This is a live mirror of the Perl 5 development currently hosted at https://github.com/perl/perl5
acknowledgements in perldelta
[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
cb8c159f 7INSTALL - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
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8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
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12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
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15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
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25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
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29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
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31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
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34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
668cbedd 39Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C compiler.
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40A minimum of C89 is required. Some features available in C99 will
41be probed for and used when found. The perl build process does not
42rely on anything more than C89.
43
ff52061e 44These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 45
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46If you're building perl from a git repository, you should also consult
47the documentation in pod/perlgit.pod for information on that special
48circumstance.
49
8d74ce1c 50If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 51L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 52
7beaa944 53For information on what's new in this release, see the
37ee6528 54pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 55specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 56
1ec51d55 57=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 58
c3edaffb 59This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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61read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
63
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
65 C<code> literal code
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 67 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 68
c42e3e15 69Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 70you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 71proceeding.
c3edaffb 72
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73In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
74your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
75instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
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76system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
77for even more information.
c42e3e15 78
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79For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
80L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
81directory.
d56c5707 82
ce80d64e 83=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 84
ce80d64e 85=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 86
37ee6528 87Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
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88potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
89the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
37ee6528 90to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 91
fdd3cf50 92B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 93If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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94using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
95those extensions.
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96
97Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 98without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 99L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
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100
101The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
102
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103On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
104in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
37ee6528 105pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 106installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
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107list of locally installed modules. Also see the L<CPAN> module's
108C<autobundle> function for one way to make a "bundle" of your currently
109installed modules.
16dc217a 110
aa689395 111=head1 Run Configure
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112
113Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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115you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
116almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
117since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
118the same function.
119
ce80d64e 120At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 121defaults from then on.
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122
123After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 124*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 125
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126The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
127files.
128
ce80d64e 129=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 130
ce80d64e 131Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 132
ce80d64e 133 Configure -h
d6baa268 134
ce80d64e 135to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
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138=over 4
139
08854360 140=item C compiler
d6baa268 141
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142To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
143system, you should run
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144
145 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
146
08854360 147This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
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148compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
149
d6baa268 150=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 151
8e07c86e 152By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 153/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 154and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
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155further details.)
156
157You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 158directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 159line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 160
25f94b33 161 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 162
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163If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
164directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
165prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
166/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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167for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
168or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 169
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170NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
171as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
172attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 173
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174=item /usr/bin/perl
175
176It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
177find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 178/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 179careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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180vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
181on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
182configured may be found with
183
184 perl -V:config_args
185
186(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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187spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
188at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 189
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190By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
191version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 192
7d56c962 193 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 194
7d56c962 195or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 196
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197In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
198(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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199into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
200obvious and convenient place.
201
71c4561b 202=item Building a development release
04d420f9 203
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204For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
205use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
206because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
207Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
208sanity check.
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209
210=back
8e07c86e 211
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212If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
213output, you can run
214
215 sh Configure -des
216
dd3196cd 217=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 218
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219For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
220be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
221have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
222after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
223For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
224invocations:
46bb10fb 225
08854360 226 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 227
5247441a 228To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
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229Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
230variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
231But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 232
ce80d64e 233For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 234
ce80d64e 235 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 236
ce80d64e 237=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 238
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239There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
240system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
241Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
242some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 243
ce80d64e 244=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 245
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246On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
247enable this, run
4633a7c4 248
ce80d64e 249 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 250
ce80d64e 251The default is to compile without thread support.
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253Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
254model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
255called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
256thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 257(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 258
ce80d64e 259The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
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260'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
261ithreads model.
d6baa268 262
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263When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
264the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
265This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
266fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
267PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
268way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 269C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 270
08854360 271=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 272
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273Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2742 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
275support is on by default.
d6baa268 276
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277This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
278seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
279using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
280be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
281parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 282will happen.
d6baa268 283
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284There's also one known limitation with the current large files
285implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
286section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
287like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 288
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289If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
290
291 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
292
08854360 293=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 294
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295If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
296them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 297you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 298
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299There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
300using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
301-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
302the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 303
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304The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
30564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
306longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
307your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
308does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
309might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
310you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 311
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312The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
313integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
314create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
315resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
316have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
317aware.
d6baa268 318
08854360 319Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
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320On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
321is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
322Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 323options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 324
ce80d64e 325=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 326
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327In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
328range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
329(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
330this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 331
ce80d64e 332=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 333
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334You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
335and the long double support.
b367e8b0 336
ce80d64e 337=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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338
339In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
340Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 341enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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342a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
343and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
344
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345In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
346create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
347the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
348in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
349data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
350certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
351
352In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
353elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
354basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
355then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
356adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
357existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
358specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
359data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
360randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
361is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
362
363One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
364vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
365variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
366is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 367example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
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368which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
369variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
370the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 371
3debabd9 372B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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373ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3745. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 375be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 376randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 377between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
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378hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
379recommended.
