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Fix concise-xs.t following the changes to B::Deparse.
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1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
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5=head1 NAME
6
7Install - Build and Installation guide for perl5.
8
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9=head1 Reporting Problems
10
11Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
12to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
13information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
14more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
15carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
16on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
17you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
18message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
19get advice.
20
21The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
22completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
23C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
24C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
25run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
26directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
27
28If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
29B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
30an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
31
ce80d64e 32If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
40dd8381 33(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
ce80d64e 34description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
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35- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
36
37Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
38reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
39written English is not great - what matters is how well you describe
40the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
41not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
42
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43Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
44config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
45necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
46session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
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47messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
48appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient--fancy
49attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
50read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
51subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
52
53If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
54report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
55http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
56
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57=head1 SYNOPSIS
58
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59First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
60didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
61http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
62subreleases (like 5.6.x and 5.8.x) are stable maintenance releases and
63odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
64development releases. Development releases should not be used in
65production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
66tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
67worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 68
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69The basic steps to build and install perl5 on a Unix system with all
70the defaults are:
8e07c86e 71
dc45a647 72 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
491517e0 73 sh Configure -de
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74 make
75 make test
76 make install
36477c24 77
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78Each of these is explained in further detail below.
79
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80The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
81platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
ce80d64e 82If that's not okay with you, can run Configure interactively and use
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83
84 rm -f config.sh Policy.sh
85 sh Configure
86 make
87 make test
88 make install
89
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90 # You may also wish to add these:
91 (cd /usr/include && h2ph *.h sys/*.h)
92 (installhtml --help)
93 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
adbebc0b 94
ce80d64e 95or you can use some of the Configure options described below.
7f678428 96
8d74ce1c 97If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
40dd8381 98L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 99
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100For information on what's new in this release, see the
101pod/perldelta.pod file. For more detailed information about specific
102changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 103
1ec51d55 104=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 105
c3edaffb 106This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
107structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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108read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
109by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
110
111 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
112 C<code> literal code
113 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 114 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 115
c42e3e15 116Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 117you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 118proceeding.
c3edaffb 119
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120In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
121your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
122instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
123system (in the hints/ directory) you should also read that hint file
124for even more information. (Unixware users should use the svr4.sh or
125the svr5.sh hint file.)
c42e3e15 126
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127For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
128L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
129directory.
d56c5707 130
ce80d64e 131=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 132
ce80d64e 133=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 134
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135Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
136potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
137the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
138to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 139
ce80d64e 140=head3 WARNING: This version is not binary compatible with releases of
9a664500 141Perl prior to 5.9.0.
1b1c1ae2 142
cc65bb49 143If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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144using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
145those extensions.
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146
147Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
148without reinstallation. See the discussions below on
149L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> and
fe23a901 150L<"Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0"> for more details.
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151
152The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
153
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154On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
155in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
156pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
157installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
158list of locally installed modules. Also see CPAN::autobundle for one
159way to make a "bundle" of your currently installed modules.
16dc217a 160
ce80d64e 161=head2 Space Requirements
eed2e782 162
9a664500 163The complete perl5 source tree takes up about 60 MB of disk space.
8756f06c 164After completing make, it takes up roughly 100 MB, though the actual
d6baa268 165total is likely to be quite system-dependent. The installation
8756f06c 166directories need something on the order of 45 MB, though again that
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167value is system-dependent. A perl build with debug symbols and
168-DDEBUGGING will require something on the order of 10 MB extra.
8e07c86e 169
aa689395 170=head1 Start with a Fresh Distribution
8e07c86e 171
edb1cbcb 172If you have built perl before, you should clean out the build directory
173with the command
174
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175 make distclean
176
177or
178
edb1cbcb 179 make realclean
c3edaffb 180
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181The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
182your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
183
184The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
185files. If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
186change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
187you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should probably
d6baa268 188not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it
8e07c86e 189
d6baa268 190 rm -f config.sh
4633a7c4 191
e57fd563 192If you wish to use your old config.sh, be especially attentive to the
193version and architecture-specific questions and answers. For example,
194the default directory for architecture-dependent library modules
195includes the version name. By default, Configure will reuse your old
196name (e.g. /opt/perl/lib/i86pc-solaris/5.003) even if you're running
197Configure for a different version, e.g. 5.004. Yes, Configure should
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198probably check and correct for this, but it doesn't. Similarly, if you
199used a shared libperl.so (see below) with version numbers, you will
200probably want to adjust them as well.
