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Correct spaces in MANIFEST.
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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
7df75831 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
ff52061e 39These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 40
8d74ce1c 41If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 42L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 43
7beaa944 44For information on what's new in this release, see the
d4438f94 45pod/perl5131delta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 46specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 47
1ec51d55 48=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 49
c3edaffb 50This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
51structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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52read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
53by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
54
55 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
56 C<code> literal code
57 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 58 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 59
c42e3e15 60Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 61you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 62proceeding.
c3edaffb 63
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64In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
65your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
66instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
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67system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
68for even more information.
c42e3e15 69
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70For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
71L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
72directory.
d56c5707 73
ce80d64e 74=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 75
ce80d64e 76=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 77
d4438f94 78Please see pod/perl5131delta.pod for a description of the changes and
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79potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
80the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
d4438f94 81to pod/perl5131delta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 82
fdd3cf50 83B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 84If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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85using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
86those extensions.
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87
88Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 89without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 90L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
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91
92The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
93
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94On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
95in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
d4438f94 96pod/perl5131delta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
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97installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
98list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
99way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 100
aa689395 101=head1 Run Configure
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102
103Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
104things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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105you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
106almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
107since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
108the same function.
109
ce80d64e 110At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 111defaults from then on.
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112
113After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 114*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 115
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116The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
117files.
118
ce80d64e 119=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 120
ce80d64e 121Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 122
ce80d64e 123 Configure -h
d6baa268 124
ce80d64e 125to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 126Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
127
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128=over 4
129
08854360 130=item C compiler
d6baa268 131
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132To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
133system, you should run
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134
135 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
136
08854360 137This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
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138compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
139
d6baa268 140=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 141
8e07c86e 142By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 143/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 144and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
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145further details.)
146
147You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 148directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 149line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 150
25f94b33 151 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 152
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153If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
154directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
155prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
156/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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157for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
158or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 159
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160NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
161as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
162attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 163
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164=item /usr/bin/perl
165
166It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
167find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 168/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 169careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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170vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
171on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
172configured may be found with
173
174 perl -V:config_args
175
176(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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177spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
178at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 179
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180By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
181version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 182
7d56c962 183 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 184
7d56c962 185or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 186
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187In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
188(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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189into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
190obvious and convenient place.
191
71c4561b 192=item Building a development release
04d420f9 193
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194For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
195use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
196because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
197Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
198sanity check.
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199
200=back
8e07c86e 201
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202If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
203output, you can run
204
205 sh Configure -des
206
dd3196cd 207=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 208
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209For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
210be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
211have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
212after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
213For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
214invocations:
46bb10fb 215
08854360 216 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 217
5247441a 218To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
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219Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
220variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
221But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 222
ce80d64e 223For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 224
ce80d64e 225 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 226
ce80d64e 227=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 228
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229There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
230system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
231Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
232some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 233
ce80d64e 234=head3 Threads
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236On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
237enable this, run
4633a7c4 238
ce80d64e 239 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 240
ce80d64e 241The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 242
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243Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
244model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
245called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
246thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 247(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 248
ce80d64e 249The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
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250'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
251ithreads model.
d6baa268 252
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253When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
254the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
255This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
256fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
257PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
258way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 259C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 260
08854360 261=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 262
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263Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2642 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
265support is on by default.
d6baa268 266
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267This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
268seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
269using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
270be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
271parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 272will happen.
d6baa268 273
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274There's also one known limitation with the current large files
275implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
276section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
277like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 278
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279If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
280
281 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
282
08854360 283=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 284
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285If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
286them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 287you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 288
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289There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
290using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
291-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
292the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 293
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294The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
29564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
296longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
297your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
298does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
299might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
300you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 301
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302The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
303integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
304create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
305resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
306have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
307aware.
d6baa268 308
08854360 309Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
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310On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
311is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
312Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 313options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 314
ce80d64e 315=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 316
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317In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
318range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
319(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
320this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 321
ce80d64e 322=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 323
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324You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
325and the long double support.
b367e8b0 326
ce80d64e 327=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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328
329In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
330Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 331enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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332a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
333and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
334
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335In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
336create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
337the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
338in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
339data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
340certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
341
342In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
343elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
344basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
345then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
346adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
347existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
348specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
349data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
350randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
351is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
352
353One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
354vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
355variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
356is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 357example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
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358which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
359variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
360the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 361
3debabd9 362B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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363ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3645. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 365be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 366randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 367between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
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368hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
369recommended.