504f80c1 380
ce80d64e 381=head3 SOCKS
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382
383Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
384TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
385access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
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386Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
387You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
388L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 389
ce80d64e 390=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 391
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392By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
393If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
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394statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
395you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
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396With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
397(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 398
ce80d64e 399=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 400
401Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
402linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 403extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 404
08854360 405On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 406replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 407several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
408different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 409you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 410can share the same library.
411
412The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 413penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 414mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 415and upgrades.
416
417In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 418test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 419Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
420results.
421
422The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 423libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 424libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 425based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
426version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
427isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
428
c3edaffb 429You can elect to build a shared libperl by
430
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431 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
432
433To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
434library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
b6c36746 435NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
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436for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
437the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
438be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
439library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
440variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
441
442 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
443
444However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
445shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
446something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
447./perl:
448
04bd6448 449 ./perl -MTestInit t/misc/failing_test.t
08854360 450
ce80d64e 451or
08854360 452
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453 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
454
455then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
456You can do this with
457
458 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
459
460for Bourne-style shells, or
461
462 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
463
464for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
465unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
466again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
467
468You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
469messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
470for example:
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471
472 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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473
474There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
475want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
476with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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477install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
478try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
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479the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
480ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
481libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
482that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
483in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
484equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
485with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
486LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
487Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
488_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
489
490In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
491with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
492previous build.
493
494A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
495architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
496You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
497point to your new architecture-dependent library.
498
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499=head3 Environment access
500
501Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
502is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
503leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
504to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
505whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
506but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
507embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
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508by compiling with C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section
509L</"Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.">.
510You can force an embedded perl to use direct manipulation by setting
511C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the C<perl_construct()> call.
575e1338 512
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513=head2 Installation Directories
514
515The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
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516appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
517questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
518slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
519you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
520from then on. Alternatively, you can
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521
522 grep '^install' config.sh
523
524after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
525
526The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
527people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
528distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
529need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
530you can safely skip the next section.
531
532The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
533
534=over 4
535
536=item Directories for the perl distribution
537
be5aa138 538By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.17.11.
ce80d64e 539$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
8891dd8d 5405.12.3, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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541determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
542variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
543
544 Configure variable Default value
545 $prefixexp /usr/local
546 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
547 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
548 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
549 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
550 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
551 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
552 $html1direxp (none)
553 $html3direxp (none)
554
555$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
556directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
557file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
558variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
559
560Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
561/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
562instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
563directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
564the common style is shown here.
565
566=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
567
568After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
569CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
570be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
571
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572 Configure Default
573 variable value
574 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
575 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
576 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
577 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
578 $sitearchexp
579 $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
580 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
581 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
582 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
583 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
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584
585By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
586modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
587
588=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
589
590Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
591distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
592for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
593
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594 Configure Default
595 variable value
596 $vendorprefixexp (none)
597
598 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
599
600 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
601 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
602 $vendorlibexp $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
603 $vendorarchexp
604 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
605 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
606 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
607 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
608 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
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609
610These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
611a vendor might choose the following settings:
612
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613 $prefix /usr
614 $siteprefix /usr/local
615 $vendorprefix /usr
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616
617This would have the effect of setting the following:
618
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619 $binexp /usr/bin
620 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
621 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
622 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
623 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
624 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
625
626 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
627 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
628 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
629 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
630 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
631 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
632
633 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
634 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
635 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
636 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
637 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
638 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
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639
640Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
668cbedd 641/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end user are in
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642the /usr/local hierarchy.
643
644The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
645version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
646However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
647installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 648See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
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649on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
650
651Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
652example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
653are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
654site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
655network. One way to do that would be something like
656
979b4168 657 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
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658
659=item otherlibdirs
660
661As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
662variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
663directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
664Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
665version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
666
667For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
668installation, perhaps in a strange place:
669
670 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
671
672=item APPLLIB_EXP
673
674There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
675that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
676separated list of directories, like this
677
678 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
679
680The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
681ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
682modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
683touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
684version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
685present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
686directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
687run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
688
785aa5e3 689=item usesitecustomize
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690
691Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
692
36de116d 693 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 694
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695which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
696When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
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697anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
698entries to @INC.
699
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700=item Man Pages
701
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702By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
703are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
704want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
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705
706 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
707
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708=item HTML pages
709
710Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
711HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
712add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
713variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
714documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
715eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
716
717=back
718
719Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
720to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
721architectures.