e57fd563 201
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202Also, be careful to check your architecture name. For example, some
203Linux distributions use i386, while others may use i486. If you build
204it yourself, Configure uses the output of the arch command, which
205might be i586 or i686 instead. If you pick up a precompiled binary, or
206compile extensions on different systems, they might not all agree on
207the architecture name.
e57fd563 208
209In short, if you wish to use your old config.sh, I recommend running
210Configure interactively rather than blindly accepting the defaults.
8e07c86e 211
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212If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
213installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
214using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
215settings"> below. If you wish to start with a fresh distribution, you
216also need to remove any old Policy.sh files you may have with
217
218 rm -f Policy.sh
dc45a647 219
aa689395 220=head1 Run Configure
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221
222Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
223things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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224you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
225almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
226since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
227the same function.
228
ce80d64e 229At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 230defaults from then on.
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231
232After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 233*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 234
ce80d64e 235=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 236
ce80d64e 237Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 238
ce80d64e 239 Configure -h
d6baa268 240
ce80d64e 241to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 242Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
243
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244=over 4
245
246=item gcc
247
248To compile with gcc you should run
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249
250 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
251
252This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or another alternative
253compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
254
d6baa268 255=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 256
8e07c86e 257By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
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258/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
259and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for
260further details.)
261
262You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 263directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 264line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 265
25f94b33 266 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 267
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268If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
269directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
270prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
271/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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272for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
273or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 274
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275NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
276as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
277attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 278
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279=item /usr/bin/perl
280
281It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
282find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 283/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 284careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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285vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
286on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
287configured may be found with
288
289 perl -V:config_args
290
291(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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292spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
293at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 294
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295By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
296version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 297
7d56c962 298 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 299
7d56c962 300or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 301
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302In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
303(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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304into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
305obvious and convenient place.
306
ce80d64e 307=item Building a development release.
04d420f9 308
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309For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
310use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
311because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
312Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
313sanity check.
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314
315=back
8e07c86e 316
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317If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
318output, you can run
319
320 sh Configure -des
321
ce80d64e 322For example for my Solaris/x86 system, I usually use
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323
324 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -Doptimize='-xpentium -xO4' -des
325
ce80d64e 326=head2 Altering config.sh variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 327
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328For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
329be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
330have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
331after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
332For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
333invocations:
46bb10fb 334
2db3864f 335 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC"
46bb10fb 336
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337To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
338Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (that will define a config.sh
339variable, but without taking any action based upon it). When passed to the
340compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
341
ce80d64e 342For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 343
ce80d64e 344 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 345
ce80d64e 346=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 347
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348There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
349system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
350Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
351some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 352
ce80d64e 353=head3 Threads
cc65bb49 354
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355On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
356enable this, run
4633a7c4 357
ce80d64e 358 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 359
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360Currently, you need to specify -Dusethreads on the Configure command
361line so that the hint files can make appropriate adjustments.
cc65bb49 362
ce80d64e 363The default is to compile without thread support.
cc65bb49 364
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365Perl has two different internal threads implementations. The current
366model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since
3675.8) is called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one
368interpreter per thread, and explicit sharing of data. The 5.005
369version (5005threads) is considered obsolete, buggy, and unmaintained.
d6baa268 370
ce80d64e 371By default, Configure selects ithreads if -Dusethreads is specified.
d6baa268 372
ce80d64e 373However, if you insist, you can select the unsupported old 5005threads behavior
d6baa268 374
ce80d64e 375 sh Configure -Dusethreads -Duse5005threads
d6baa268 376
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377The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
378'Thread' module offers an interface to either 5005threads or ithreads
379(whichever has been configured).
d6baa268 380
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381When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
382the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
383This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
384fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
385PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
386way to do this is to run Configure with
387C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>
d6baa268 388
ce80d64e 389=head3 Large file support.
b367e8b0 390
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391Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
3922 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
393support is on by default.