504f80c1 370
ce80d64e 371=head3 SOCKS
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372
373Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
374TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
375access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
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376Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
377You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
378L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 379
ce80d64e 380=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 381
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382By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
383If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
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384statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
385you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
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386With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
387(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 388
ce80d64e 389=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 390
391Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
392linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 393extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 394
08854360 395On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 396replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 397several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
398different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 399you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 400can share the same library.
401
402The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 403penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 404mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 405and upgrades.
406
407In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 408test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 409Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
410results.
411
412The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 413libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 414libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 415based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
416version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
417isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
418
c3edaffb 419You can elect to build a shared libperl by
420
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421 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
422
423To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
424library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
425NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
426for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
427the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
428be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
429library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
430variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
431
432 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
433
434However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
435shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
436something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
437./perl:
438
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439 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit misc/failing_test.t
440
ce80d64e 441or
08854360 442
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443 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
444
445then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
446You can do this with
447
448 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
449
450for Bourne-style shells, or
451
452 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
453
454for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
455unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
456again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
457
458You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
459messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
460for example:
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461
462 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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463
464There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
465want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
466with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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467install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
468try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
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469the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
470ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
471libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
472that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
473in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
474equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
475with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
476LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
477Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
478_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
479
480In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
481with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
482previous build.
483
484A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
485architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
486You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
487point to your new architecture-dependent library.
488
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489=head3 Environment access
490
491Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
492is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
493leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
494to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
495whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
496but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
497embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 498by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
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499use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
500C<perl_construct()> call.
501
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502=head2 Installation Directories
503
504The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
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505appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
506questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
507slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
508you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
509from then on. Alternatively, you can
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510
511 grep '^install' config.sh
512
513after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
514
515The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
516people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
517distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
518need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
519you can safely skip the next section.
520
521The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
522
523=over 4
524
525=item Directories for the perl distribution
526
d4438f94 527By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.13.1.
ce80d64e 528$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
d4438f94 5295.13.1 or 5.9.5, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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530determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
531variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
532
533 Configure variable Default value
534 $prefixexp /usr/local
535 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
536 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
537 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
538 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
539 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
540 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
541 $html1direxp (none)
542 $html3direxp (none)
543
544$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
545directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
546file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
547variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
548
549Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
550/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
551instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
552directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
553the common style is shown here.
554
555=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
556
557After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
558CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
559be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
560
561 Configure variable Default value
562 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
563 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
564 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
565 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
566 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
567 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
568 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
569 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
570 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
571
572By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
573modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
574
575=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
576
577Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
578distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
579for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
580
581 Configure variable Default value
582 $vendorprefixexp (none)
583 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
584 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
585 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
586 $vendorlibexp
587 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
588 $vendorarchexp
589 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
590 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
591 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
592 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
593 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
594
595These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
596a vendor might choose the following settings:
597
598 $prefix /usr
599 $siteprefix /usr/local
600 $vendorprefix /usr
601
602This would have the effect of setting the following:
603
604 $binexp /usr/bin
605 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
606 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
607 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
608 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
609 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
610
611 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
612 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
613 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
614 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
615 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
616 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
617
618 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
619 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
620 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
621 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
622 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
623 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
624
625Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
626/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
627the /usr/local hierarchy.
628
629The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
630version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
631However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
632installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 633See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
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634on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
635
636Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
637example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
638are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
639site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
640network. One way to do that would be something like
641
642 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
643
644=item otherlibdirs
645
646As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
647variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
648directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
649Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
650version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
651
652For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
653installation, perhaps in a strange place:
654
655 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
656
657=item APPLLIB_EXP
658
659There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
660that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
661separated list of directories, like this
662
663 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
664
665The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
666ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
667modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
668touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
669version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
670present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
671directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
672run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
673
785aa5e3 674=item usesitecustomize
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675
676Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
677
36de116d 678 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 679
785aa5e3
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680which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
681When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
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682anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
683entries to @INC.
684
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685=item Man Pages
686
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687By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
688are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
689want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
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690
691 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
692
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693=item HTML pages
694
695Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
696HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
697add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
698variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
699documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
700eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
701
702=back
703
704Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
705to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
706architectures.
