pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
102changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 103
1ec51d55 104=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 105
c3edaffb 106This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
107structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
1ec51d55
CS
108read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
109by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
110
111 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
112 C<code> literal code
113 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 114 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 115
c42e3e15 116Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 117you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 118proceeding.
c3edaffb 119
ce80d64e
AD
120In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
121your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
122instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
123system (in the hints/ directory) you should also read that hint file
124for even more information. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or
125the svr5.sh hint file.)
c42e3e15 126
ce80d64e
AD
127For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
128L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
129directory.
d56c5707 130
ce80d64e 131=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 132
ce80d64e 133=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 134
ce80d64e
AD
135Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
136potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
137the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
138to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 139
ce80d64e 140=head3 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
9a664500 141Perl prior to 5.9.0.
1b1c1ae2 142
cc65bb49 143If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
64fa5b0b
DM
144using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
145those extensions.
1b1c1ae2
GS
146
147Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
148without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
149L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 150L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
693762b4
AD
151
152The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
153
ce80d64e
AD
154On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
155in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
156pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
157installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
158list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
159way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 160
ce80d64e 161=head2 Space Requirements
eed2e782 162
9a664500 163The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 60 MB of disk space.
8756f06c 164After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 165total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
be8498a1
RGS
166directories need something on the order of 50 MB, though again that
167value is quite system-dependent.
8e07c86e 168
aa689395 169=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 170
edb1cbcb 171If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
172with the command
173
dc45a647
MB
174 make distclean
175
176or
177
edb1cbcb 178 make realclean
c3edaffb 179
dc45a647
MB
180The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
181your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
182
183The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
184files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
185change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
186you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 187not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 188
d6baa268 189 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 190
e57fd563 191If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
192version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
193the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
194includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
195name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
be8498a1
RGS
196Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Similarly, if you used
197a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will probably
198want to adjust them as well.
e57fd563 199
d6baa268 200Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
be8498a1
RGS
201Linux distributions use i386, but Configure uses the output of the arch
202command, which might be i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled
203binary, or compile extensions on different systems, they might not all
204agree on the architecture name.
e57fd563 205
206In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
207Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 208
d6baa268
JH
209If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
210installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
211using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
212settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
213also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
214
215 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 216
aa689395 217=head1 Run Configure
8e07c86e
AD
218
219Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
220things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
d6baa268
JH
221you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
222almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
223since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
224the same function.
225
ce80d64e 226At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 227defaults from then on.
8e07c86e
AD
228
229After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 230*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 231
ce80d64e 232=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 233
ce80d64e 234Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 235
ce80d64e 236 Configure -h
d6baa268 237
ce80d64e 238to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 239Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
240
d6baa268
JH
241=over 4
242
243=item gcc
244
245To compile with gcc you should run
8e07c86e
AD
246
247 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
248
249This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
250compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
251
d6baa268 252=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 253
8e07c86e 254By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c
AD
255/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
256and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
257further details.)
258
259You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 260directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 261line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 262
25f94b33 263 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 264
d6baa268
JH
265If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
266directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
267prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
268/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
bc70e9ec
JH
269for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
270or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 271
8d74ce1c
AD
272NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
273as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
274attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 275
d6baa268
JH
276=item /usr/bin/perl
277
278It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
279find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 280/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 281careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
b66c6cec
AD
282vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
283on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
284configured may be found with
285
286 perl -V:config_args
287
288(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
ce80d64e
AD
289spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
290at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 291
ce80d64e
AD
292By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
293version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 294
7d56c962 295 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 296
7d56c962 297or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 298
ce80d64e
AD
299In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
300(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
4682965a
MB
301into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
302obvious and convenient place.
303
ce80d64e 304=item Building a development release.
04d420f9 305
ce80d64e
AD
306For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
307use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
308because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
309Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
310sanity check.
d6baa268
JH
311
312=back
8e07c86e 313
203c3eec
AD
314If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
315output, you can run
316
317 sh Configure -des
318
ce80d64e 319For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
203c3eec
AD
320
321 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
322
ce80d64e 323=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 324
ce80d64e
AD
325For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
326be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
327have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
328after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
329For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
330invocations:
46bb10fb 331
2db3864f 332 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
46bb10fb 333
5247441a
JC
334To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
335Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (that will define a config.sh
336variable, but without taking any action based upon it). When passed to the
337compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
338
ce80d64e 339For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 340
ce80d64e 341 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 342
ce80d64e 343=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 344
ce80d64e
AD
345There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
346system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
347Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
348some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 349
ce80d64e 350=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 351
ce80d64e
AD
352On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
353enable this, run
4633a7c4 354
ce80d64e 355 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 356
ce80d64e
AD
357Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
358line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
cc65bb49 359
ce80d64e 360The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 361
ce80d64e
AD
362Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
363model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since
3645.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one
365interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The 5.005
366version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and unmaintained.
