This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
Fix bug introduced with change 27841. (len + 1, not just len).
[perl5.git] / INSTALL
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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
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5=head1 NAME
6
7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
8
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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
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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
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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
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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
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57=head1 SYNOPSIS
58
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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
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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
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74 make
75 make test
76 make install
36477c24 77
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78Each of these is explained in further detail below.
79
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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
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83
84 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
85 sh Configure
86 make
87 make test
88 make install
89
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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)
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144using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
145those extensions.
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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.
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151
152The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
153
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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
8756f06c 166directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
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167value is system-dependent. A perl build with debug symbols and
168-DDEBUGGING will require something on the order of 10 MB extra.
8e07c86e 169
aa689395 170=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 171
edb1cbcb 172If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
173with the command
174
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175 make distclean
176
177or
178
edb1cbcb 179 make realclean
c3edaffb 180
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181The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
182your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
183
184The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
185files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
186change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
187you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 188not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 189
d6baa268 190 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 191
e57fd563 192If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
193version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
194the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
195includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
196name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
197Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
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198probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't. Similarly, if you
199used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will
200probably want to adjust them as well.
e57fd563 201
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202Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
203Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
204it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
205might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
206compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
207the architecture name.
e57fd563 208
209In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
210Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 211
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212If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
213installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
214using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
215settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
216also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
217
218 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 219
aa689395 220=head1 Run Configure
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221
222Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
223things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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224you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
225almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
226since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
227the same function.
228
ce80d64e 229At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 230defaults from then on.
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231
232After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 233*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 234
ce80d64e 235=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 236
ce80d64e 237Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 238
ce80d64e 239 Configure -h
d6baa268 240
ce80d64e 241to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 242Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
243
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244=over 4
245
246=item gcc
247
248To compile with gcc you should run
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249
250 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
251
252This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
253compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
254
d6baa268 255=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 256
8e07c86e 257By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
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258/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
259and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
260further details.)
261
262You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 263directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 264line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 265
25f94b33 266 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 267
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268If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
269directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
270prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
271/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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272for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
273or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 274
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275NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
276as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
277attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 278
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279=item /usr/bin/perl
280
281It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
282find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 283/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 284careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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285vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
286on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
287configured may be found with
288
289 perl -V:config_args
290
291(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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292spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
293at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 294
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295By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
296version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 297
7d56c962 298 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 299
7d56c962 300or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 301
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302In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
303(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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304into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
305obvious and convenient place.
306
ce80d64e 307=item Building a development release.
04d420f9 308
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309For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
310use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
311because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
312Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
313sanity check.
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314
315=back
8e07c86e 316
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317If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
318output, you can run
319
320 sh Configure -des
321
ce80d64e 322For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
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323
324 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
325
ce80d64e 326=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 327
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328For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
329be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
330have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
331after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
332For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
333invocations:
46bb10fb 334
2db3864f 335 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
46bb10fb 336
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337To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
338Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (that will define a config.sh
339variable, but without taking any action based upon it). When passed to the
340compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
341
ce80d64e 342For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 343
ce80d64e 344 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 345
ce80d64e 346=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 347
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348There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
349system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
350Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
351some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 352
ce80d64e 353=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 354
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355On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
356enable this, run
4633a7c4 357
ce80d64e 358 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 359
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360Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
361line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
cc65bb49 362
ce80d64e 363The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 364
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365Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
366model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since
3675.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one
368interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The 5.005
369version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and unmaintained.
d6baa268 370
ce80d64e 371By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
d6baa268 372
ce80d64e 373However, if you insist, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
d6baa268 374
ce80d64e 375 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
d6baa268 376
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377The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
378'Thread' module offers an interface to either 5005threads or ithreads
379(whichever has been configured).
d6baa268 380
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381When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
382the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
383This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
384fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
385PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
386way to do this is to run Configure with
387C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
d6baa268 388
ce80d64e 389=head3 Large file support.
b367e8b0 390
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391Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
3922 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
393support is on by default.
d6baa268 394
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395This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
396seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
397using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
398be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
399parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
400will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
401Apache extension mod_perl.
d6baa268 402
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403There's also one known limitation with the current large files
404implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
405section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
406like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 407
ce80d64e 408=head3 64 bit support.