722
723Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
724directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
725filesystem.
c3edaffb 726
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727Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
728development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 729discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 730
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731If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
732library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
733suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 734
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735Thus, for example, if you Configure with
736-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 737
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738 Configure variable Default value
739 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
740 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
741 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
742 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 743
ce80d64e 744=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 745
ce80d64e 746Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 747associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
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748will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
749sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
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750However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
751dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
752wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
753to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
754
755=over 4
756
757=item installprefix
c3edaffb 758
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759To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
760command line:
c3edaffb 761
7df75831 762 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 763
ce80d64e 764(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 765
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766Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
767modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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768follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
769as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 770
7df75831 771=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 772
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773If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
774to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
775multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
776archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
777using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
778automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
779simply do:
830717a7 780
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781 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
782 make
783 make test
784 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
785 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
786 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 787
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788=back
789
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790=head2 Relocatable @INC
791
792To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
793
794 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
795
796Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
797optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
798
799That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
800path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
801can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
802"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
803install is done to the original configured prefix.
804
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805This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
806("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
807rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
808
ce80d64e 809=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 810
ce80d64e 811After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
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812answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
813If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
814defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
815directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 816generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 817different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
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818you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
819example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
820as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 821
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822Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
823answers, you should
c3edaffb 824
ce80d64e 825 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 826
ce80d64e 827to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 828
ce80d64e 829Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 830
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831If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
832to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
833platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 834
ce80d64e 835=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 836
ce80d64e 837Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
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838installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
839and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
840being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
841variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 842
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843To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
844modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 845
ce80d64e 846 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 847
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848If you do want to use modules from some previous perl versions, the variable
849must contain a space separated list of directories under the site_perl
850directory, and has to include architecture-dependent directories separately,
851eg.
852
4683a5d7 853 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list="5.16.0/x86_64-linux 5.16.0" ...
274ca399 854
ce80d64e 855When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
668cbedd 856PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 857
ce80d64e 858=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 859
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860Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
861where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
862read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
863architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
864links) by
06c896bb 865
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866 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
867 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
868 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 869
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870This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
871pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
872unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 873
ce80d64e 874 make
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875 make test
876 make install
06c896bb 877
ce80d64e 878as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 879
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880=head2 Building a debugging perl
881
882You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 883B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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884you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
885(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
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886system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
887use the parameter:
eaf812ae 888
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889 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
890
891or
892
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893 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
894
895For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
896for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
897to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
898
7df75831 899Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 900
7df75831 901=over 4
3bf462b8 902
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903=item -DDEBUGGING
904
905=item -DEBUGGING
906
907=item -DEBUGGING=both
908
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909Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
910
911You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
912but usually it's convenient to have both.
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913
914=item -DEBUGGING=-g
915
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916=item -Doptimize=-g
917
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918Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
919
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920(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
921Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
922
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923=item -DEBUGGING=none
924
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925=item -UDEBUGGING
926
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927Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
928
929=back
930
3bf462b8 931If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 932versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 933
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934Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be much bigger and will run
935much, much more slowly than a standard perl.
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936
937=head2 DTrace support
938
979b4168 939On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
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940using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
941subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
942simple D script that uses them:
943
944 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
945 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
946 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
947 }
948
949
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950=head2 Extensions
951
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952Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
953in the ext/ subdirectory.
954
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955By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
956to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 957only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
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958
959To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
960-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
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961a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
962listed in
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963C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
964the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
965extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
966certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
967examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
968these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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969
970Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
971the extensions you want.
972
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973If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
974running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
975extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
976it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
977has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
978extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
979convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
980you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
981dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
982Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
983L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 984
dd3196cd 985If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
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986adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
987for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
988you.
989
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990=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
991
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992Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
993dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 994Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
7df75831 995automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
27021420 996to be specified explicitly (see L</Threads>).
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997
998Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
999for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
1000compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
1001option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
1002directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
1003need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
1004by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1005
ce80d64e 1006=head3 Examples
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1007
1008=over 4
1009
1010=item gdbm in /usr/local
1011
1012Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1013GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1014installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1015/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1016necessary steps out automatically.
1017
1018Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
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1019your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1020not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1021you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
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1022
1023If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1024linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1025-L/usr/local/lib.
1026
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1027Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1028you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1029/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1030
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1031=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1032
668cbedd 1033The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by Oracle installs in a
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1034version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1035/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1036-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1037and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1038Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1039add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1040add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1041BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1042
1043It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
8d74ce1c
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1044line):
1045
979b4168
KW
1046 sh Configure -de \
1047 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include \
1048 /usr/local/include' \
1049 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1050 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
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1051
1052locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1053Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1054
1055loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1056Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1057
e8b9ce60
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1058The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1059the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1060Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1061system.
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1062
1063=back
1064
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1065=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1066
dd3196cd
RGS
1067If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1068Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1069need to use B<Configure -O>.
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1070
1071=head2 GNU-style configure
1072
1073If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1074use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1075
1076 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1077
1078The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1079options. Try
1080
1081 ./configure.gnu --help
1082
1083for a listing.
1084
1085(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1086that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1087
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1088=head2 Malloc Issues
1089
1090Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1091so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1092the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1093version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1094perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1095than your system malloc.
1096
1097However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1098experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1099that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1100(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1101
1102=over 4
1103
1104=item Using the system malloc
1105
1106To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1107
1108 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1109
1110or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1111
73d6d1b0
RGS
1112Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1113depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1114systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1115See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1116default is set.