707
708Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
709directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
710filesystem.
c3edaffb 711
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712Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
713development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 714discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 715
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716If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
717library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
718suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 719
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720Thus, for example, if you Configure with
721-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 722
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723 Configure variable Default value
724 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
725 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
726 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
727 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 728
ce80d64e 729=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 730
ce80d64e 731Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 732associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
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733will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
734sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
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735However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
736dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
737wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
738to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
739
740=over 4
741
742=item installprefix
c3edaffb 743
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744To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
745command line:
c3edaffb 746
7df75831 747 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 748
ce80d64e 749(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 750
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751Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
752modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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753follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
754as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 755
7df75831 756=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 757
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758If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
759to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
760multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
761archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
762using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
763automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
764simply do:
830717a7 765
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766 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
767 make
768 make test
769 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
770 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
771 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 772
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773=back
774
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775=head2 Relocatable @INC
776
777To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
778
779 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
780
781Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
782optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
783
784That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
785path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
786can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
787"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
788install is done to the original configured prefix.
789
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790This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
791("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
792rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
793
ce80d64e 794=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 795
ce80d64e 796After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
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797answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
798If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
799defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
800directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 801generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 802different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
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803you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
804example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
805as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 806
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807Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
808answers, you should
c3edaffb 809
ce80d64e 810 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 811
ce80d64e 812to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 813
ce80d64e 814Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 815
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816If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
817to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
818platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 819
ce80d64e 820=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 821
ce80d64e 822Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
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823installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
824and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
825being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
826variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 827
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828To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
829modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 830
ce80d64e 831 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 832
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833When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
834$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 835
ce80d64e 836=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 837
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838Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
839where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
840read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
841architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
842links) by
06c896bb 843
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844 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
845 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
846 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 847
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848This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
849pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
850unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 851
ce80d64e 852 make
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853 make test
854 make install
06c896bb 855
ce80d64e 856as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 857
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858=head2 Building a debugging perl
859
860You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 861B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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862you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
863(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
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864system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
865use the parameter:
eaf812ae 866
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867 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
868
869or
870
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871 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
872
873For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
874for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
875to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
876
7df75831 877Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 878
7df75831 879=over 4
3bf462b8 880
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881=item -DDEBUGGING
882
883=item -DEBUGGING
884
885=item -DEBUGGING=both
886
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887Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
888
889You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
890but usually it's convenient to have both.
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891
892=item -DEBUGGING=-g
893
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894=item -Doptimize=-g
895
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896Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
897
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898(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
899Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
900
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901=item -DEBUGGING=none
902
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903=item -UDEBUGGING
904
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905Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
906
907=back
908
3bf462b8 909If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 910versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 911
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912Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be bigger and will run more
913slowly than a standard perl.
914
915=head2 DTrace support
916
917On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
918using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
919subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
920simple D script that uses them:
921
922 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
923 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
924 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
925 }
926
927
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928=head2 Extensions
929
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930Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
931in the ext/ subdirectory.
932
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933By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
934to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 935only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
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936
937To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
938-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
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939a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
940listed in
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941C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
942the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
943extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
944certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
945examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
946these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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947
948Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
949the extensions you want.
950
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951If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
952running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
953extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
954it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
955has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
956extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
957convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
958you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
959dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
960Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
961L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 962
dd3196cd 963If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
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964adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
965for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
966you.
967
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968=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
969
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970Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
971dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 972Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
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973automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
974to be specified explicitely (see L<Threads>).
975
976Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
977for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
978compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
979option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
980directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
981need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
982by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 983
ce80d64e 984=head3 Examples
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985
986=over 4
987
988=item gdbm in /usr/local
989
990Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 991GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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992installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
993/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
994necessary steps out automatically.
995
996Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
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997your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
998not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
999you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
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1000
1001If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1002linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1003-L/usr/local/lib.
1004
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1005Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1006you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1007/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1008
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1009=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1010
1011The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by sleepycat.com installs in a
1012version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1013/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1014-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1015and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1016Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1017add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1018add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1019BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1020
1021It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
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1022line):
1023
7df75831 1024 sh Configure -de \
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1025 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include /usr/local/include' \
1026 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1027 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
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1028
1029locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1030Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1031
1032loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1033Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1034
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1035The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1036the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1037Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1038system.
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1039
1040=back
1041
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1042=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1043
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1044If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1045Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1046need to use B<Configure -O>.