d6baa268 394
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395This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
396seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
397using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
398be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
399parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
400will happen. One popular extension suffering from this ailment is the
401Apache extension mod_perl.
d6baa268 402
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403There's also one known limitation with the current large files
404implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
405section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
406like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 407
ce80d64e 408=head3 64 bit support.
d6baa268 409
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410If your platform does not have run natively at 64 bits, but can
411simulate them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
412you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 413
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414There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
415using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
416-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
417the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 418
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419The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
42064-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
421longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
422your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
423does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
424might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
425you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 426
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427The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
428integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
429create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
430resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
431have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
432aware.
d6baa268 433
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434Natively 64-bit systems like Alpha and Cray need neither -Duse64bitint
435nor -Duse64bitall.
d6baa268 436
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437 NOTE: 64-bit support is still experimental on most platforms.
438 Existing support only covers the LP64 data model. In particular, the
439 LLP64 data model is not yet supported. 64-bit libraries and system
440 APIs on many platforms have not stabilized--your mileage may vary.
d6baa268 441
ce80d64e 442=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 443
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444In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
445range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
446(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
447this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 448
ce80d64e 449=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 450
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451You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
452and the long double support.
b367e8b0 453
ce80d64e 454=head3 Selecting File IO mechanisms
d6baa268 455
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456Executive summary: as of Perl 5.8, you should use the default "PerlIO"
457as the IO mechanism unless you have a good reason not to.
273cf8d1 458
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459In more detail: previous versions of perl used the standard IO
460mechanisms as defined in stdio.h. Versions 5.003_02 and later of perl
461introduced alternate IO mechanisms via a "PerlIO" abstraction, but up
462until and including Perl 5.6, the stdio mechanism was still the default
463and the only supported mechanism.
d6baa268 464
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465Starting from Perl 5.8, the default mechanism is to use the PerlIO
466abstraction, because it allows better control of I/O mechanisms,
467instead of having to work with (often, work around) vendors' I/O
468implementations.
46bb10fb 469
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470This PerlIO abstraction can be (but again, unless you know what you
471are doing, should not be) disabled either on the Configure command
472line with
46bb10fb 473
6d5328bc 474 sh Configure -Uuseperlio
46bb10fb 475
6d5328bc 476or interactively at the appropriate Configure prompt.
46bb10fb 477
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478With the PerlIO abstraction layer, there is another possibility for
479the underlying IO calls, AT&T's "sfio". This has superior performance
480to stdio.h in many cases, and is extensible by the use of "discipline"
481modules ("Native" PerlIO has them too). Sfio currently only builds on
482a subset of the UNIX platforms perl supports. Because the data
483structures are completely different from stdio, perl extension modules
484or external libraries may not work. This configuration exists to
485allow these issues to be worked on.
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486
487This option requires the 'sfio' package to have been built and installed.
1b9c9cf5 488The latest sfio is available from http://www.research.att.com/sw/tools/sfio/
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489
490You select this option by
491
492 sh Configure -Duseperlio -Dusesfio
493
494If you have already selected -Duseperlio, and if Configure detects
495that you have sfio, then sfio will be the default suggested by
496Configure.
497
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498Note: On some systems, sfio's iffe configuration script fails to
499detect that you have an atexit function (or equivalent). Apparently,
500this is a problem at least for some versions of Linux and SunOS 4.
501Configure should detect this problem and warn you about problems with
502_exit vs. exit. If you have this problem, the fix is to go back to
503your sfio sources and correct iffe's guess about atexit.
33e6ee5f 504
ce80d64e 505=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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506
507In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
508Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 509enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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510a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
511and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
512
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513In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
514create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
515the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
516in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
517data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
518certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
519
520In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
521elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
522basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
523then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
524adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
525existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
526specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
527data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
528randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
529is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
530
531One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
532vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
533variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
534is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 535example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
86358043
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536which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
537variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
538the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 539
3debabd9 540B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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541ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
5425. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
543be, affected by the insertion order. It is likely that Perl 5.10 and
544Perl 6 will randomise all hashes. Note that because of this
545randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
546between different runs of Perl since Data::Dumper by default dumps
547hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
548recommended.