d6baa268 409
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410If your platform does not have run natively at 64 bits, but can
411simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
412you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 413
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414There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
415using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
416-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
417the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 418
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419The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
42064-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
421longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
422your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
423does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
424might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
425you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 426
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427The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
428integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
429create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
430resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
431have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
432aware.
d6baa268 433
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434Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
435nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 436
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437 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
438 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
439 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
440 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
d6baa268 441
ce80d64e 442=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 443
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444In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
445range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
446(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
447this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 448
ce80d64e 449=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 450
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451You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
452and the long double support.
b367e8b0 453
ce80d64e 454=head3 Selecting File IO mechanisms
d6baa268 455
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456Executive summary: as of Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
457as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
273cf8d1 458
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459In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
460mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
461introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
462until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
463and the only supported mechanism.
d6baa268 464
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465Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
466abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
467instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
468implementations.
46bb10fb 469
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470This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
471are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
472line with
46bb10fb 473
6d5328bc 474 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 475
6d5328bc 476or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 477
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478With the PerlIO abstraction layer, there is another possibility for
479the underlying IO calls, AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance
480to stdio.h in many cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline"
481modules ("Native" PerlIO has them too). Sfio currently only builds on
482a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports. Because the data
483structures are completely different from stdio, perl extension modules
484or external libraries may not work. This configuration exists to
485allow these issues to be worked on.
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486
487This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
1b9c9cf5 488The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
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489
490You select this option by
491
492 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
493
494If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
495that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
496Configure.
497
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498Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
499detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
500this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
501Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
502_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
503your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
33e6ee5f 504
ce80d64e 505=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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506
507In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
508Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 509enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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510a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
511and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
512
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513In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
514create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
515the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
516in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
517data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
518certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
519
520In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
521elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
522basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
523then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
524adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
525existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
526specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
527data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
528randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
529is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
530
531One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
532vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
533variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
534is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 535example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043
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536which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
537variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
538the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 539
3debabd9 540B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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541ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
5425. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
543be, affected by the insertion order. It is likely that Perl 5.10 and
544Perl 6 will randomise all hashes. Note that because of this
545randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
546between different runs of Perl since Data::Dumper by default dumps
547hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
548recommended.
504f80c1 549
ce80d64e 550=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5
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551
552Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
553TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
554access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
555Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
556
ce80d64e 557=head3 Dynamic Loading
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558
559By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
560your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
561statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
562you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
563
ce80d64e 564=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 565
566Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
567linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
568extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
569such as -lm.
570
9d67150a 571On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
572replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 573several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
574different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 575you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 576can share the same library.
577
578The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 579penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 580mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 581and upgrades.
582
583In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 584test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 585Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
586results.
587
588The default name for the shared library is typically something like
ce80d64e 589libperl.so.6.2 (for Perl 5.6.2), or libperl.so.602, or simply
9d67150a 590libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 591based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
592version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
593isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
594
595For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
596for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
597
598You can elect to build a shared libperl by
599
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600 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
601
602To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
603library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
604NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
605for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
606the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
607be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
608library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
609variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
610
611 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
612
613However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
614shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
615something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
616./perl:
617
618 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
619or
620 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
621
622then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
623You can do this with
624
625 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
626
627for Bourne-style shells, or
628
629 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
630
631for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
632unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
633again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
634
635You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
636messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
637for example:
63818126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
639
640There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
641want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
642with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
643install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
644try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
645the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
646ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
647libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
648that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
649in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
650equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
651with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
652LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
653Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
654_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
655
656In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
657with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
658previous build.
659
660A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
661architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
662You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
663point to your new architecture-dependent library.
664
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665=head3 Environment access
666
667Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
668is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
669leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
670to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
671whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
672but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
673embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 674by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
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675use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
676C<perl_construct()> call.
677
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678=head2 Installation Directories
679
680The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
681appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
682installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
683Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
684
685I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
686everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
687process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
688the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
689
690 grep '^install' config.sh
691
692after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
693
694The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
695people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
696distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
697need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
698you can safely skip the next section.
699
700The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
701
702=over 4
703
704=item Directories for the perl distribution
705
706By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.9.0.
707$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
7085.9.0 or 5.9.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
709determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
710variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
711
712 Configure variable Default value
713 $prefixexp /usr/local
714 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
715 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
716 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
717 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
718 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
719 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
720 $html1direxp (none)
721 $html3direxp (none)
722
723$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
724directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
725file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
726variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
727
728Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
729/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
730instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
731directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
732the common style is shown here.