1117
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1118=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1119
1120NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1121run Configure to accept all the defaults.
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1122
1123Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1124Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1125These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1126
1127If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1128will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1129sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1130been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1131
1132Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1133from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1134does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1135versions.
1136
1137=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1138
1139This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1140Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1141using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1142
7df75831 1143 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
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1144
1145to enable this option.
1146
1147=back
1148
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1149=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1150
8d74ce1c 1151If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1152If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1153
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1154=over 4
1155
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1156=item Running Configure Interactively
1157
1158If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1159Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1160guesses.
1161
1162All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1163have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1164flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1165will use the defaults from then on.
1166
1167If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1168config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1169instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1170
aa689395 1171=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1172
a0a8d9d3
DD
1173Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1174
1175=over 4
1176
1177=item o
1178
1179The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1180library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1181and so on.
1182
1183=item o
1184
1185The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1186although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1187resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1188
1189=item o
1190
1191How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1192speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1193implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1194often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1195
1196=back
1197
1198The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1199in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1200will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1201not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
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1202
1203Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
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1204If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1205for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1206More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1207file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1208
1209Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1210Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1211
73d6d1b0 1212=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1213
82c11e95
RGS
1214If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1215different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1216always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1217on your system.
edb1cbcb 1218
1219For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1220and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1221Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
bfb7748a
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1222Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1223issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1224
1225 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1226 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1227 Keep the previous value? [y]
1228
1ec51d55 1229In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1230should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1231the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1232
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1233=item Changing Compilers
1234
1235If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1236probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1237rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1238
c3edaffb 1239=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1240
1ec51d55
CS
1241If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1242them to all the .SH files by running
1243
1244 sh Configure -S
1245
1246You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1247
1248 make depend
1249 make
8e07c86e 1250
48370efc
JH
1251=item config.over and config.arch
1252
668cbedd 1253You can also supply a shell script config.over to override
48370efc
JH
1254Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1255before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1256however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1257This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1258
1259There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1260config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1261architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1262hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1263
1264=item config.h
1265
1ec51d55
CS
1266Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1267Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1268The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1269
1ec51d55
CS
1270If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1271though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1272lost.
1273
1274=item cflags
1275
1276If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1277line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
5729ffdd
NC
1278optimizer on toke.c, find the switch structure marked 'or customize here',
1279and add a line for toke.c ahead of the catch-all *) so that it now reads:
1280
1281 : or customize here
1282
1283 case "$file" in
1284 toke) optimize='-g' ;;
1285 *) ;;
1286
1287You should not edit the generated file cflags directly, as your changes will
65c512c3 1288be lost the next time you run Configure, or if you edit config.sh.
8e07c86e 1289
f5b3b617
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1290To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1291see the file hints/README.hints.
1292
1293To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1294$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1295
1296 sh Configure -S
1297 make depend
8e07c86e 1298
aa689395 1299=item No sh
8e07c86e 1300
c42e3e15
GS
1301If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1302Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1303system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1304You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1305mechanism.
1306
c3edaffb 1307=item Porting information
1308
e6f03d26 1309Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1310corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1311including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1312subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1313
7f678428 1314Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1315http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1316various other operating systems.
1317
ce80d64e 1318If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1319section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
c222ef46 1320in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlgit.pod.
491517e0
JA
1321Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1322
8e07c86e
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1323=back
1324
ce80d64e 1325=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1326
1327You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1328CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1329command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1330
d3df0cfd 1331 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1332
1333or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1334then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1335The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
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1336This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1337extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1338extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1339
1340Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1341modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1342or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1343do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1344
1345Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1346dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1347For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1348headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1349process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1350
ce80d64e 1351=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1352
172dd959
JV
1353suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1354longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1355changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1356
8e07c86e
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1357=head1 make depend
1358
bfb7748a
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1359This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1360The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1361the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1362makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
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1363(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1364Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
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1365
1366Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1367explicitly above.
1368
1369=head1 make
1370
1371This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1372
8d410bc4
YST
1373=head2 Expected errors
1374
f5b5f377 1375These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1376
1377 ...
1378 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1379 ...
1380 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1381
8d74ce1c
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1382=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1383
8e07c86e 1384If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1385If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1386the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1387then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1388
1389=over 4
1390
1ec51d55 1391=item hints
8e07c86e
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1392
1393If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1394for further tips and information.
1395
1ec51d55 1396=item extensions
8e07c86e 1397
1ec51d55 1398If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1399during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1400
3a6175e1 1401 make minitest
c3edaffb 1402
1403to test your version of miniperl.
1404
e57fd563 1405=item locale
1406
bfb7748a
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1407If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1408them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1409running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1410See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1411whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1412The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1413
1414 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1415 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1416 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1417 LANG = (unset)
1418 are supported and installed on your system.