504f80c1 549
ce80d64e 550=head3 SOCKS
1b9c9cf5
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551
552Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
553TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
554access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
555Version 5. You can find more about SOCKS from http://www.socks.nec.com/
556
ce80d64e 557=head3 Dynamic Loading
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558
559By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading if
560your system supports it. If you want to force perl to be compiled
561statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
562you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
563
ce80d64e 564=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 565
566Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
567linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
568extensions (usually just DynaLoader.a) and various extra libraries,
569such as -lm.
570
9d67150a 571On some systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
572replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 573several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
574different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 575you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 576can share the same library.
577
578The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 579penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 580mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 581and upgrades.
582
583In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 584test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 585Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
586results.
587
588The default name for the shared library is typically something like
ce80d64e 589libperl.so.6.2 (for Perl 5.6.2), or libperl.so.602, or simply
9d67150a 590libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 591based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
592version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
593isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
594
595For some systems (mostly SVR4), building a shared libperl is required
596for dynamic loading to work, and hence is already the default.
597
598You can elect to build a shared libperl by
599
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600 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
601
602To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
603library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
604NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
605for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
606the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
607be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
608library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
609variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
610
611 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
612
613However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
614shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
615something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
616./perl:
617
618 cd t; ./perl misc/failing_test.t
619or
620 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
621
622then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
623You can do this with
624
625 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
626
627for Bourne-style shells, or
628
629 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
630
631for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
632unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
633again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
634
635You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
636messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
637for example:
63818126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
639
640There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
641want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
642with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
643install a standard Perl 5.8.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
644try to build Perl 5.8.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
645the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
646ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
647libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
648that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
649in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
650equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
651with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
652LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
653Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
654_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
655
656In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
657with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
658previous build.
659
660A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
661architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
662You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
663point to your new architecture-dependent library.
664
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665=head3 Environment access
666
667Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
668is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
669leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
670to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
671whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
672but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
673embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
779ec477 674by compiling with -DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV. You can force an embedded perl to
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675use direct manipulation by setting C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the
676C<perl_construct()> call.
677
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678=head2 Installation Directories
679
680The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
681appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the
682installation questions are near the beginning of Configure.
683Do not include trailing slashes on directory names.
684
685I highly recommend running Configure interactively to be sure it puts
686everything where you want it. At any point during the Configure
687process, you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use
688the defaults from then on. Alternatively, you can
689
690 grep '^install' config.sh
691
692after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
693
694The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
695people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
696distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
697need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
698you can safely skip the next section.
699
700The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
701
702=over 4
703
704=item Directories for the perl distribution
705
706By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.9.0.
707$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
7085.9.0 or 5.9.1, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
709determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
710variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
711
712 Configure variable Default value
713 $prefixexp /usr/local
714 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
715 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
716 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
717 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
718 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
719 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
720 $html1direxp (none)
721 $html3direxp (none)
722
723$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
724directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
725file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
726variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
727
728Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
729/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
730instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
731directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
732the common style is shown here.
733
734=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
735
736After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
737CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
738be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
739
740 Configure variable Default value
741 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
742 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
743 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
744 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
745 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
746 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
747 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
748 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
749 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
750
751By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
752modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
753
754=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
755
756Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
757distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
758for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
759
760 Configure variable Default value
761 $vendorprefixexp (none)
762 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
763 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
764 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
765 $vendorlibexp
766 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
767 $vendorarchexp
768 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
769 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
770 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
771 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
772 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
773
774These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
775a vendor might choose the following settings:
776
777 $prefix /usr
778 $siteprefix /usr/local
779 $vendorprefix /usr
780
781This would have the effect of setting the following:
782
783 $binexp /usr/bin
784 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
785 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
786 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
787 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
788 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
789
790 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
791 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
792 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
793 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
794 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
795 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
796
797 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
798 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
799 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
800 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
801 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
802 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
803
804Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
805/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end-user are in
806the /usr/local hierarchy.