733
734=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
735
736After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
737CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
738be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
739
740 Configure variable Default value
741 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
742 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
743 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
744 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
745 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
746 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
747 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
748 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
749 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
750
751By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
752modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
753
754=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
755
756Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
757distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
758for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
759
760 Configure variable Default value
761 $vendorprefixexp (none)
762 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
763 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
764 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
765 $vendorlibexp
766 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
767 $vendorarchexp
768 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
769 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
770 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
771 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
772 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
773
774These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
775a vendor might choose the following settings:
776
777 $prefix /usr
778 $siteprefix /usr/local
779 $vendorprefix /usr
780
781This would have the effect of setting the following:
782
783 $binexp /usr/bin
784 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
785 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
786 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
787 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
788 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
789
790 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
791 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
792 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
793 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
794 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
795 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
796
797 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
798 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
799 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
800 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
801 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
802 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
803
804Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
805/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
806the /usr/local hierarchy.
807
808The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
809version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
810However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
811installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
812See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
813on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
814
815Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
816example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
817are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
818site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
819network. One way to do that would be something like
820
821 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
822
823=item otherlibdirs
824
825As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
826variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
827directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
828Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
829version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
830
831For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
832installation, perhaps in a strange place:
833
834 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
835
836=item APPLLIB_EXP
837
838There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
839that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
840separated list of directories, like this
841
842 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
843
844The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
845ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
846modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
847touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
848version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
849present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
850directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
851run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
852
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853=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
854
855Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
856
36de116d 857 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 858
36de116d 859Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
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860When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
861anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
862entries to @INC.
863
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864=item Man Pages
865
866In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
867pages in a version-specific directory, such as
868/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
869after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
870without resetting MANPATH.
871
872You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
873
874 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.9.0/man/man3
875
876Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
877
878 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
879
880Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
881Configure.
882
883=item HTML pages
884
885Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
886HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
887add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
888variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
889documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
890eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
891
892=back
893
894Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
895to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
896architectures.
897
898Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
899directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
900filesystem.
c3edaffb 901
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902Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
903development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
904discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 905
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906If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
907library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
908suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 909
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910Thus, for example, if you Configure with
911-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 912
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913 Configure variable Default value
914 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
915 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
916 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
917 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 918
ce80d64e 919=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 920
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921Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
922associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
923will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
924sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
925However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
926packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
927wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
928management software to move perl to its final destination. This
929section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 930
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931Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
932could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
933/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
934following command line:
c3edaffb 935
ce80d64e 936 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 937
ce80d64e 938(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 939
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940Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
941modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
942follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
943that problem.
c3edaffb 944
ce80d64e 945=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 946
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947If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
948to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
949multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
950archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
951using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
952automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
953simply do:
830717a7 954
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955 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
956 make
957 make test
958 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
959 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
960 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 961
ce80d64e 962=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 963
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964After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
965answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
966person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
967system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
968to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
969hint file for your system.
55479bb6 970
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971Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
972answers, you should
c3edaffb 973
ce80d64e 974 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 975
ce80d64e 976to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 977
ce80d64e 978Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 979
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980If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
981to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
982platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 983
ce80d64e 984=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 985
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986Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
987installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
988and these will be used by the perl being built.
989See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 990
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991To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
992modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 993
ce80d64e 994 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 995
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996When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
997$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 998
ce80d64e 999=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 1000
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1001Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
1002where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
1003read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
1004architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
1005links) by
06c896bb 1006
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1007 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
1008 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
1009 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 1010
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1011This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
1012pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
1013unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 1014
ce80d64e 1015 make
06c896bb 1016
ce80d64e 1017as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 1018
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1019=head2 Building a debugging perl
1020
1021You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 1022B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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1023you probably want to do
1024
1025 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1026
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1027This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1028to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1029executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
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1030cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1031your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1032variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1033internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1034if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1035old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1036ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1037L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
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1038
1039You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1040it's convenient to have both.
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1041
1042If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 1043versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1044
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1045=head2 Extensions
1046
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1047Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1048in the ext/ subdirectory.
1049
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1050By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1051to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1052only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1053Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
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1054is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1055set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1056
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1057If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1058running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1059extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1060it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1061has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1062extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1063convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1064you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1065dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1066
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1067If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1068is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1069
c42e3e15 1070You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
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1071documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1072ext/ subdirectory.