1419 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1420
1421at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1422
06aa495b
DM
1423=item other environment variables
1424
1425Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1426have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1427OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1428their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1429behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1430executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1431PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1432So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1433retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1434
7f678428 1435=item varargs
c3edaffb 1436
1437If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1438correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1439gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1440in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1441correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1442your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1443See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1444
bfb7748a 1445=item util.c
c3edaffb 1446
1447If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1448numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1449
19f4563d 1450 util.c: In function 'Perl_form':
bfb7748a
AD
1451 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1452 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1453
1454it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1455previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1456
1ec51d55 1457=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1458
1459If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1460the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1461Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1462fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
668cbedd 1463of your local setup.
c3edaffb 1464
aa689395 1465=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1466
1467If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1468try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1469with
1470
1471 sh Configure -Uusenm
1472
1473or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1474If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1475config.sh.
1476
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1477=item umask not found
1478
1479If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1480is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1481Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1482this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1483try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1484
7f678428 1485=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1486
1487If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1488problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1489version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1490(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1491d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1492
1493 d_vprintf='define'
1494
1495If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1496on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1497the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1498
3fe9a6f1 1499=item do_aspawn
1500
1501If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1502problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
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1503fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1504on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1505
84902520
TB
1506=item __inet_* errors
1507
1508If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1509referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1510installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1511these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1512in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1513newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1514If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1515with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1516test process to avoid the problem.
1517
73d6d1b0 1518=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1519
1520On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
668cbedd 1521reentrant functions -- specifically networking-related ones -- being present
6d240721
JH
1522but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1523other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1524header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1525another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1526Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1527header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1528normally /usr/include).
84902520 1529
d6baa268
JH
1530=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1531
1532This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1533gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1534changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1535rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1536update your gcc installation.
1537
aa689395 1538=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1539
9d67150a 1540If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1541optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1542
1543 optimize='-O'
1544
bfb7748a 1545to
9d67150a 1546
1547 optimize=' '
1548
1549then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1550with B<make depend; make>.
1551
4bbc1586 1552=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1553
4bbc1586
AD
1554If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1555undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1556should look something like
1557
1558 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1559
1560The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1561need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1562will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1563need to start all over again. Run
1564
1565 make distclean
1566
1567and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1568what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1569Configure.
1570
1571If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1572L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1573
668cbedd 1574If you still have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
4bbc1586
AD
1575need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1576that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1577you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1578look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1579
1ec51d55 1580=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1581
1ec51d55
CS
1582Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1583toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1584allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
668cbedd 1585each file in cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1ec51d55 1586makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
AD
1587specific rule.
1588
7f678428 1589=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1590
c3edaffb 1591SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1592that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1593
1bb125e2
MB
1594=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1595
1596Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1597error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1598
1599 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1600
1601 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1602
1603 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1604
1605 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1606 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1607 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1608
1609 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1610
1611 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1612 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1613
f3d9a6ba 1614=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1615
1616If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1617the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1618then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1619Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1620systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
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1621Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1622phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1623unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1624
1625On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1626message
1627
f3d9a6ba 1628 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1629
1630then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1631the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1632extension without the -lgdbm library.
1633
1634It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1635this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1636quite that tightly coordinated.
1637
aa689395 1638=item sh: ar: not found
1639
1640This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1641was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1642make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1643is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1644directory.
1645
1646=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1647
1648Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1649with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1650bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1651
6087ac44
JH
1652=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1653
11906ba0 1654If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1655V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1656also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1657to include the System V semaphores.
1658
11906ba0 1659=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1660
1661Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1662both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1663ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1664with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1665system.
1666
d6baa268
JH
1667=item GNU binutils
1668
1669If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1670tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1671with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1672may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1673under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1674to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1675vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1676Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1677
16dc217a
GS
1678=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1679
1680The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1681make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1682archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1683C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1684archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1685incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1686official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1687that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1688archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1689
16dc217a
GS
1690=item invalid token: ##
1691
ce80d64e
AD
1692You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1693need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1694file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1695options.
16dc217a 1696
1ec51d55 1697=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1698
7df75831 1699Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1700
1701Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1702
1703NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1704
668cbedd 1705UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and #undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1706
11906ba0 1707FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1708configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1709you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1710
6c8d78fb
HS
1711Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1712installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1713and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1714the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1715view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1716to avoid the BIND.
1717
8e07c86e
AD
1718=back
1719
58a21a9b
JH
1720=head2 Cross-compilation
1721
e7a3c61b
JH
1722Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1723rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
739a0b84 1724June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, Symbian, and
e7a3c61b
JH
1725the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1726while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1727platforms.