807
808The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
809version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
810However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
811installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
812See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below for more details
813on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
814
815Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
816example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
817are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
818site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
819network. One way to do that would be something like
820
821 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
822
823=item otherlibdirs
824
825As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
826variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
827directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
828Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
829version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
830
831For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
832installation, perhaps in a strange place:
833
834 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
835
836=item APPLLIB_EXP
837
838There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
839that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
840separated list of directories, like this
841
842 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
843
844The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
845ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
846modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
847touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
848version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
849present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
850directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
851run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
852
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853=item USE_SITECUSTOMIZE
854
855Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
856
36de116d 857 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 858
36de116d 859Which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
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860When enabled, make perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
861anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
862entries to @INC.
863
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864=item Man Pages
865
866In versions 5.005_57 and earlier, the default was to store module man
867pages in a version-specific directory, such as
868/usr/local/lib/perl5/$version/man/man3. The default for 5.005_58 and
869after is /usr/local/man/man3 so that most users can find the man pages
870without resetting MANPATH.
871
872You can continue to use the old default from the command line with
873
874 sh Configure -Dman3dir=/usr/local/lib/perl5/5.9.0/man/man3
875
876Some users also prefer to use a .3pm suffix. You can do that with
877
878 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
879
880Again, these are just the defaults, and can be changed as you run
881Configure.
882
883=item HTML pages
884
885Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
886HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
887add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
888variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
889documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
890eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
891
892=back
893
894Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
895to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
896architectures.
897
898Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
899directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
900filesystem.
c3edaffb 901
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902Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
903development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
904discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> below.
10c7e831 905
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906If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
907library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
908suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 909
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910Thus, for example, if you Configure with
911-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 912
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913 Configure variable Default value
914 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
915 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
916 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
917 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 918
ce80d64e 919=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 920
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921Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
922associated files) should be installed and the directory in which it
923will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
924sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
925However, sites that use software such as depot to manage software
926packages, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
927wish to install perl into a different directory and use that
928management software to move perl to its final destination. This
929section describes how to do that.
c3edaffb 930
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931Suppose you want to install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory. You
932could edit config.sh and change all the install* variables to point to
933/tmp/perl5 instead of /usr/local, or you could simply use the
934following command line:
c3edaffb 935
ce80d64e 936 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 937
ce80d64e 938(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 939
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940Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
941modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
942follow this example. The next section shows one way of dealing with
943that problem.
c3edaffb 944
ce80d64e 945=head2 Creating an installable tar archive
9d67150a 946
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947If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
948to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
949multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
950archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
951using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
952automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
953simply do:
830717a7 954
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955 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
956 make
957 make test
958 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
959 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
960 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 961
ce80d64e 962=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 963
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964After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
965answers (such as installation directories and the local perl contact
966person) in the Policy.sh file. If you want to build perl on another
967system using the same policy defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file
968to the new system and Configure will use it along with the appropriate
969hint file for your system.
55479bb6 970
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971Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
972answers, you should
c3edaffb 973
ce80d64e 974 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 975
ce80d64e 976to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 977
ce80d64e 978Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 979
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980If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
981to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
982platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 983
ce80d64e 984=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 985
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986Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
987installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree
988and these will be used by the perl being built.
989See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5"> for more details.
86058a2d 990
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991To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
992modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 993
ce80d64e 994 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 995
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996When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
997$PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 998
ce80d64e 999=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 1000
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1001Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
1002where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
1003read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
1004architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
1005links) by
06c896bb 1006
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1007 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
1008 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
1009 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 1010
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1011This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
1012pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
1013unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 1014
ce80d64e 1015 make
06c896bb 1016
ce80d64e 1017as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 1018
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1019=head2 Building a debugging perl
1020
1021You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 1022B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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1023you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
1024(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
1025system debugger by adding -g to optimize.
1026
1027 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
1028
1029For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
1030for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
1031to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
1032
1033=over 4
1034
1035=item -DEBUGGING=old
1036
1037Which is the default, and supports the old convention of
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1038
1039 sh Configure -Doptimize='-g'
1040
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1041This will do two independent things: First, it will force compilation
1042to use cc -g so that you can use your system's debugger on the
1043executable. (Note: Your system may actually require something like
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1044cc -g2. Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for
1045your system.) Second, it will add -DDEBUGGING to your ccflags
1046variable in config.sh so that you can use B<perl -D> to access perl's
1047internal state. (Note: Configure will only add -DDEBUGGING by default
1048if you are not reusing your old config.sh. If you want to reuse your
1049old config.sh, then you can just edit it and change the optimize and
1050ccflags variables by hand and then propagate your changes as shown in
1051L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below.)