d6baa268 367
ce80d64e 368By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
d6baa268 369
ce80d64e 370However, if you insist, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
d6baa268 371
ce80d64e 372 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
d6baa268 373
ce80d64e
AD
374The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
375'Thread' module offers an interface to either 5005threads or ithreads
376(whichever has been configured).
d6baa268 377
ce80d64e
AD
378When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
379the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
380This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
381fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
382PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
383way to do this is to run Configure with
384C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
d6baa268 385
ce80d64e 386=head3 Large file support.
b367e8b0 387
ce80d64e
AD
388Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
3892 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
390support is on by default.
d6baa268 391
ce80d64e
AD
392This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
393seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
394using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
395be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
396parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
397will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
398Apache extension mod_perl.
d6baa268 399
ce80d64e
AD
400There's also one known limitation with the current large files
401implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
402section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
403like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 404
ce80d64e 405=head3 64 bit support.
d6baa268 406
ce80d64e
AD
407If your platform does not have run natively at 64 bits, but can
408simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
409you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 410
ce80d64e
AD
411There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
412using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
413-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
414the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 415
ce80d64e
AD
416The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
41764-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
418longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
419your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
420does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
421might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
422you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 423
ce80d64e
AD
424The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
425integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
426create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
427resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
428have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
429aware.
d6baa268 430
ce80d64e
AD
431Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
432nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 433
ce80d64e
AD
434 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
435 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
436 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
437 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
d6baa268 438
ce80d64e 439=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 440
ce80d64e
AD
441In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
442range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
443(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
444this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 445
ce80d64e 446=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 447
ce80d64e
AD
448You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
449and the long double support.
b367e8b0 450
ce80d64e 451=head3 Selecting File IO mechanisms
d6baa268 452
ce80d64e
AD
453Executive summary: as of Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
454as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
273cf8d1 455
ce80d64e
AD
456In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
457mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
458introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
459until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
460and the only supported mechanism.
d6baa268 461
ce80d64e
AD
462Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
463abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
464instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
465implementations.
46bb10fb 466
365d6a78
PN
467This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
468are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
469line with
46bb10fb 470
6d5328bc 471 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 472
6d5328bc 473or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 474
ce80d64e 475=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
504f80c1
JH
476
477In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
478Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 479enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
504f80c1
JH
480a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
481and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
482
86358043
NC
483In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
484create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
485the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
486in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
487data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
488certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
489
490In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
491elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
492basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
493then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
494adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
495existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
496specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
497data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
498randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
499is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
500
501One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
502vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
503variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
504is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 505example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043
NC
506which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
507variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
508the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 509
3debabd9 510B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
86358043
NC
511ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
5125. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
513be, affected by the insertion order. It is likely that Perl 5.10 and
514Perl 6 will randomise all hashes. Note that because of this
515randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
516between different runs of Perl since Data::Dumper by default dumps
517hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
518recommended.
504f80c1 519
ce80d64e 520=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5
DH
521
522Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
523TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
524access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
525Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
526
ce80d64e 527=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268
JH
528
529By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
530your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
531statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
532you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
533
ce80d64e 534=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 535
536Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
537linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
538extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
539such as -lm.
540
9d67150a 541On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
542replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 543several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
544different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 545you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 546can share the same library.
547
548The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 549penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 550mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 551and upgrades.
552
553In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 554test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 555Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
556results.
557
558The default name for the shared library is typically something like
ce80d64e 559libperl.so.6.2 (for Perl 5.6.2), or libperl.so.602, or simply
9d67150a 560libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 561based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
562version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
563isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
564
565For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
566for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
567
568You can elect to build a shared libperl by
569
ce80d64e
AD
570 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
571
572To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
573library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
574NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
575for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
576the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
577be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
578library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
579variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
580
581 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
582
583However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
584shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
585something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
586./perl:
587
588 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
589or
590 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
591
592then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
593You can do this with
594
595 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
596
597for Bourne-style shells, or
598
599 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
600
601for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
602unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
603again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
604
605You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
606messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
607for example:
60818126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
609
610There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
611want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
612with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
613install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
614try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
615the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
616ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
617libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
618that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
619in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
620equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
621with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
622LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
623Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
624_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
625
626In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
627with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
628previous build.
629
630A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
631architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
632You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
633point to your new architecture-dependent library.
634
575e1338
NC
635=head3 Environment access
636
637Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
638is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
639leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
640to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
641whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
642but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
643embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 644by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
575e1338
NC
645use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
646C<perl_construct()> call.
647
ce80d64e
AD
648=head2 Installation Directories
649
650The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
be8498a1
RGS
651appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
652questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
653slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
654you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
655from then on. Alternatively, you can
ce80d64e
AD
656
657 grep '^install' config.sh
658
659after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
660
661The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
662people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
663distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
664need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
665you can safely skip the next section.