1073
1074Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1075DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
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1076version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
1077
1078To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1079-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1080a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
1081C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1082the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1083extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1084certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1085examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1086these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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1087
1088Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1089the extensions you want.
1090
1091Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1092DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1093this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1094releases of version 2.
1095
1096If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1097adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1098for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1099you.
1100
80c1f5de 1101Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
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1102remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1103executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1104well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1105
1106=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1107
1108Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1109dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1110Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1111automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1112are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1113how to obtain the libraries.
1114
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1115If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1116searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1117appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 1118your database libraries are not in a directory normally
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1119searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1120the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1121See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1122
ce80d64e 1123=head3 Examples
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1124
1125=over 4
1126
1127=item gdbm in /usr/local
1128
1129Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1130GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1131installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1132/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1133necessary steps out automatically.
1134
1135Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1136your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1137
1138When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1139-L/usr/local/lib.
1140
1141If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1142linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1143-L/usr/local/lib.
1144
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1145Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1146you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1147/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
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1148
1149=item gdbm in /usr/you
1150
1151Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1152but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1153have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1154still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1155an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1156Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1157/usr/you/lib to the list.
1158
1159It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1160line):
1161
d6baa268 1162 sh Configure -de \
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1163 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1164 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1165
1166locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1167Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1168
1169loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1170Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1171you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1172/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1173
d6baa268 1174 sh Configure -de \
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1175 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1176 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1177
1178=back
1179
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1180=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1181
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1182A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1183compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
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1184following instructions.
1185
1186Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1187DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1188links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1189for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
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1190--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1191additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1192--prefix=/usr):
1193
1194 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1195 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1196 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1197 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1198 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
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1199 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1200
1201Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1202for ODBM/NDBM):
1203
1204 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1205 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1206
1207ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1208using DB 3.1.17:
1209
1210 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1211 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1212
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1213=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1214
1215If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
1216with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
1217
1218=head2 GNU-style configure
1219
1220If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1221use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1222
1223 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1224
1225The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1226options. Try
1227
1228 ./configure.gnu --help
1229
1230for a listing.
1231
1232(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1233that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1234
1235See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1236
1237=head2 Malloc Issues
1238
1239Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1240so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1241the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1242version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1243perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1244than your system malloc.
1245
1246However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1247experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1248that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1249(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1250
1251=over 4
1252
1253=item Using the system malloc
1254
1255To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1256
1257 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1258
1259or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1260
1261=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1262
1263NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1264run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1265
1266Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1267Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1268These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1269
1270If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1271will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1272sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1273been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1274
1275Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1276from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1277does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1278versions.
1279
1280=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1281
1282This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1283Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1284using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1285
1286 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1287
1288to enable this option.
1289
1290=back
1291
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1292=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1293
8d74ce1c 1294If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
40dd8381 1295If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 1296
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1297=over 4
1298
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1299=item Running Configure Interactively
1300
1301If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1302Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1303guesses.
1304
1305All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1306have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1307flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1308will use the defaults from then on.
1309
1310If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1311config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1312instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1313
aa689395 1314=item Hint files
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1315
1316The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1317in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1318will offer to use that hint file.
1319
1320Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
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1321If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1322for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1323More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1324file.
8e07c86e 1325
edb1cbcb 1326=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1327
1328Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
13294.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1330standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1331will see a message:
1332
1333 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1334 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1335 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1336
1337You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1338relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1339overriding it.
1340
1341If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1342used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1343to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1344system.
1345
1346For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1347and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1348Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1349Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1350issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1351
1352 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1353 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1354 Keep the previous value? [y]
1355
1ec51d55 1356In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1357should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1358the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1359
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1360=item Changing Compilers
1361
1362If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1363probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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1364rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1365with the options you want to use.
1366
1ec51d55
CS
1367This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1368gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1369
c3edaffb 1370=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1371
1ec51d55
CS
1372If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1373them to all the .SH files by running
1374
1375 sh Configure -S
1376
1377You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1378
1379 make depend
1380 make
8e07c86e 1381
48370efc
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1382=item config.over and config.arch
1383
1384You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1385Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1386before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1387however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1388This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1389
1390There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1391config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1392architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1393hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1394
1395=item config.h
1396
1ec51d55
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1397Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1398Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1399The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1400
1ec51d55
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1401If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1402though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
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1403lost.