1728
1729What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1730cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1731up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1732(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1733awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1734version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
668cbedd 1735cross-compilation support, so please keep reading.
e7a3c61b
JH
1736
1737See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1738the particular platforms:
1739
1740=over 4
1741
1742=item WinCE/PocketPC
1743
75472953 1744README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1745
1746=item Open Zaurus
1747
1748Cross/README
1749
e7a3c61b
JH
1750=item Symbian
1751
1752README.symbian
1753
1754=item OS/400
1755
1756README.os400
1757
1758=back
1759
1760Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1761modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1762cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1763platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1764L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1765of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1766
1767For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1768C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1769directory>.
1770
1771About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1772work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1773building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1774building the perl executable because that would require building
1775extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1776extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1777cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1778
1779The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1780at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1781both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1782cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1783target system.
1784
1785To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1786has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1787
1788 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1789
1790This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1791symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1792for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1793
1794During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1795into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1796cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1797target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1798transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1799the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1800methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1801F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1802
1803To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1804the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1805happens), supply Configure with
1806
1807 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1808
1809The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1810must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1811You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1812
1813 -Dtargetuser=luser
1814
1815but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1816
93bc48fa
JH
1817Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1818which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1819This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1820In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1821environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1822
1823 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1824 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1825 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1826 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1827 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1828
1829If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1830compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1831C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1832(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1833as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1834will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1835in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1836
1837In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1838choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1839for example:
1840
1841 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1842
1843Putting it all together:
1844
1845 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1846 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1847 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1848 -Dtargetuser=root \
1849 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1850 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1851 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1852 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1853 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1854 -D...
1855
e7a3c61b 1856or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1857
1858 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1859 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1860 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1861 -D...
1862
e7a3c61b
JH
1863Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1864F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1865
1866 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1867 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1868 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1869 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1870 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1871 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1872
8e07c86e
AD
1873=head1 make test
1874
d6baa268
JH
1875This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1876'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
36bded94 1877wrong.
84902520 1878
84902520 1879Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1880opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1881a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1882
c4f23d77
AD
1883=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1884
1ec51d55 1885If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
36bded94 1886by hand to see if it makes any difference.
8e07c86e 1887
36bded94
AD
1888One way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1889individual subtests is to run the harness from the t directory:
aa689395 1890
785aa5e3 1891 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1892
fb73857a 1893(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1894complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1895will run all tests.
10c7e831 1896
36bded94
AD
1897If individual tests fail, you can often run them by hand (from the main
1898perl directory), e.g.,
1899
1900 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
1901
fb73857a 1902You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1903comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1904shared library path if you get errors like:
1905
1906 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1907
36bded94
AD
1908The file t/README in the t subdirectory contains more information about
1909running and modifying tests.
1910
10c7e831 1911See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1912
c4f23d77
AD
1913=over 4
1914
1915=item locale
1916
1ec51d55 1917Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1918may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 1919'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1920one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1921LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1922are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1923
1924If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1925
1926 setenv LC_ALL C
1927
1928(for C shell) or
1929
1930 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1931
1ec51d55
CS
1932for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1933make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1934is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1935shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1936things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1937open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1938external program.
eed2e782 1939
0740bb5b
AD
1940=item Timing problems
1941
c29923ff
JH
1942Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1943sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
1944If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1945these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1946with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1947and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
1948F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
1949F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 1950F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1951
f89caa8d
RGS
1952You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
1953perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
1954different.
1955
c4f23d77
AD
1956=item Out of memory
1957
1958On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1959of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1960For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1961test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1962
1963Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1964
04bd6448 1965 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/pat.t
c4f23d77
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1966
1967to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1968test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1969tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1970and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1971
a55bb48b
AD
1972=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
1973
1974This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
1975a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
1976(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
1977shared library should fix the problem.
1978
4f76e5ba
AD
1979=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1980
1981First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1982real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1983
1984Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1985directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1986systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1987run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1988test').
1989
1990The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1991
1992(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1993other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1994
1995This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
668cbedd 1996unpacked in such a way that the user IDs in the distribution package
4f76e5ba
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1997are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1998
1999(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2000by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2001UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2002add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2003used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2004set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2005file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2006others.)
2007
2008This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2009permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2010also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2011is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2012should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2013supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2014used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
201511.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2016on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2017local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2018
b2b23189
JH
2019(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2020any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2021directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
2022(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2023building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2024module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2025
2026See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2027about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2028
c4f23d77
AD
2029=back
2030
5ee651a9
NC
2031The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2032Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2033your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2034C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2035
2036 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2037
2038An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2039L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2040scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2041interact with their job schedulers.
2042
8e07c86e
AD
2043=head1 make install
2044
2045This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2046Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2047to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2048pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
2049are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2050in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2051
19f4563d 2052If "make install" just says "'install' is up to date" or something
ce80d64e
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2053similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2054and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2055by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2056
dd64f1c3
AD
2057=head2 Installing perl under different names
2058
2059If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2060when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2061indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2062
2063 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2064
beb13193 2065You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2066"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2067
2068 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2069
5cda700b
AD
2070This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2071avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2072Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2073
ce80d64e
AD
2074=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2075
2076You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2077the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2078
2079 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2080
2081DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2082the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2083
dd64f1c3
AD
2084=head2 Installed files
2085
8e07c86e
AD
2086If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2087anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2088
8e07c86e
AD
2089 ./perl installperl -n
2090 ./perl installman -n
2091
1ec51d55 2092make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2093
d56c5707
JH
2094 binaries
2095
8e07c86e 2096 perl,
be8498a1 2097 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2098 will be a link to perl.