666
667The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
668
669=over 4
670
671=item Directories for the perl distribution
672
673By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.9.0.
674$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
6755.9.0 or 5.9.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
676determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
677variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
678
679 Configure variable Default value
680 $prefixexp /usr/local
681 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
682 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
683 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
684 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
685 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
686 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
687 $html1direxp (none)
688 $html3direxp (none)
689
690$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
691directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
692file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
693variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
694
695Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
696/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
697instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
698directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
699the common style is shown here.
700
701=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
702
703After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
704CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
705be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
706
707 Configure variable Default value
708 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
709 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
710 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
711 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
712 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
713 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
714 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
715 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
716 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
717
718By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
719modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
720
721=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
722
723Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
724distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
725for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
726
727 Configure variable Default value
728 $vendorprefixexp (none)
729 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
730 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
731 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
732 $vendorlibexp
733 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
734 $vendorarchexp
735 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
736 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
737 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
738 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
739 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
740
741These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
742a vendor might choose the following settings:
743
744 $prefix /usr
745 $siteprefix /usr/local
746 $vendorprefix /usr
747
748This would have the effect of setting the following:
749
750 $binexp /usr/bin
751 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
752 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
753 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
754 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
755 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
756
757 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
758 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
759 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
760 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
761 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
762 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
763
764 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
765 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
766 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
767 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
768 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
769 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
770
771Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
772/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
773the /usr/local hierarchy.
774
775The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
776version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
777However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
778installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
779See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
780on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
781
782Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
783example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
784are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
785site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
786network. One way to do that would be something like
787
788 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
789
790=item otherlibdirs
791
792As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
793variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
794directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
795Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
796version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
797
798For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
799installation, perhaps in a strange place:
800
801 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
802
803=item APPLLIB_EXP
804
805There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
806that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
807separated list of directories, like this
808
809 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
810
811The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
812ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
813modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
814touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
815version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
816present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
817directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
818run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
819
20ef40cf
GA
820=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
821
822Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
823
36de116d 824 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 825
36de116d 826Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
20ef40cf
GA
827When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
828anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
829entries to @INC.
830
ce80d64e
AD
831=item Man Pages
832
be8498a1
RGS
833By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
834are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
835want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
ce80d64e
AD
836
837 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
838
ce80d64e
AD
839=item HTML pages
840
841Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
842HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
843add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
844variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
845documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
846eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
847
848=back
849
850Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
851to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
852architectures.
853
854Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
855directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
856filesystem.
c3edaffb 857
ce80d64e
AD
858Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
859development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
860discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 861
ce80d64e
AD
862If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
863library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
864suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 865
ce80d64e
AD
866Thus, for example, if you Configure with
867-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 868
ce80d64e
AD
869 Configure variable Default value
870 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
871 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
872 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
873 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 874
ce80d64e 875=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 876
ce80d64e
AD
877Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
878associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
879will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
880sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
881However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
882packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
883wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
884management software to move perl to its final destination. This
885section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 886
be8498a1
RGS
887To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
888command line:
c3edaffb 889
ce80d64e 890 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 891
ce80d64e 892(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 893
ce80d64e
AD
894Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
895modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
896follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
897that problem.
c3edaffb 898
ce80d64e 899=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 900
ce80d64e
AD
901If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
902to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
903multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
904archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
905using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
906automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
907simply do:
830717a7 908
ce80d64e
AD
909 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
910 make
911 make test
912 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
913 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
914 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 915
ce80d64e 916=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 917
ce80d64e
AD
918After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
919answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
920person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
921system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
922to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
a0a8d9d3
DD
923hint file for your system. This will work even if Policy.sh was
924generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 925different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
a0a8d9d3
DD
926you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
927example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
928as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 929
ce80d64e
AD
930Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
931answers, you should
c3edaffb 932
ce80d64e 933 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 934
ce80d64e 935to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 936
ce80d64e 937Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 938
ce80d64e
AD
939If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
940to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
941platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 942
ce80d64e 943=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 944
ce80d64e
AD
945Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
946installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
947and these will be used by the perl being built.