1404
1405=item cflags
1406
1407If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1408line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1409optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1410toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1411can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1412lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1413
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1414To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1415see the file hints/README.hints.
1416
1417To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1418$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1419
1420 sh Configure -S
1421 make depend
8e07c86e 1422
aa689395 1423=item No sh
8e07c86e 1424
c42e3e15
GS
1425If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1426Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1427system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
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1428You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1429mechanism.
1430
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1431=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1432
1433In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1434
1435Build a threading Perl? [n]
1436Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1437
1438This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1439(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1440"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1441to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1442being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1443'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1444(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1445
1446=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1447
1448If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1449that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1450HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1451fail
1452
1453Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1454Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1455sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1456
1457and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1458libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1459
c3edaffb 1460=item Porting information
1461
e6f03d26 1462Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1463corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1464including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1465subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1466
7f678428 1467Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1468http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1469various other operating systems.
1470
ce80d64e 1471If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0
JA
1472section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1473in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1474Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1475
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1476=back
1477
ce80d64e 1478=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
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1479
1480You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1481CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1482command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1483
1484 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1485
1486or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1487then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1488The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
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1489This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1490extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1491extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
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1492
1493Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1494modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1495or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1496do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1497
1498Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1499dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1500For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1501library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1502headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1503process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1504
ce80d64e 1505=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1506
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1507suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1508nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21
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1509
1510 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1511 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1512 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1513 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1514 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1515 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1516 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1517 features of the kernel.
1518
1519Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1520of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1521software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1522should be considered deprecated.
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1523Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
1524privileges, such as B<sudo>, http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ .
03739d21 1525
8e07c86e
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1526=head1 make depend
1527
bfb7748a
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1528This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1529The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1530the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1531makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
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1532(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1533Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
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1534
1535Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1536explicitly above.
1537
1538=head1 make
1539
1540This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1541
8d410bc4
YST
1542=head2 Expected errors
1543
1544These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1545
1546 ...
1547 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1548 ...
1549 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1550
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1551=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1552
8e07c86e 1553If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1554If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1555the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
40dd8381 1556then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
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1557
1558=over 4
1559
1ec51d55 1560=item hints
8e07c86e
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1561
1562If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1563for further tips and information.
1564
1ec51d55 1565=item extensions
8e07c86e 1566
1ec51d55 1567If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1568during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1569
3a6175e1 1570 make minitest
c3edaffb 1571
1572to test your version of miniperl.
1573
e57fd563 1574=item locale
1575
bfb7748a
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1576If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1577them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1578running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1579See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1580whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
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1581The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1582
1583 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1584 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1585 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1586 LANG = (unset)
1587 are supported and installed on your system.
1588 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1589
1590at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1591
7f678428 1592=item varargs
c3edaffb 1593
1594If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
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1595correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1596gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1597in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
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1598correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1599your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1600See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1601
bfb7748a 1602=item util.c
c3edaffb 1603
1604If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1605numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1606
bfb7748a
AD
1607 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1608 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1609 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1610
1611it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1612previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1613
1ec51d55 1614=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1615
1616If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1617the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1618Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1619fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1620of your local set-up.
1621
aa689395 1622=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1623
1624If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1625try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1626with
1627
1628 sh Configure -Uusenm
1629
1630or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1631If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1632config.sh.
1633
bfb7748a
AD
1634=item umask not found
1635
1636If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1637is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1638Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1639this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1640try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1641
7f678428 1642=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1643
1644If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1645problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1646version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1647(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1648d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1649
1650 d_vprintf='define'
1651
1652If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
AD
1653on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1654the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1655
3fe9a6f1 1656=item do_aspawn
1657
1658If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1659problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
AD
1660fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1661on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1662
84902520
TB
1663=item __inet_* errors
1664
1665If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1666referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1667installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1668these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1669in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1670newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1671If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1672with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1673test process to avoid the problem.
1674
1675=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1676
1677On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1678reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1679but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1680other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1681header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1682another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1683Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1684header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1685normally /usr/include).
84902520 1686
d6baa268
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1687=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1688
1689This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1690gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1691changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1692rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1693update your gcc installation.
1694
aa689395 1695=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1696
9d67150a 1697If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1698optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1699
1700 optimize='-O'
1701
bfb7748a 1702to
9d67150a 1703
1704 optimize=' '
1705
1706then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1707with B<make depend; make>.