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1047
1048=head2 GNU-style configure
1049
1050If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1051use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1052
1053 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1054
1055The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1056options. Try
1057
1058 ./configure.gnu --help
1059
1060for a listing.
1061
1062(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1063that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1064
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1065=head2 Malloc Issues
1066
1067Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1068so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1069the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1070version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1071perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1072than your system malloc.
1073
1074However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1075experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1076that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1077(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1078
1079=over 4
1080
1081=item Using the system malloc
1082
1083To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1084
1085 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1086
1087or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1088
73d6d1b0
RGS
1089Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1090depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1091systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1092See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1093default is set.
1094
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1095=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1096
1097NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1098run Configure to accept all the defaults.
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1099
1100Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1101Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1102These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1103
1104If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1105will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1106sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1107been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1108
1109Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1110from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1111does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1112versions.
1113
1114=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1115
1116This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1117Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1118using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1119
7df75831 1120 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
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1121
1122to enable this option.
1123
1124=back
1125
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1126=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1127
8d74ce1c 1128If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1129If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1130
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1131=over 4
1132
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1133=item Running Configure Interactively
1134
1135If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1136Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1137guesses.
1138
1139All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1140have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1141flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1142will use the defaults from then on.
1143
1144If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1145config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1146instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1147
aa689395 1148=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1149
a0a8d9d3
DD
1150Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1151
1152=over 4
1153
1154=item o
1155
1156The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1157library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1158and so on.
1159
1160=item o
1161
1162The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1163although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1164resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1165
1166=item o
1167
1168How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1169speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1170implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1171often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1172
1173=back
1174
1175The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1176in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1177will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1178not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
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1179
1180Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
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1181If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1182for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1183More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1184file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1185
1186Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1187Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1188
73d6d1b0 1189=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1190
82c11e95
RGS
1191If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1192different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1193always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1194on your system.
edb1cbcb 1195
1196For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1197and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1198Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1199Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1200issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1201
1202 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1203 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1204 Keep the previous value? [y]
1205
1ec51d55 1206In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1207should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1208the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1209
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1210=item Changing Compilers
1211
1212If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1213probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1214rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1215
c3edaffb 1216=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1217
1ec51d55
CS
1218If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1219them to all the .SH files by running
1220
1221 sh Configure -S
1222
1223You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1224
1225 make depend
1226 make
8e07c86e 1227
48370efc
JH
1228=item config.over and config.arch
1229
1230You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1231Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1232before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1233however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1234This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1235
1236There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1237config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1238architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1239hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1240
1241=item config.h
1242
1ec51d55
CS
1243Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1244Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1245The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1246
1ec51d55
CS
1247If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1248though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1249lost.
1250
1251=item cflags
1252
1253If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1254line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1255optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1256toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1257can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1258lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1259
f5b3b617
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1260To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1261see the file hints/README.hints.
1262
1263To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1264$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1265
1266 sh Configure -S
1267 make depend
8e07c86e 1268
aa689395 1269=item No sh
8e07c86e 1270
c42e3e15
GS
1271If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1272Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1273system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1274You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1275mechanism.
1276
c3edaffb 1277=item Porting information
1278
e6f03d26 1279Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1280corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1281including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1282subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1283
7f678428 1284Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1285http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1286various other operating systems.
1287
ce80d64e 1288If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1289section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
8502f9cc 1290in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlrepository.pod.
491517e0
JA
1291Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1292
8e07c86e
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1293=back
1294
ce80d64e 1295=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1296
1297You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1298CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1299command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1300
d3df0cfd 1301 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1302
1303or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1304then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1305The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
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1306This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1307extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1308extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1309
1310Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1311modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1312or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1313do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1314
1315Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1316dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1317For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1318headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1319process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1320
ce80d64e 1321=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1322
172dd959
JV
1323suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1324longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1325changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1326
8e07c86e
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1327=head1 make depend
1328
bfb7748a
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1329This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1330The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1331the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1332makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
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1333(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1334Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
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1335
1336Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1337explicitly above.
1338
1339=head1 make
1340
1341This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1342
8d410bc4
YST
1343=head2 Expected errors
1344
f5b5f377 1345These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1346
1347 ...
1348 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1349 ...
1350 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1351
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1352=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1353
8e07c86e 1354If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1355If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1356the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1357then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1358
1359=over 4
1360
1ec51d55 1361=item hints
8e07c86e
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1362
1363If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1364for further tips and information.