948See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 949
ce80d64e
AD
950To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
951modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 952
ce80d64e 953 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 954
ce80d64e
AD
955When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
956$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 957
ce80d64e 958=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 959
ce80d64e
AD
960Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
961where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
962read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
963architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
964links) by
06c896bb 965
ce80d64e
AD
966 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
967 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
968 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 969
ce80d64e
AD
970This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
971pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
972unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 973
ce80d64e 974 make
06c896bb 975
ce80d64e 976as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 977
3bf462b8
CS
978=head2 Building a debugging perl
979
980You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 981B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
eaf812ae
MB
982you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
983(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
984system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
985
986 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
987
988For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
989for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
990to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
991
992=over 4
993
994=item -DEBUGGING=old
995
996Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
3bf462b8
CS
997
998 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
999
203c3eec
AD
1000This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1001to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1002executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
d6baa268
JH
1003cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1004your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1005variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1006internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1007if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1008old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1009ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1010L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
203c3eec
AD
1011
1012You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1013it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 1014
eaf812ae
MB
1015=over 4
1016
1017=item -DDEBUGGING
1018
1019=item -DEBUGGING
1020
1021=item -DEBUGGING=both
1022
1023Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
1024
1025=item -DEBUGGING=-g
1026
1027Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
1028
1029=item -DEBUGGING=none
1030
1031Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
1032
1033=back
1034
3bf462b8 1035If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 1036versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1037
8d74ce1c
AD
1038=head2 Extensions
1039
80c1f5de
AD
1040Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1041in the ext/ subdirectory.
1042
8d74ce1c
AD
1043By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1044to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1045only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1046Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
ce80d64e
AD
1047is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1048set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1049
c42e3e15
GS
1050If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1051running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1052extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1053it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1054has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1055extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1056convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1057you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1058dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1059
a522f097
AD
1060If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1061is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1062
c42e3e15 1063You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
8d74ce1c
AD
1064documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1065ext/ subdirectory.
1066
1067Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1068DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
ce80d64e
AD
1069version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
1070
1071To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1072-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1073a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
1074C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1075the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1076extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1077certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1078examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1079these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
8d74ce1c
AD
1080
1081Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1082the extensions you want.
1083
1084Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1085DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1086this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1087releases of version 2.
1088
1089If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1090adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1091for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1092you.
1093
80c1f5de 1094Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
8d74ce1c
AD
1095remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1096executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1097well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1098
1099=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1100
1101Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1102dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1103Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1104automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1105are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1106how to obtain the libraries.
1107
d6baa268
JH
1108If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1109searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1110appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 1111your database libraries are not in a directory normally
d6baa268
JH
1112searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1113the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1114See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1115
ce80d64e 1116=head3 Examples
8d74ce1c
AD
1117
1118=over 4
1119
1120=item gdbm in /usr/local
1121
1122Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1123GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
8d74ce1c
AD
1124installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1125/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1126necessary steps out automatically.
1127
1128Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1129your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1130
1131When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1132-L/usr/local/lib.
1133
1134If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1135linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1136-L/usr/local/lib.
1137
d6baa268
JH
1138Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1139you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1140/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c
AD
1141
1142=item gdbm in /usr/you
1143
1144Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1145but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1146have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1147still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1148an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1149Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1150/usr/you/lib to the list.
1151
1152It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1153line):
1154
d6baa268 1155 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c
AD
1156 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1157 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1158
1159locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1160Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1161
1162loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1163Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1164you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1165/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1166
d6baa268 1167 sh Configure -de \
8d74ce1c
AD
1168 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1169 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1170
1171=back
1172
bb636fa4
JH
1173=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1174
ce80d64e
AD
1175A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1176compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
bb636fa4
JH
1177following instructions.
1178
1179Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1180DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1181links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1182for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
bb636fa4
JH
1183--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1184additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1185--prefix=/usr):
1186
1187 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1188 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1189 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1190 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1191 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
bb636fa4
JH
1192 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1193
1194Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1195for ODBM/NDBM):
1196
1197 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1198 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1199
1200ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1201using DB 3.1.17:
1202
1203 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1204 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1205
ce80d64e
AD
1206=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1207
1208If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
1209with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
1210
1211=head2 GNU-style configure
1212
1213If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1214use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1215
1216 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1217
1218The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1219options. Try
1220
1221 ./configure.gnu --help
1222
1223for a listing.
1224
1225(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1226that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1227
1228See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1229
1230=head2 Malloc Issues
1231
1232Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1233so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1234the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1235version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1236perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1237than your system malloc.
1238
1239However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1240experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1241that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1242(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1243
1244=over 4
1245
1246=item Using the system malloc
1247
1248To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1249
1250 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1251
1252or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1253
1254=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1255
1256NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1257run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1258
1259Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1260Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1261These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1262
1263If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1264will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1265sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1266been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1267
1268Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1269from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1270does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1271versions.
1272
1273=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1274
1275This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1276Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1277using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1278
1279 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1280
1281to enable this option.
1282
1283=back
1284
8e07c86e
AD
1285=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1286
8d74ce1c 1287If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
40dd8381 1288If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 1289
8e07c86e
AD
1290=over 4
1291
25f94b33
AD
1292=item Running Configure Interactively
1293
1294If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1295Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1296guesses.
1297
1298All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1299have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1300flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
25f94b33
AD
1301will use the defaults from then on.
1302
1303If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1304config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1305instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1306
aa689395 1307=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1308
a0a8d9d3
DD
1309Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1310
1311=over 4
1312
1313=item o
1314
1315The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1316library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1317and so on.