1708
4bbc1586 1709=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1710
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1711If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1712undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1713should look something like
1714
1715 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1716
1717The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1718need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1719will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1720need to start all over again. Run
1721
1722 make distclean
1723
1724and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1725what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1726Configure.
1727
1728If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1729L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1730
1731If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1732need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1733that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1734you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1735look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1736
1ec51d55 1737=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1738
1ec51d55
CS
1739Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1740toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1741allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1742each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1743makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1744specific rule.
1745
7f678428 1746=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1747
c3edaffb 1748SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1749that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1750
f3d9a6ba 1751=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1752
1753If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1754the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1755then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1756Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1757systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1758For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1759unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1760they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1761reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1762process is continuing.
7f678428 1763
1764On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1765message
1766
f3d9a6ba 1767 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1768
1769then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1770the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1771extension without the -lgdbm library.
1772
1773It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1774this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1775quite that tightly coordinated.
1776
aa689395 1777=item sh: ar: not found
1778
1779This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1780was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1781make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1782is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1783directory.
1784
1785=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1786
1787Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1788with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1789bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1790
6087ac44
JH
1791=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1792
11906ba0 1793If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1794V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1795also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1796to include the System V semaphores.
1797
11906ba0 1798=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1799
1800Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1801both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1802ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1803with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1804system.
1805
d6baa268
JH
1806=item GNU binutils
1807
1808If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1809tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1810with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1811may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1812under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1813to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1814vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1815Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1816
16dc217a
GS
1817=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1818
1819The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1820make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1821archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1822C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1823archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1824incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1825official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1826that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1827archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1828
16dc217a
GS
1829=item invalid token: ##
1830
ce80d64e
AD
1831You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1832need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1833file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1834options.
16dc217a 1835
1ec51d55 1836=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e
AD
1837
1838Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1839
1840Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1841
1842NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1843
9ede5bc8 1844UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1845
11906ba0 1846FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1847configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1848you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1849
d6baa268
JH
1850HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1851Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1852tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1853break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1854(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1855
6c8d78fb
HS
1856Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1857installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1858and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1859the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1860view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1861to avoid the BIND.
1862
8e07c86e
AD
1863=back
1864
58a21a9b
JH
1865=head2 Cross-compilation
1866
e7a3c61b
JH
1867Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1868rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1869June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1870the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1871while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1872platforms.
1873
1874What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1875cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1876up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1877(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1878awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1879version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1880cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1881
1882See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1883the particular platforms:
1884
1885=over 4
1886
1887=item WinCE/PocketPC
1888
75472953 1889README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1890
1891=item Open Zaurus
1892
1893Cross/README
1894
1895=item EPOC
1896
1897README.epoc
1898
1899=item Symbian
1900
1901README.symbian
1902
1903=item OS/400
1904
1905README.os400
1906
1907=back
1908
1909Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1910modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1911cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1912platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1913L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1914of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1915
1916For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1917C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1918directory>.
1919
1920About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1921work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1922building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1923building the perl executable because that would require building
1924extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1925extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1926cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1927
1928The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1929at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1930both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1931cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1932target system.
1933
1934To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1935has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1936
1937 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1938
1939This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
1940symbol C<usecrosscompile> available.
1941
1942During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1943into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1944cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1945target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1946transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1947the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1948methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1949F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1950
1951To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1952the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1953happens), supply Configure with
1954
1955 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1956
1957The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1958must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1959You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1960
1961 -Dtargetuser=luser
1962
1963but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1964
93bc48fa
JH
1965Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1966which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1967This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1968In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1969environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1970
1971 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1972 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1973 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1974 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1975 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1976
1977If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1978compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1979C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1980(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1981as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1982will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1983in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1984
1985In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1986choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1987for example:
1988
1989 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1990
1991Putting it all together:
1992
1993 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1994 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1995 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1996 -Dtargetuser=root \
1997 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1998 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1999 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2000 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2001 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
2002 -D...
2003
e7a3c61b 2004or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
2005
2006 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2007 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2008 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2009 -D...