1365
1ec51d55 1366=item extensions
8e07c86e 1367
1ec51d55 1368If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1369during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1370
3a6175e1 1371 make minitest
c3edaffb 1372
1373to test your version of miniperl.
1374
e57fd563 1375=item locale
1376
bfb7748a
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1377If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1378them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1379running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1380See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1381whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1382The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1383
1384 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1385 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1386 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1387 LANG = (unset)
1388 are supported and installed on your system.
1389 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1390
1391at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1392
06aa495b
DM
1393=item other environment variables
1394
1395Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1396have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1397OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1398their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1399behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1400executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1401PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1402So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1403retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1404
7f678428 1405=item varargs
c3edaffb 1406
1407If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1408correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1409gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1410in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1411correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1412your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1413See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1414
bfb7748a 1415=item util.c
c3edaffb 1416
1417If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1418numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1419
bfb7748a
AD
1420 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1421 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1422 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1423
1424it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1425previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1426
1ec51d55 1427=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1428
1429If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1430the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1431Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1432fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1433of your local set-up.
1434
aa689395 1435=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1436
1437If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1438try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1439with
1440
1441 sh Configure -Uusenm
1442
1443or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1444If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1445config.sh.
1446
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1447=item umask not found
1448
1449If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1450is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1451Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1452this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1453try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1454
7f678428 1455=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1456
1457If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1458problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1459version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1460(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1461d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1462
1463 d_vprintf='define'
1464
1465If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1466on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1467the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1468
3fe9a6f1 1469=item do_aspawn
1470
1471If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1472problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
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1473fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1474on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1475
84902520
TB
1476=item __inet_* errors
1477
1478If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1479referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1480installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1481these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1482in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1483newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1484If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1485with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1486test process to avoid the problem.
1487
73d6d1b0 1488=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1489
1490On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1491reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1492but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1493other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1494header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1495another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1496Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1497header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1498normally /usr/include).
84902520 1499
d6baa268
JH
1500=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1501
1502This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1503gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1504changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1505rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1506update your gcc installation.
1507
aa689395 1508=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1509
9d67150a 1510If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1511optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1512
1513 optimize='-O'
1514
bfb7748a 1515to
9d67150a 1516
1517 optimize=' '
1518
1519then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1520with B<make depend; make>.
1521
4bbc1586 1522=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1523
4bbc1586
AD
1524If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1525undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1526should look something like
1527
1528 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1529
1530The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1531need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1532will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1533need to start all over again. Run
1534
1535 make distclean
1536
1537and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1538what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1539Configure.
1540
1541If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1542L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1543
1544If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1545need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1546that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1547you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1548look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1549
1ec51d55 1550=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1551
1ec51d55
CS
1552Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1553toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1554allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1555each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1556makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
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1557specific rule.
1558
7f678428 1559=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1560
c3edaffb 1561SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1562that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1563
1bb125e2
MB
1564=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1565
1566Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1567error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1568
1569 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1570
1571 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1572
1573 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1574
1575 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1576 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1577 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1578
1579 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1580
1581 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1582 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1583
f3d9a6ba 1584=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1585
1586If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1587the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1588then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1589Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1590systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
AD
1591Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1592phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1593unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1594
1595On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1596message
1597
f3d9a6ba 1598 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1599
1600then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1601the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1602extension without the -lgdbm library.
1603
1604It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1605this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1606quite that tightly coordinated.
1607
aa689395 1608=item sh: ar: not found
1609
1610This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1611was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1612make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1613is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1614directory.
1615
1616=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1617
1618Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1619with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1620bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1621
6087ac44
JH
1622=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1623
11906ba0 1624If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1625V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1626also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1627to include the System V semaphores.
1628
11906ba0 1629=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1630
1631Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1632both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1633ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1634with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1635system.
1636
d6baa268
JH
1637=item GNU binutils
1638
1639If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1640tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1641with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1642may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1643under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1644to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1645vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1646Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1647
16dc217a
GS
1648=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1649
1650The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1651make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1652archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1653C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1654archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1655incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1656official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1657that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1658archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1659
16dc217a
GS
1660=item invalid token: ##
1661
ce80d64e
AD
1662You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1663need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1664file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1665options.