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1052
1053You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently, but usually
1054it's convenient to have both.
3bf462b8 1055
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1056=over 4
1057
1058=item -DDEBUGGING
1059
1060=item -DEBUGGING
1061
1062=item -DEBUGGING=both
1063
1064Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and add -g to optimize.
1065
1066=item -DEBUGGING=-g
1067
1068Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
1069
1070=item -DEBUGGING=none
1071
1072Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
1073
1074=back
1075
3bf462b8 1076If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 1077versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 1078
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1079=head2 Extensions
1080
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1081Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
1082in the ext/ subdirectory.
1083
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1084By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
1085to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
1086only if it is able to find the gdbm library. (See examples below.)
8d74ce1c 1087Configure does not contain code to test for POSIX compliance, so POSIX
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1088is always built by default. If you wish to skip POSIX, you can
1089set the Configure variable useposix=false from the Configure command line.
8d74ce1c 1090
c42e3e15
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1091If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
1092running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
1093extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
1094it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
1095has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
1096extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
1097convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
1098you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
1099dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
1100
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1101If you have dynamic loading, another way of specifying extra modules
1102is described in L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
1103
c42e3e15 1104You can learn more about each of the supplied extensions by consulting the
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1105documentation in the individual .pm modules, located under the
1106ext/ subdirectory.
1107
1108Even if you do not have dynamic loading, you must still build the
1109DynaLoader extension; you should just build the stub dl_none.xs
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1110version. Configure will suggest this as the default.
1111
1112To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
1113-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
1114a space-separated list of extensions. The extensions listed in
1115C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
1116the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
1117extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
1118certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
1119examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
1120these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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1121
1122Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
1123the extensions you want.
1124
1125Note: The DB_File module will only work with version 1.x of Berkeley
1126DB or newer releases of version 2. Configure will automatically detect
1127this for you and refuse to try to build DB_File with earlier
1128releases of version 2.
1129
1130If you re-use your old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
1131adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
1132for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
1133you.
1134
80c1f5de 1135Finally, if you have dynamic loading (most modern systems do)
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1136remember that these extensions do not increase the size of your perl
1137executable, nor do they impact start-up time, so you probably might as
1138well build all the ones that will work on your system.
1139
1140=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
1141
1142Perl5 comes with interfaces to number of database extensions, including
1143dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For each extension, if
1144Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
1145automatically include that extension. The gdbm and db libraries
1146are not included with perl. See the library documentation for
1147how to obtain the libraries.
1148
d6baa268
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1149If your database header (.h) files are not in a directory normally
1150searched by your C compiler, then you will need to include the
1151appropriate -I/your/directory option when prompted by Configure. If
ce80d64e 1152your database libraries are not in a directory normally
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1153searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will need to include
1154the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted by Configure.
1155See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1156
ce80d64e 1157=head3 Examples
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1158
1159=over 4
1160
1161=item gdbm in /usr/local
1162
1163Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1164GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1165installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1166/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1167necessary steps out automatically.
1168
1169Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
1170your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include.
1171
1172When Configure prompts you for linker flags, you should include
1173-L/usr/local/lib.
1174
1175If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1176linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1177-L/usr/local/lib.
1178
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1179Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1180you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1181/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
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1182
1183=item gdbm in /usr/you
1184
1185Suppose you have gdbm installed in some place other than /usr/local/,
1186but you still want Configure to find it. To be specific, assume you
1187have /usr/you/include/gdbm.h and /usr/you/lib/libgdbm.a. You
1188still have to add -I/usr/you/include to cc flags, but you have to take
1189an extra step to help Configure find libgdbm.a. Specifically, when
1190Configure prompts you for library directories, you have to add
1191/usr/you/lib to the list.