1318
1319=item o
1320
1321The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1322although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1323resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1324
1325=item o
1326
1327How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1328speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1329implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1330often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1331
1332=back
1333
1334The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1335in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1336will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1337not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
AD
1338
1339Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
AD
1340If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1341for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1342More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1343file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1344
1345Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1346Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1347
edb1cbcb 1348=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1349
82c11e95
RGS
1350If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1351different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1352always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1353on your system.
edb1cbcb 1354
1355For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1356and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1357Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a
AD
1358Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1359issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1360
1361 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1362 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1363 Keep the previous value? [y]
1364
1ec51d55 1365In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1366should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1367the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1368
8e07c86e
AD
1369=item Changing Compilers
1370
1371If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1372probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
8e07c86e
AD
1373rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1374with the options you want to use.
1375
1ec51d55
CS
1376This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1377gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1378
c3edaffb 1379=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1380
1ec51d55
CS
1381If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1382them to all the .SH files by running
1383
1384 sh Configure -S
1385
1386You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1387
1388 make depend
1389 make
8e07c86e 1390
48370efc
JH
1391=item config.over and config.arch
1392
1393You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1394Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1395before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1396however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1397This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1398
1399There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1400config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1401architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1402hints file that creates the config.arch.
8e07c86e
AD
1403
1404=item config.h
1405
1ec51d55
CS
1406Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1407Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1408The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1409
1ec51d55
CS
1410If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1411though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
AD
1412lost.
1413
1414=item cflags
1415
1416If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1417line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1418optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1419toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1420can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1421lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1422
f5b3b617
AD
1423To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1424see the file hints/README.hints.
1425
1426To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1427$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1428
1429 sh Configure -S
1430 make depend
8e07c86e 1431
aa689395 1432=item No sh
8e07c86e 1433
c42e3e15
GS
1434If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1435Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1436system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
AD
1437You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1438mechanism.
1439
d6baa268
JH
1440=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1441
1442In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1443
1444Build a threading Perl? [n]
1445Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1446
1447This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1448(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1449"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1450to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1451being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1452'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1453(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1454
1455=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1456
1457If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1458that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1459HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1460fail
1461
1462Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1463Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1464sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1465
1466and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1467libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1468
c3edaffb 1469=item Porting information
1470
e6f03d26 1471Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1472corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1473including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1474subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1475
7f678428 1476Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1477http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1478various other operating systems.
1479
ce80d64e 1480If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0
JA
1481section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1482in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1483Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1484
8e07c86e
AD
1485=back
1486
ce80d64e 1487=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1488
1489You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1490CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1491command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1492
1493 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1494
1495or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1496then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1497The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
AD
1498This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1499extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1500extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1501
1502Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1503modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1504or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1505do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1506
1507Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1508dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1509For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1510library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1511headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1512process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1513
ce80d64e 1514=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1515
ce80d64e
AD
1516suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1517nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21
JH
1518
1519 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1520 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1521 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1522 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1523 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1524 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1525 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1526 features of the kernel.
1527
1528Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1529of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1530software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1531should be considered deprecated.
ce80d64e
AD
1532Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
1533privileges, such as B<sudo>, http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ .
03739d21 1534
8e07c86e
AD
1535=head1 make depend
1536
bfb7748a
AD
1537This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1538The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1539the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1540makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
AD
1541(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1542Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
AD
1543
1544Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1545explicitly above.
1546
1547=head1 make
1548
1549This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1550
8d410bc4
YST
1551=head2 Expected errors
1552
1553These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1554
1555 ...
1556 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1557 ...
1558 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1559
8d74ce1c
AD
1560=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1561
8e07c86e 1562If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1563If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1564the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
40dd8381 1565then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8e07c86e
AD
1566
1567=over 4
1568
1ec51d55 1569=item hints
8e07c86e
AD
1570
1571If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1572for further tips and information.
1573
1ec51d55 1574=item extensions
8e07c86e 1575
1ec51d55 1576If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1577during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1578
3a6175e1 1579 make minitest
c3edaffb 1580
1581to test your version of miniperl.
1582
e57fd563 1583=item locale
1584
bfb7748a
AD
1585If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1586them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1587running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1588See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1589whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1590The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1591
1592 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1593 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1594 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1595 LANG = (unset)
1596 are supported and installed on your system.
1597 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1598
1599at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1600
7f678428 1601=item varargs
c3edaffb 1602
1603If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
AD
1604correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1605gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1606in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
AD
1607correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1608your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1609See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1610
bfb7748a 1611=item util.c
c3edaffb 1612
1613If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1614numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1615
bfb7748a
AD
1616 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1617 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1618 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1619
1620it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1621previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1622
1ec51d55 1623=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1624
1625If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1626the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1627Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1628fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1629of your local set-up.
1630
aa689395 1631=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1632
1633If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1634try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1635with
1636
1637 sh Configure -Uusenm
1638
1639or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1640If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1641config.sh.