16dc217a 1666
1ec51d55 1667=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1668
7df75831 1669Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1670
1671Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1672
1673NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1674
9ede5bc8 1675UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1676
11906ba0 1677FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1678configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1679you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1680
6c8d78fb
HS
1681Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1682installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1683and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1684the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1685view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1686to avoid the BIND.
1687
8e07c86e
AD
1688=back
1689
58a21a9b
JH
1690=head2 Cross-compilation
1691
e7a3c61b
JH
1692Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1693rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1694June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1695the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1696while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1697platforms.
1698
1699What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1700cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1701up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1702(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1703awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1704version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1705cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1706
1707See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1708the particular platforms:
1709
1710=over 4
1711
1712=item WinCE/PocketPC
1713
75472953 1714README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1715
1716=item Open Zaurus
1717
1718Cross/README
1719
1720=item EPOC
1721
1722README.epoc
1723
1724=item Symbian
1725
1726README.symbian
1727
1728=item OS/400
1729
1730README.os400
1731
1732=back
1733
1734Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1735modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1736cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1737platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1738L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1739of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1740
1741For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1742C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1743directory>.
1744
1745About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1746work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1747building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1748building the perl executable because that would require building
1749extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1750extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1751cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1752
1753The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1754at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1755both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1756cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1757target system.
1758
1759To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1760has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1761
1762 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1763
1764This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1765symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1766for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1767
1768During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1769into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1770cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1771target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1772transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1773the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1774methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1775F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1776
1777To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1778the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1779happens), supply Configure with
1780
1781 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1782
1783The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1784must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1785You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1786
1787 -Dtargetuser=luser
1788
1789but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1790
93bc48fa
JH
1791Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1792which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1793This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1794In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1795environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1796
1797 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1798 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1799 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1800 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1801 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1802
1803If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1804compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1805C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1806(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1807as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1808will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1809in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1810
1811In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1812choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1813for example:
1814
1815 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1816
1817Putting it all together:
1818
1819 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1820 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1821 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1822 -Dtargetuser=root \
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 -D...
1829
e7a3c61b 1830or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1831
1832 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1833 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1834 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1835 -D...
1836
e7a3c61b
JH
1837Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1838F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1839
1840 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1841 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1842 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1843 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1844 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1845 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1846
8e07c86e
AD
1847=head1 make test
1848
d6baa268
JH
1849This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1850'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
1851wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 1852
84902520 1853Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1854opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1855a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1856
c4f23d77
AD
1857=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1858
1ec51d55
CS
1859If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
1860by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 1861bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e 1862
761cea1c 1863 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
8e07c86e 1864
aa689395 1865Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 1866individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 1867
785aa5e3 1868 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1869
fb73857a 1870(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1871complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1872will run all tests.
10c7e831 1873
fb73857a 1874You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1875comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1876shared library path if you get errors like:
1877
1878 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1879
1880See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1881
c4f23d77
AD
1882=over 4
1883
1884=item locale
1885
1ec51d55 1886Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1887may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 1888'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1889one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1890LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1891are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1892
1893If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1894
1895 setenv LC_ALL C
1896
1897(for C shell) or
1898
1899 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1900
1ec51d55
CS
1901for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1902make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1903is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1904shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1905things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1906open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1907external program.
eed2e782 1908
0740bb5b
AD
1909=item Timing problems
1910
c29923ff
JH
1911Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1912sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
1913If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1914these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1915with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1916and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
1917F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
1918F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 1919F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1920
f89caa8d
RGS
1921You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
1922perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
1923different.
1924
c4f23d77
AD
1925=item Out of memory
1926
1927On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1928of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1929For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1930test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1931
1932Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1933
785aa5e3 1934 cd t; ./perl -MTestInit op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
1935
1936to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1937test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1938tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1939and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1940
a55bb48b
AD
1941=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
1942
1943This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
1944a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
1945(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
1946shared library should fix the problem.
1947
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AD
1948=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1949
1950First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1951real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1952
1953Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1954directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1955systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1956run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1957test').
1958
1959The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1960
1961(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1962other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1963
1964This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
1965unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
1966are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1967
1968(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1969by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
1970UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
1971add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
1972used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
1973set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
1974file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
1975others.)