2010
e7a3c61b
JH
2011Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
2012F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
2013
2014 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2015 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2016 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
2017 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2018 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2019 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
2020
8e07c86e
AD
2021=head1 make test
2022
d6baa268
JH
2023This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
2024'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
2025wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 2026
84902520 2027Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 2028opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
2029a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 2030
c4f23d77
AD
2031=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
2032
1ec51d55
CS
2033If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
2034by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 2035bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
AD
2036
2037 ./perl op/groups.t
2038
aa689395 2039Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 2040individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 2041
2042 ./perl harness
2043
fb73857a 2044(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831
JH
2045complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
2046need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
2047PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
2048right Perl library path:
2049
2050 setenv PERL_CORE 1
2051 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
2052 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 2053
5cda700b 2054(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 2055You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
2056comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2057shared library path if you get errors like:
2058
2059 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2060
2061See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2062
c4f23d77
AD
2063=over 4
2064
2065=item locale
2066
1ec51d55 2067Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2068may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 2069B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2070one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2071LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2072are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2073
2074If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2075
2076 setenv LC_ALL C
2077
2078(for C shell) or
2079
2080 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2081
1ec51d55
CS
2082for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2083make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2084is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2085shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2086things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2087open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2088external program.
eed2e782 2089
0740bb5b
AD
2090=item Timing problems
2091
c29923ff
JH
2092Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2093sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2094If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2095these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2096with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2097and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2098F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2099F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2100
c4f23d77
AD
2101=item Out of memory
2102
2103On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2104of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2105For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2106test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
2107
2108Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2109
2110 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2111
2112to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2113test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2114tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2115and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2116
4f76e5ba
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2117=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2118
2119First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2120real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2121
2122Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2123directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2124systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2125run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2126test').
2127
2128The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2129
2130(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2131other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2132
2133This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2134unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2135are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2136
2137(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2138by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2139UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2140add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2141used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2142set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2143file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2144others.)
2145
2146This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2147permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2148also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2149is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2150should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2151supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2152used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
215311.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2154on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2155local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2156
b2b23189
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2157(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2158any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2159directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
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2160(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2161building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2162module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
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2163
2164See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2165about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2166
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2167=back
2168
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2169=head1 make install
2170
2171This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2172Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2173to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2174pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
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2175are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2176in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2177
2178If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2179similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2180and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2181by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2182
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2183=head2 Installing perl under different names
2184
2185If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2186when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2187indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2188
2189 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2190
beb13193
RS
2191You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2192"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2193
2194 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2195
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2196This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2197avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2198Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
beb13193 2199
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2200=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2201
2202You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2203the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2204
2205 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2206
2207DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2208the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2209
2210
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2211=head2 Installed files
2212
8e07c86e
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2213If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2214anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2215
8e07c86e
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2216 ./perl installperl -n
2217 ./perl installman -n
2218
1ec51d55 2219make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2220
d56c5707
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2221 binaries
2222
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2223 perl,
2224 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
2225 will be a link to perl.
2226 suidperl,
2227 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
2228 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
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2229
2230 scripts
2231
8e07c86e
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2232 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2233 read from stdin.
2234 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2235 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2236 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2237 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2238 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2239 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2240 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2241 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2242 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2243 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
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2244 pod2man,
2245 pod2text,
2246 pod2checker,
2247 pod2select,
2248 pod2usage
aa689395 2249 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2250 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2251
d56c5707
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2252 library files
2253
2254 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2255 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
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2256
2257 documentation
2258
d6baa268
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2259 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2260 module man
2261 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
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2262 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2263
d6baa268
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2264Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2265in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2266
d56c5707 2267Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2268under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
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2269optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2270program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2271
d56c5707
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2272Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2273installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2274perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2275disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2276To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2277
2278 Configure -Dversiononly
2279
2280or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2281you can just manually run
2282
2283 ./perl installperl -v
2284
2285and skip installman altogether.
2286See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2287approach.
2288
aa689395 2289=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2290
9a664500 2291Perl 5.9 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2292In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2293
693762b4 2294In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 22955.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
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2296all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2297around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2298For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2299with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2300top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2301#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2302
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2303Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
2304with a newer version of Perl Here is how it is supposed to work.