1642
bfb7748a
AD
1643=item umask not found
1644
1645If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1646is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1647Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1648this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1649try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1650
7f678428 1651=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1652
1653If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1654problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1655version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1656(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1657d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1658
1659 d_vprintf='define'
1660
1661If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1662on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1663the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1664
3fe9a6f1 1665=item do_aspawn
1666
1667If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1668problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1669fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1670on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1671
84902520
TB
1672=item __inet_* errors
1673
1674If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1675referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1676installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1677these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1678in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1679newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1680If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1681with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1682test process to avoid the problem.
1683
1684=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1685
1686On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1687reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1688but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1689other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1690header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1691another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1692Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1693header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1694normally /usr/include).
84902520 1695
d6baa268
JH
1696=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1697
1698This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1699gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1700changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1701rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1702update your gcc installation.
1703
aa689395 1704=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1705
9d67150a 1706If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1707optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1708
1709 optimize='-O'
1710
bfb7748a 1711to
9d67150a 1712
1713 optimize=' '
1714
1715then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1716with B<make depend; make>.
1717
4bbc1586 1718=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1719
4bbc1586
AD
1720If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1721undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1722should look something like
1723
1724 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1725
1726The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1727need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1728will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1729need to start all over again. Run
1730
1731 make distclean
1732
1733and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1734what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1735Configure.
1736
1737If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1738L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1739
1740If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1741need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1742that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1743you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1744look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1745
1ec51d55 1746=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1747
1ec51d55
CS
1748Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1749toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1750allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1751each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1752makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1753specific rule.
1754
7f678428 1755=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1756
c3edaffb 1757SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1758that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1759
f3d9a6ba 1760=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1761
1762If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1763the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1764then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1765Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1766systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1767For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1768unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1769they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1770reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1771process is continuing.
7f678428 1772
1773On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1774message
1775
f3d9a6ba 1776 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1777
1778then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1779the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1780extension without the -lgdbm library.
1781
1782It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1783this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1784quite that tightly coordinated.
1785
aa689395 1786=item sh: ar: not found
1787
1788This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1789was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1790make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1791is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1792directory.
1793
1794=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1795
1796Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1797with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1798bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1799
6087ac44
JH
1800=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1801
11906ba0 1802If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1803V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1804also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1805to include the System V semaphores.
1806
11906ba0 1807=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1808
1809Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1810both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1811ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1812with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1813system.
1814
d6baa268
JH
1815=item GNU binutils
1816
1817If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1818tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1819with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1820may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1821under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1822to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1823vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1824Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1825
16dc217a
GS
1826=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1827
1828The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1829make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1830archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1831C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1832archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1833incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1834official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1835that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1836archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1837
16dc217a
GS
1838=item invalid token: ##
1839
ce80d64e
AD
1840You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1841need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1842file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1843options.
16dc217a 1844
1ec51d55 1845=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e
AD
1846
1847Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1848
1849Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1850
1851NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1852
9ede5bc8 1853UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1854
11906ba0 1855FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1856configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1857you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1858
d6baa268
JH
1859HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1860Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1861tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1862break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1863(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1864
6c8d78fb
HS
1865Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1866installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1867and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1868the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1869view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1870to avoid the BIND.
1871
8e07c86e
AD
1872=back
1873
58a21a9b
JH
1874=head2 Cross-compilation
1875
e7a3c61b
JH
1876Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1877rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1878June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1879the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1880while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1881platforms.
1882
1883What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1884cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1885up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1886(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1887awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1888version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1889cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1890
1891See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1892the particular platforms:
1893
1894=over 4
1895
1896=item WinCE/PocketPC
1897
75472953 1898README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1899
1900=item Open Zaurus
1901
1902Cross/README
1903
1904=item EPOC
1905
1906README.epoc
1907
1908=item Symbian
1909
1910README.symbian
1911
1912=item OS/400
1913
1914README.os400
1915
1916=back
1917
1918Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1919modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1920cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1921platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1922L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1923of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1924
1925For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1926C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1927directory>.
1928
1929About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1930work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1931building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1932building the perl executable because that would require building
1933extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1934extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1935cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1936
1937The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1938at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1939both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1940cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1941target system.
1942
1943To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1944has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1945
1946 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1947
1948This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1949symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1950for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1951
1952During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1953into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1954cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1955target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1956transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1957the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1958methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1959F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1960
1961To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1962the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1963happens), supply Configure with
1964
1965 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1966
1967The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1968must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1969You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1970
1971 -Dtargetuser=luser
1972
1973but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1974
93bc48fa
JH
1975Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1976which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1977This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1978In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1979environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1980
1981 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1982 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1983 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1984 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1985 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1986
1987If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1988compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1989C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1990(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1991as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1992will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1993in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1994
1995In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1996choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1997for example:
1998
1999 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
2000
2001Putting it all together:
2002
2003 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
2004 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2005 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
2006 -Dtargetuser=root \
2007 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
2008 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2009 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2010 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2011 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
2012 -D...