1976
1977This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
1978permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
1979also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
1980is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
1981should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
1982supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
1983used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
198411.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
1985on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
1986local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 1987
b2b23189
JH
1988(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
1989any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
1990directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
1991(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
1992building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
1993module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
1994
1995See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 1996about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 1997
c4f23d77
AD
1998=back
1999
5ee651a9
NC
2000The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2001Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2002your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2003C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2004
2005 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2006
2007An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2008L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2009scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2010interact with their job schedulers.
2011
8e07c86e
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2012=head1 make install
2013
2014This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2015Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2016to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2017pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
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2018are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2019in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2020
2021If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2022similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2023and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2024by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2025
dd64f1c3
AD
2026=head2 Installing perl under different names
2027
2028If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2029when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2030indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2031
2032 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2033
beb13193 2034You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2035"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2036
2037 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2038
5cda700b
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2039This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2040avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2041Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2042
ce80d64e
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2043=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2044
2045You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2046the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2047
2048 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2049
2050DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2051the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2052
dd64f1c3
AD
2053=head2 Installed files
2054
8e07c86e
AD
2055If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2056anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2057
8e07c86e
AD
2058 ./perl installperl -n
2059 ./perl installman -n
2060
1ec51d55 2061make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2062
d56c5707
JH
2063 binaries
2064
8e07c86e 2065 perl,
be8498a1 2066 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e
AD
2067 will be a link to perl.
2068 suidperl,
be8498a1 2069 sperl5.n.n If you requested setuid emulation.
8e07c86e 2070 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
JH
2071
2072 scripts
2073
73d6d1b0
RGS
2074 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P, if
2075 your cc -E can't read from stdin.
8e07c86e 2076 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2077 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration
2078 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with different
2079 versions of perl
2080 cpan The CPAN shell
2081 cpan2dist The CPANPLUS distribution creator
2082 cpanp The CPANPLUS shell
2083 cpanp-run-perl An helper for cpanp
f5b5f377 2084 dprofpp Perl code profiler post-processor
73d6d1b0 2085 enc2xs Encoding module generator
8e07c86e 2086 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2087 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2088 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2089 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2090 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2091 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2092 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2093 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure
2094 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
2095 utility iconv
aa689395 2096 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2097 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2098 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2099 pod2man,
2100 pod2text,
d56c5707 2101 pod2usage
73d6d1b0
RGS
2102 podchecker POD syntax checker
2103 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation
2104 prove A command-line tool for running tests
2105 psed A Perl implementation of sed
2106 ptar A Perl implementation of tar
2107 ptardiff A diff for tar archives
2108 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2109 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums
aa689395 2110 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
73d6d1b0 2111 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code
8e07c86e 2112
d56c5707
JH
2113 library files
2114
2115 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2116 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2117
2118 documentation
2119
d6baa268
JH
2120 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2121 module man
2122 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2123 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2124
33cceb07 2125installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2126in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2127
d56c5707 2128Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2129under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2130optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2131program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2132
33cceb07
RGS
2133=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2134
d56c5707
JH
2135Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2136installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2137perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2138disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2139To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2140
2141 Configure -Dversiononly
2142
2143or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2144you can just manually run
2145
2146 ./perl installperl -v
2147
2148and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2149
d56c5707
JH
2150See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2151approach.
2152
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2153=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2154
2155Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2156system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2157header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2158by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2159library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2160
2161Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2162of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2163hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2164For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2165structures.
2166
2167=head1 installhtml --help
2168
2169Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2170format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2171documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2172
2173Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2174html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2175
2176The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2177perl documentation:
2178
2179 ./installhtml \
2180 --podroot=. \
2181 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2182 --recurse \
2183 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2184 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2185 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2186 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2187 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2188 --verbose
2189
2190See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2191many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2192see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2193resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2194(and would welcome patches for them).
2195
2196You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2197the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2198
2199=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2200
2201Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2202available in TeX format. Type
2203
2204 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2205
2206=head1 Starting all over again
2207
2208If you wish to re-build perl from the same build directory, you should
2209clean it out with the command
2210
2211 make distclean
2212
2213or
2214
2215 make realclean
2216
2217The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2218your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2219
2220If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2221change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
2222you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not re-use
2223your old config.sh.
2224
2225If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2226installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2227using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2228settings"> above.
2229
ff52061e
RGS
2230=head1 Reporting Problems
2231
2232Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2233to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2234information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2235more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2236carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2237on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2238you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2239message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2240get advice.