2305(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2306
d6baa268
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2307Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2308searched by 5.005_03 are
2309
2310 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2311 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2312 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2314
0a08c020
GS
2315Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2316fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2317searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2318
0a08c020
GS
2319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2320 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2321 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2322 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
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2323
2324 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2325 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2326 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2327
c42e3e15 2328Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268
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2329of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2330directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2331to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2332suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020
GS
2333present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2334/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2335but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2336
c42e3e15 2337The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23385.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2339
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2340Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2341with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2342Configure defaults) will be:
2343
2344 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2345 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2347 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2348
0a08c020 2349 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2350
d6baa268 2351 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2352
d6baa268 2353 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2354
cc65bb49
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2355Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2356modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2357
0a08c020 2358Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 23595.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
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2360extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2361of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2362newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2363compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2364installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
23655.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
23665.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2367install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
23685.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020
GS
2369
2370This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2371to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2372versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
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2373
2374=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2375
1ec51d55 2376Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2377separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2378won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2379libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2380way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2381
9a664500 2382 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2383
9a664500 2384and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2385may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2386scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2387
693762b4 2388Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2389(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
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2390each major version.
2391
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2392If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2393seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2394subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2395yet.
2396
e655887d 2397=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2398
9a664500 2399B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
e655887d
CB
2400and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2401(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
9a664500
AMS
2402used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24035.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d
CB
2404installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2405above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2406
2407See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2408incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2409perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2410
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2411=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2412
2413You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2414
1ec51d55
CS
2415By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2416they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
8e07c86e
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2417
2418In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2419perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e
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2420process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2421However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268 2422the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
4dc3e0af 2423whatever the appropriate pathname is). See L<perltrap> for
d6baa268 2424possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2425
aa689395 2426=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2427
d6baa268
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2428Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2429system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2430header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268
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2431by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2432library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2433
d6baa268
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2434Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2435of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2436hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2437For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2438structures.
aa689395 2439
fb73857a 2440=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2441
3e3baf6d
TB
2442Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2443format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2444documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2445
d6baa268
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2446Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2447html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2448
fb73857a 2449The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2450perl documentation:
aa689395 2451
3e3baf6d
TB
2452 ./installhtml \
2453 --podroot=. \
2454 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2455 --recurse \
2456 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2457 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2458 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2459 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2460 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2461 --verbose
2462
2463See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2464many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2465see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2466resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2467(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2468
fb73857a 2469You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2470the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2471
aa689395 2472=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2473
2474Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2475available in TeX format. Type
2476
2477 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2478
8ebf57cf
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2479=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2480
2481The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2482Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2483operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2484
c8214fdf 2485Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
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2486Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2487space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2488Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2489programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2490depends on what do you need to do.
2491
8ebf57cf
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2492In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2493recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2494depends on what you need.
2495
2496Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2497
2498 use strict;
2499 use warnings;
2500 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2501 print("$f\n");
2502 }
2503
bfe08c74 2504in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2505
2506 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2507 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2508 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2509 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2510 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2511 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
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2512
2513Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2514size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2515
bfe08c74
RGS
2516 /usr/bin/perl
2517 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2518 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2519 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2520 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2521 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2522 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2523 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2524 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2525 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2526 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2527 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2528 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2529 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2530 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2531 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2532 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2533 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2534 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2535 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2536 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2537 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2538 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2539 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2540 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2541 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2542 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2543 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2544 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2545 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2546 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2547 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2548 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2549 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2550 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2551 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2552 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2553 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2554 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2555 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2556 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2557 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2558 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2559 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2560 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2561 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2562 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2563 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2564 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2565 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2566 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2567 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2568 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2569 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2570 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2571 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2572 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2573 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2574 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2575 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2576 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2577 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2578 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2579 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2580 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2581 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2582 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2583 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2584 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2585 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2586 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2587 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2588 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2589 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2590 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2591 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2592 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2593 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2594 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2595 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2596 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2597 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2598 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2599 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2600 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2601 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2602 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2603 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2604 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2605
e7a3c61b
JH
2606A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2607need to run a Perl program is
2608
2609 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
2610
2611(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2612it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2613use something like the below
2614
2615 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2616
2617(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2618and 'ktrace'.)
2619
8e07c86e
AD
2620=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2621
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2622Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2623is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2624build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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2625can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2626sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2627
1ec51d55 2628Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
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2629along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2630running (either):
34a2a22e
RM
2631
2632 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2633 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e
RM
2634
2635This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2636(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2637set-up.)
34a2a22e 2638
bfb7748a
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2639Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2640the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2641the documentation.
34a2a22e 2642
8e07c86e
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2643=head1 AUTHOR
2644
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2645Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2646heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2647feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2648
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2649If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2650L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2651
2652=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2653
2654This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2655the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2656If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
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2657a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2658and the contact information to match your distribution.