668cbedd 2099 a2p awk-to-perl translator.
d56c5707
JH
2100
2101 scripts
2102
979b4168
KW
2103 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P,
2104 if your cc -E can't read from stdin.
2105 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header
2106 files.
668cbedd 2107 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration.
979b4168
KW
2108 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with
2109 different
668cbedd
KW
2110 versions of perl.
2111 cpan The CPAN shell.
2112 cpan2dist The CPANPLUS distribution creator.
2113 cpanp The CPANPLUS shell.
2114 cpanp-run-perl A helper for cpanp.
668cbedd
KW
2115 enc2xs Encoding module generator.
2116 find2perl find-to-perl translator.
979b4168
KW
2117 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C
2118 headers.
8e07c86e 2119 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2120 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2121 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2122 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2123 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
668cbedd 2124 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure.
73d6d1b0 2125 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
668cbedd
KW
2126 utility iconv.
2127 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules.
8e07c86e 2128 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2129 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2130 pod2man,
2131 pod2text,
d56c5707 2132 pod2usage
668cbedd
KW
2133 podchecker POD syntax checker.
2134 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation.
2135 prove A command-line tool for running tests.
2136 psed A Perl implementation of sed.
2137 ptar A Perl implementation of tar.
2138 ptardiff A diff for tar archives.
2139 ptargrep A grep for tar archives.
2140 s2p sed-to-perl translator.
2141 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums.
2142 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors.
2143 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
979b4168 2144 zipdetails display the internal structure of zip files
8e07c86e 2145
d56c5707
JH
2146 library files
2147
2148 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2149 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2150
2151 documentation
2152
d6baa268
JH
2153 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2154 module man
2155 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2156 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2157
33cceb07 2158installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2159in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2160
d56c5707 2161Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2162under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2163optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2164program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2165
33cceb07
RGS
2166=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2167
d56c5707
JH
2168Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2169installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2170perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2171disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2172To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2173
2174 Configure -Dversiononly
2175
2176or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2177you can just manually run
2178
2179 ./perl installperl -v
2180
2181and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2182
d56c5707
JH
2183See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2184approach.
2185
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2186=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2187
2188Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2189system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2190header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2191by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2192library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2193
668cbedd 2194Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2195of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2196hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2197For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2198structures.
2199
2200=head1 installhtml --help
2201
2202Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2203format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2204documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2205
2206Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2207html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2208
2209The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2210perl documentation:
2211
2212 ./installhtml \
2213 --podroot=. \
2214 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2215 --recurse \
2216 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2217 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2218 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2219 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2220 --verbose
2221
2222See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2223many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2224see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2225resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2226(and would welcome patches for them).
2227
2228You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2229the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2230
2231=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2232
2233Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2234available in TeX format. Type
2235
2236 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2237
2238=head1 Starting all over again
2239
668cbedd 2240If you wish to rebuild perl from the same build directory, you should
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2241clean it out with the command
2242
2243 make distclean
2244
2245or
2246
2247 make realclean
2248
2249The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2250your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2251
2252If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2253change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
668cbedd 2254you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not reuse
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2255your old config.sh.
2256
2257If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2258installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2259using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2260settings"> above.
2261
ff52061e
RGS
2262=head1 Reporting Problems
2263
2264Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2265to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2266information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2267more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2268carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2269on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2270you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2271message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2272get advice.
2273
2274The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2275completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2276C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2277C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2278run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2279directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2280
2281If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2282B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2283an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2284
2285If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2286(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2287description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
668cbedd 2288-- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
ff52061e
RGS
2289
2290Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2291reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
668cbedd 2292written English is not great -- what matters is how well you describe
ff52061e
RGS
2293the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2294not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2295
2296Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2297config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2298necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2299session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2300messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
668cbedd 2301appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient -- fancy
ff52061e
RGS
2302attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2303read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2304subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2305
5acb7768
NC
2306If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2307inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2308it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2309unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2310to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2311co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2312platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2313issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2314
ff52061e
RGS
2315If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2316report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2317http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2318
7df75831 2319=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2320
be5aa138 2321Perl 5.17.11 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2322In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2323
693762b4 2324In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
23255.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2326re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2327version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2328
be8498a1
RGS
2329Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2330used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2331(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2332
33cceb07
RGS
2333Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2334searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2335
33cceb07
RGS
2336 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2337 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2338 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2339 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2340
33cceb07
RGS
2341Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2342searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2343
33cceb07
RGS
2344 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2345 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2347 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2348
33cceb07
RGS
2349 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2350 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2351 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2352
c42e3e15 2353Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2354of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2355directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2356to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2357suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2358present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2359/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2360but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2361
c42e3e15 2362The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23635.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2364
33cceb07
RGS
2365Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2366with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2367Configure defaults) will be:
2368
33cceb07
RGS
2369 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2370 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2371 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2372 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2373
33cceb07 2374 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2375
33cceb07 2376 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2377
d6baa268 2378 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2379
cc65bb49
AD
2380Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2381modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2382
0a08c020
GS
2383This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2384to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2385versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2386
2387=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2388
1ec51d55 2389Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2390separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2391won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2392libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2393way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2394
be5aa138 2395 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.17.11
d52d4e46 2396
be5aa138 2397and adding /opt/perl5.17.11/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2398may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2399scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2400
693762b4 2401Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2402(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2403each major version.