2241
2242The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2243completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2244C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2245C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2246run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2247directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2248
2249If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2250B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2251an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2252
2253If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2254(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2255description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
2256- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
2257
2258Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2259reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
2260written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
2261the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2262not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2263
2264Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2265config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2266necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2267session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2268messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
2269appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
2270attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2271read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2272subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2273
5acb7768
NC
2274If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2275inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2276it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2277unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2278to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2279co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2280platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2281issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2282
ff52061e
RGS
2283If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2284report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2285http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2286
7df75831 2287=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2288
35dec5db 2289Perl 5.12 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2290In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2291
693762b4 2292In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
22935.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2294re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2295version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2296
be8498a1
RGS
2297Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2298used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2299(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2300
33cceb07
RGS
2301Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2302searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2303
33cceb07
RGS
2304 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2305 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2306 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2307 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2308
33cceb07
RGS
2309Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2310searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2311
33cceb07
RGS
2312 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2313 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2314 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2315 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2316
33cceb07
RGS
2317 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2318 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2319 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2320
c42e3e15 2321Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2322of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2323directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2324to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2325suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2326present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2327/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2328but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2329
c42e3e15 2330The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23315.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2332
33cceb07
RGS
2333Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2334with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2335Configure defaults) will be:
2336
33cceb07
RGS
2337 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2338 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2339 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2340 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2341
33cceb07 2342 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2343
33cceb07 2344 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2345
d6baa268 2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2347
cc65bb49
AD
2348Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2349modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2350
0a08c020
GS
2351This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2352to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2353versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2354
2355=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2356
1ec51d55 2357Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2358separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2359won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2360libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2361way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2362
d4438f94 2363 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.13.1
d52d4e46 2364
d4438f94 2365and adding /opt/perl5.13.1/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2366may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2367scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2368
693762b4 2369Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2370(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2371each major version.
2372
6877a1cf
AD
2373If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2374seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2375subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2376yet.
2377
6f15df47 2378=head2 Upgrading from 5.11.0 or earlier
693762b4 2379
d4438f94 2380B<Perl 5.13.1 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.11.1 and any earlier
dd3196cd 2381Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2382(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
d4438f94
LB
2383used with 5.13.1. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
23845.13.1, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2385installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2386above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2387
2388See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2389incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2390perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2391
8ebf57cf
JH
2392=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2393
2394The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2395Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2396operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2397
c8214fdf 2398Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2399Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2400space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2401Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2402programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2403depends on what do you need to do.
2404
8ebf57cf
JH
2405In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2406recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2407depends on what you need.
2408
2409Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2410
2411 use strict;
2412 use warnings;
2413 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2414 print("$f\n");
2415 }
2416
bfe08c74 2417in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2418
2419 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2420 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2421 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2422 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2423 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2424 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
JH
2425
2426Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2427size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2428
bfe08c74
RGS
2429 /usr/bin/perl
2430 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2431 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2432 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2433 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2434 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2435 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2436 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2437 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2438 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2439 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2440 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2441 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2442 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2443 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2444 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2445 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2446 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2447 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2448 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2449 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2450 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2451 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2452 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2453 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2454 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2455 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2456 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2457 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2458 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2459 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2460 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2461 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2462 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2463 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2464 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2465 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2466 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2475 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2476 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2477 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2478 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2479 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2480 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2481 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2482 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2483 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2484 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2485 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2486 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2487 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2488 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2489 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2490 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2491 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2492 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2493 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2494 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2495 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2496 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2497 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2498 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2499 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2500 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2501 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2502 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2503 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2504 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2505 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2506 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2507 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2508 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2509 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2510 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2511 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2512 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2513 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2514 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2515 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2516 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2517 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2518
e7a3c61b
JH
2519A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2520need to run a Perl program is
2521
a0a8d9d3 2522 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2523
2524(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2525it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2526use something like the below
2527
2528 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2529
2530(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2531and 'ktrace'.)
2532
c19ccd8c
RGS
2533=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2534
2535If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2536F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2537by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2538completely removed.
2539
8e07c86e
AD
2540=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2541
bfb7748a
AD
2542Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2543is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2544build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2545can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2546sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e
AD
2547
2548=head1 AUTHOR
2549
bfb7748a
AD
2550Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2551heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2552feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2553
f5b3b617
AD
2554If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2555L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2556
2557=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2558
2559This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2560the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2561If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2562a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2563and the contact information to match your distribution.