1192
1193It is possible to specify this from the command line too (all on one
1194line):
1195
d6baa268 1196 sh Configure -de \
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1197 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include" \
1198 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib"
1199
1200locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1201Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1202
1203loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
1204Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives. If
1205you have some libraries under /usr/local/ and others under
1206/usr/you, then you have to include both, namely
1207
d6baa268 1208 sh Configure -de \
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1209 -Dlocincpth="/usr/you/include /usr/local/include" \
1210 -Dloclibpth="/usr/you/lib /usr/local/lib"
1211
1212=back
1213
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1214=head2 Building DB, NDBM, and ODBM interfaces with Berkeley DB 3
1215
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1216A Perl interface for DB3 is part of Berkeley DB, but if you want to
1217compile the standard Perl DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you must follow
bb636fa4
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1218following instructions.
1219
1220Berkeley DB3 from Sleepycat Software is by default installed without
ce80d64e 1221DB1 compatibility code (needed for the DB_File interface) and without
bb636fa4 1222links to compatibility files. So if you want to use packages written
ce80d64e 1223for the DB/ODBM/NDBM interfaces, you need to configure DB3 with
bb636fa4
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1224--enable-compat185 (and optionally with --enable-dump185) and create
1225additional references (suppose you are installing DB3 with
1226--prefix=/usr):
1227
1228 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdbm.so
1229 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libndbm.so
f1300be0 1230 echo '#define DB_DBM_HSEARCH 1' >dbm.h
bb636fa4 1231 echo '#include <db.h>' >>dbm.h
f1300be0 1232 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/dbm.h
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1233 install -m 0644 dbm.h /usr/include/ndbm.h
1234
1235Optionally, if you have compiled with --enable-compat185 (not needed
1236for ODBM/NDBM):
1237
1238 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb1.so
1239 ln -s libdb-3.so /usr/lib/libdb.so
1240
1241ODBM emulation seems not to be perfect, but is quite usable,
1242using DB 3.1.17:
1243
1244 lib/odbm.............FAILED at test 9
1245 Failed 1/64 tests, 98.44% okay
1246
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1247=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1248
1249If you want to use your old config.sh but override some of the items
1250with command line options, you need to use B<Configure -O>.
1251
1252=head2 GNU-style configure
1253
1254If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1255use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1256
1257 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1258
1259The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1260options. Try
1261
1262 ./configure.gnu --help
1263
1264for a listing.
1265
1266(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1267that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1268
1269See L<Cross-compilation> below for information on cross-compiling.
1270
1271=head2 Malloc Issues
1272
1273Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1274so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1275the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1276version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1277perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1278than your system malloc.
1279
1280However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1281experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1282that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1283(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1284
1285=over 4
1286
1287=item Using the system malloc
1288
1289To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1290
1291 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1292
1293or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1294
1295=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1296
1297NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
1298run Configure to accept all the defaults on those platforms.
1299
1300Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1301Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1302These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1303
1304If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1305will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1306sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1307been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1308
1309Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1310from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1311does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1312versions.
1313
1314=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1315
1316This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1317Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1318using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1319
1320 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc='y'
1321
1322to enable this option.
1323
1324=back
1325
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1326=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1327
8d74ce1c 1328If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
40dd8381 1329If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
8d74ce1c 1330
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1331=over 4
1332
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1333=item Running Configure Interactively
1334
1335If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1336Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1337guesses.
1338
1339All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1340have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1341flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1342will use the defaults from then on.
1343
1344If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1345config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1346instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1347
aa689395 1348=item Hint files
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1349
1350The perl distribution includes a number of system-specific hints files
1351in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1352will offer to use that hint file.
1353
1354Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
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1355If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1356for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1357More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
1358file.
8e07c86e 1359
edb1cbcb 1360=item *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1361
1362Occasionally, Configure makes a wrong guess. For example, on SunOS
13634.1.3, Configure incorrectly concludes that tzname[] is in the
1364standard C library. The hint file is set up to correct for this. You
1365will see a message:
1366
1367 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1368 The recommended value for $d_tzname on this machine was "undef"!
1369 Keep the recommended value? [y]
1370
1371You should always keep the recommended value unless, after reading the
1372relevant section of the hint file, you are sure you want to try
1373overriding it.
1374
1375If you are re-using an old config.sh, the word "previous" will be
1376used instead of "recommended". Again, you will almost always want
1377to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something on your
1378system.