2404
6877a1cf
AD
2405If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2406seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2407subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2408yet.
2409
30aeed79 2410=head2 Upgrading from 5.17.9 or earlier
693762b4 2411
be5aa138 2412B<Perl 5.17.11 may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.17.9 or
4683a5d7 2413earlier Perl releases.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2414(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
be5aa138
MM
2415used with 5.17.11. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24165.17.11, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2417installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2418above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2419
2420See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2421incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2422perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2423
8ebf57cf
JH
2424=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2425
2426The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2427Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2428operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2429
c8214fdf 2430Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2431Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2432space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2433Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2434programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2435depends on what do you need to do.
2436
8ebf57cf
JH
2437In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2438recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2439depends on what you need.
2440
2441Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2442
2443 use strict;
2444 use warnings;
2445 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2446 print("$f\n");
2447 }
2448
be5aa138 2449in Linux with perl-5.17.11 is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2450
2451 ./bin/perl
be5aa138
MM
2452 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/strict.pm
2453 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/warnings.pm
2454 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2455 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/feature.pm
2456 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/XSLoader.pm
2457 ./lib/perl5/5.17.11/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2458
00930d57
AD
2459Secondly, for perl-5.10.1, the Debian perl-base package contains 591 files,
2460(of which 510 are for lib/unicore) totaling about 3.5MB in its i386 version.
2461Omitting the lib/unicore/* files for brevity, the remaining files are:
8ebf57cf 2462
bfe08c74 2463 /usr/bin/perl
00930d57
AD
2464 /usr/bin/perl5.10.1
2465 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config.pm
2466 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_git.pl
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_heavy.pl
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Cwd.pm
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/DynaLoader.pm
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Errno.pm
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Fcntl.pm
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/File/Glob.pm
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Hash/Util.pm
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO.pm
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/File.pm
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Handle.pm
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Select.pm
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket.pm
2481 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2482 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2483 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/List/Util.pm
2484 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/POSIX.pm
2485 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Scalar/Util.pm
2486 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Socket.pm
2487 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/XSLoader.pm
2488 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2489 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2490 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2491 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2492 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2493 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2494 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2495 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Hash/Util/Util.so
2496 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2497 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/List/Util/Util.so
2498 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2499 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2500 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2501 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2502 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/lib.pm
2503 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/re.pm
8ebf57cf 2504 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2505 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
00930d57 2506 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
8ebf57cf 2507 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2508 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
00930d57 2509 /usr/share/lintian/overrides/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2510 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
00930d57
AD
2511 /usr/share/man/man1/perl5.10.1.1.gz
2512 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/AutoLoader.pm
2513 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp.pm
2514 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2515 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter.pm
2516 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2517 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec.pm
2518 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2519 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/FileHandle.pm
2520 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2521 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2522 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2523 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/SelectSaver.pm
2524 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Symbol.pm
2525 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/ParseWords.pm
2526 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2527 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2528 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Tie/Hash.pm
2529 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/attributes.pm
2530 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/base.pm
2531 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes.pm
2532 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes_heavy.pl
2533 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/constant.pm
2534 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/fields.pm
2535 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/integer.pm
2536 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/locale.pm
2537 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/overload.pm
2538 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/strict.pm
2539 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/unicore/*
2540 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8.pm
2541 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8_heavy.pl
2542 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/vars.pm
2543 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings.pm
2544 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2545
e7a3c61b
JH
2546A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2547need to run a Perl program is
2548
a0a8d9d3 2549 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2550
2551(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2552it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2553use something like the below
2554
979b4168
KW
2555 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 \
2556 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
e7a3c61b
JH
2557
2558(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2559and 'ktrace'.)
2560
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2561=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2562
2563If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2564F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2565by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2566completely removed.
2567
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2568=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2569
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2570Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2571is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2572build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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2573can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2574sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
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2575
2576=head1 AUTHOR
2577
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2578Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2579heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2580feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
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2582If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2583L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2584
2585=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2586
2587This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2588the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2589If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
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2590a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2591and the contact information to match your distribution.