2013
e7a3c61b 2014or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
2015
2016 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2017 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2018 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2019 -D...
2020
e7a3c61b
JH
2021Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
2022F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
2023
2024 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2025 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2026 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
2027 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2028 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2029 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
2030
8e07c86e
AD
2031=head1 make test
2032
d6baa268
JH
2033This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
2034'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
2035wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 2036
84902520 2037Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 2038opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
2039a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 2040
c4f23d77
AD
2041=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
2042
1ec51d55
CS
2043If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
2044by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 2045bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
AD
2046
2047 ./perl op/groups.t
2048
aa689395 2049Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 2050individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 2051
2052 ./perl harness
2053
fb73857a 2054(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831
JH
2055complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
2056need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
2057PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
2058right Perl library path:
2059
2060 setenv PERL_CORE 1
2061 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
2062 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 2063
5cda700b 2064(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 2065You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
2066comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2067shared library path if you get errors like:
2068
2069 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2070
2071See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2072
c4f23d77
AD
2073=over 4
2074
2075=item locale
2076
1ec51d55 2077Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2078may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 2079B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2080one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2081LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2082are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2083
2084If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2085
2086 setenv LC_ALL C
2087
2088(for C shell) or
2089
2090 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2091
1ec51d55
CS
2092for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2093make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2094is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2095shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2096things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2097open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2098external program.
eed2e782 2099
0740bb5b
AD
2100=item Timing problems
2101
c29923ff
JH
2102Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2103sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2104If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2105these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2106with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2107and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2108F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2109F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2110
c4f23d77
AD
2111=item Out of memory
2112
2113On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2114of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2115For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2116test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
2117
2118Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2119
2120 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2121
2122to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2123test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2124tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2125and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2126
4f76e5ba
AD
2127=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2128
2129First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2130real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2131
2132Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2133directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2134systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2135run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2136test').
2137
2138The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2139
2140(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2141other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2142
2143This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2144unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2145are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2146
2147(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2148by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2149UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2150add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2151used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2152set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2153file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2154others.)
2155
2156This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2157permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2158also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2159is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2160should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2161supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2162used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
216311.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2164on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2165local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2166
b2b23189
JH
2167(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2168any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2169directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
2170(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2171building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2172module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2173
2174See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2175about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2176
c4f23d77
AD
2177=back
2178
8e07c86e
AD
2179=head1 make install
2180
2181This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2182Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2183to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2184pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
2185are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2186in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2187
2188If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2189similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2190and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2191by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2192
dd64f1c3
AD
2193=head2 Installing perl under different names
2194
2195If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2196when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2197indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2198
2199 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2200
beb13193 2201You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2202"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2203
2204 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2205
5cda700b
AD
2206This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2207avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2208Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2209
ce80d64e
AD
2210=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2211
2212You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2213the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2214
2215 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2216
2217DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2218the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2219
dd64f1c3
AD
2220=head2 Installed files
2221
8e07c86e
AD
2222If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2223anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2224
8e07c86e
AD
2225 ./perl installperl -n
2226 ./perl installman -n
2227
1ec51d55 2228make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2229
d56c5707
JH
2230 binaries
2231
8e07c86e 2232 perl,
be8498a1 2233 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e
AD
2234 will be a link to perl.
2235 suidperl,
be8498a1 2236 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2237 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
JH
2238
2239 scripts
2240
8e07c86e
AD
2241 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2242 read from stdin.
2243 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2244 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2245 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2246 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2247 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2248 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2249 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2250 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2251 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2252 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2253 pod2man,
2254 pod2text,
2255 pod2checker,
2256 pod2select,
2257 pod2usage
aa689395 2258 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2259 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2260
d56c5707
JH
2261 library files
2262
2263 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2264 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2265
2266 documentation
2267
d6baa268
JH
2268 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2269 module man
2270 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2271 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2272
d6baa268
JH
2273Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2274in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2275
d56c5707 2276Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2277under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2278optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2279program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2280
d56c5707
JH
2281Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2282installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2283perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2284disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2285To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2286
2287 Configure -Dversiononly
2288
2289or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2290you can just manually run
2291
2292 ./perl installperl -v
2293
2294and skip installman altogether.
2295See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2296approach.
2297
aa689395 2298=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2299
9a664500 2300Perl 5.9 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2301In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2302
693762b4 2303In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 23045.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
693762b4
AD
2305all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2306around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2307For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2308with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2309top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2310#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2311
be8498a1
RGS
2312Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2313used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2314(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2315
d6baa268
JH
2316Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2317searched by 5.005_03 are
2318
2319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2320 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2321 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2323
0a08c020
GS
2324Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2325fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2326searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2327
0a08c020
GS
2328 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2329 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2330 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2331 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268
JH
2332
2333 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2334 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2335 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2336
c42e3e15 2337Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268
JH
2338of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2339directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2340to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2341suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020
GS
2342present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2343/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2344but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2345
c42e3e15 2346The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23475.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2348
cc65bb49
AD
2349Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2350with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2351Configure defaults) will be:
2352
2353 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2354 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2355 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2356 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2357
0a08c020 2358 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2359
d6baa268 2360 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2361
d6baa268 2362 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2363
cc65bb49
AD
2364Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2365modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2366
0a08c020 2367Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 23685.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
cc65bb49
AD
2369extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2370of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2371newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2372compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2373installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
23745.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
23755.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2376install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
23775.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020
GS
2378
2379This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2380to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2381versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2382
2383=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2384
1ec51d55 2385Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2386separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2387won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2388libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2389way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2390
9a664500 2391 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2392
9a664500 2393and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2394may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2395scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2396
693762b4 2397Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2398(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2399each major version.
2400
6877a1cf
AD
2401If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2402seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2403subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2404yet.
2405
e655887d 2406=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2407
9a664500 2408B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
e655887d
CB
2409and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2410(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
9a664500
AMS
2411used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24125.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d
CB
2413installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2414above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2415
2416See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2417incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2418perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2419
8e07c86e
AD
2420=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2421
2422You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2423
1ec51d55
CS
2424By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2425they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e
AD
2426
2427In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2428perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e
AD
2429process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2430However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268 2431the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
4dc3e0af 2432whatever the appropriate pathname is). See L<perltrap> for
d6baa268 2433possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2434
aa689395 2435=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2436
d6baa268
JH
2437Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2438system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2439header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268
JH
2440by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2441library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2442
d6baa268
JH
2443Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2444of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2445hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2446For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2447structures.
aa689395 2448
fb73857a 2449=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2450
3e3baf6d
TB
2451Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2452format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2453documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2454
d6baa268
JH
2455Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2456html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2457
fb73857a 2458The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2459perl documentation:
aa689395 2460
3e3baf6d
TB
2461 ./installhtml \
2462 --podroot=. \
2463 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2464 --recurse \
2465 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2466 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2467 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2468 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2469 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2470 --verbose
2471
2472See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2473many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2474see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2475resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2476(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2477
fb73857a 2478You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2479the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2480
aa689395 2481=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2482
2483Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2484available in TeX format. Type
2485
2486 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2487
8ebf57cf
JH
2488=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2489
2490The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2491Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2492operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2493
c8214fdf 2494Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2495Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2496space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2497Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2498programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2499depends on what do you need to do.
2500
8ebf57cf
JH
2501In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2502recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2503depends on what you need.
2504
2505Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2506
2507 use strict;
2508 use warnings;
2509 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2510 print("$f\n");
2511 }
2512
bfe08c74 2513in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2514
2515 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2516 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2517 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2518 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2519 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2520 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
JH
2521
2522Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2523size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2524
bfe08c74
RGS
2525 /usr/bin/perl
2526 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2527 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2528 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2529 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2530 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2531 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2532 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2533 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2534 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2535 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2536 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2537 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2538 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2539 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2540 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2541 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2542 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2543 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2544 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2545 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2546 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2547 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2548 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2549 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2550 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2551 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2552 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2553 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2554 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2555 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2556 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2557 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2558 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2559 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2560 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2561 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2562 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2563 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2564 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2565 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2566 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2567 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2568 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2569 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2570 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2571 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2572 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2573 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2574 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2575 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2576 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2577 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2578 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2579 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2580 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2581 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2582 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2583 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2584 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2585 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2586 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2587 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2588 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2589 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2590 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2591 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2592 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2593 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2594 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2595 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2596 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2597 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2598 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2599 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2600 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2601 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2602 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2603 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2604 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2605 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2606 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2607 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2608 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2609 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2610 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2611 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2612 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2613 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2614
e7a3c61b
JH
2615A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2616need to run a Perl program is
2617
a0a8d9d3 2618 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2619
2620(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2621it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2622use something like the below
2623
2624 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2625
2626(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2627and 'ktrace'.)
2628
8e07c86e
AD
2629=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2630
bfb7748a
AD
2631Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2632is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2633build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2634can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2635sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2636
1ec51d55 2637Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a
AD
2638along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2639running (either):
34a2a22e
RM
2640
2641 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2642 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e
RM
2643
2644This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2645(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2646set-up.)
34a2a22e 2647
bfb7748a
AD
2648Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2649the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2650the documentation.
34a2a22e 2651
8e07c86e
AD
2652=head1 AUTHOR
2653
bfb7748a
AD
2654Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2655heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2656feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2657
f5b3b617
AD
2658If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2659L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2660
2661=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2662
2663This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2664the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2665If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2666a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2667and the contact information to match your distribution.