1379
1380For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1381and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1382Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1383Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1384issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1385
1386 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1387 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1388 Keep the previous value? [y]
1389
1ec51d55 1390In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1391should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1392the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1393
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1394=item Changing Compilers
1395
1396If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1397probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
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1398rename it, e.g. mv config.sh config.sh.old. Then rerun Configure
1399with the options you want to use.
1400
1ec51d55
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1401This is a common source of problems. If you change from cc to
1402gcc, you should almost always remove your old config.sh.
8e07c86e 1403
c3edaffb 1404=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1405
1ec51d55
CS
1406If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1407them to all the .SH files by running
1408
1409 sh Configure -S
1410
1411You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1412
1413 make depend
1414 make
8e07c86e 1415
48370efc
JH
1416=item config.over and config.arch
1417
1418You can also supply a shell script config.over to over-ride
1419Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1420before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1421however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1422This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1423
1424There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1425config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1426architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1427hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1428
1429=item config.h
1430
1ec51d55
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1431Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1432Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1433The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1434
1ec51d55
CS
1435If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1436though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
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1437lost.
1438
1439=item cflags
1440
1441If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55
CS
1442line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
1443optimizer on toke.c, find the line in the switch structure for
1444toke.c and put the command optimize='-g' before the ;; . You
1445can also edit cflags directly, but beware that your changes will be
1446lost the next time you run Configure.
8e07c86e 1447
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1448To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1449see the file hints/README.hints.
1450
1451To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1452$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1453
1454 sh Configure -S
1455 make depend
8e07c86e 1456
aa689395 1457=item No sh
8e07c86e 1458
c42e3e15
GS
1459If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1460Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1461system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
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1462You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1463mechanism.
1464
d6baa268
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1465=item Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX and BIN_SH
1466
1467In Digital UNIX/Tru64 UNIX, Configure might abort with
1468
1469Build a threading Perl? [n]
1470Configure[2437]: Syntax error at line 1 : `config.sh' is not expected.
1471
1472This indicates that Configure is being run with a broken Korn shell
1473(even though you think you are using a Bourne shell by using
1474"sh Configure" or "./Configure"). The Korn shell bug has been reported
1475to Compaq as of February 1999 but in the meanwhile, the reason ksh is
1476being used is that you have the environment variable BIN_SH set to
1477'xpg4'. This causes /bin/sh to delegate its duties to /bin/posix/sh
1478(a ksh). Unset the environment variable and rerun Configure.
1479
1480=item HP-UX 11, pthreads, and libgdbm
1481
1482If you are running Configure with -Dusethreads in HP-UX 11, be warned
1483that POSIX threads and libgdbm (the GNU dbm library) compiled before
1484HP-UX 11 do not mix. This will cause a basic test run by Configure to
1485fail
1486
1487Pthread internal error: message: __libc_reinit() failed, file: ../pthreads/pthread.c, line: 1096
1488Return Pointer is 0xc082bf33
1489sh: 5345 Quit(coredump)
1490
1491and Configure will give up. The cure is to recompile and install
1492libgdbm under HP-UX 11.
1493
c3edaffb 1494=item Porting information
1495
e6f03d26 1496Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1497corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1498including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1499subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1500
7f678428 1501Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1502http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1503various other operating systems.
1504
ce80d64e 1505If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0
JA
1506section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
1507in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file Porting/patching.pod.
1508Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1509
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1510=back
1511
ce80d64e 1512=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
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1513
1514You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1515CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1516command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1517
1518 Configure -Dextras="Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI"
1519
1520or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
1521then answer "Compress::Zlib Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
1522The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
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1523This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1524extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1525extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
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1526
1527Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1528modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1529or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1530do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1531
1532Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1533dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
1534For example: you will need to have the zlib.h header and the libz
1535library installed for the Compress::Zlib, or the Foo database specific
1536headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1537process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1538
ce80d64e 1539=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1540
ce80d64e
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1541suidperl is an optional component, which is normally neither built
1542nor installed by default. From perlfaq1:
03739d21
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1543
1544 On some systems, setuid and setgid scripts (scripts written
1545 in the C shell, Bourne shell, or Perl, for example, with the
1546 set user or group ID permissions enabled) are insecure due to
1547 a race condition in the kernel. For those systems, Perl versions
1548 5 and 4 attempt to work around this vulnerability with an optional
1549 component, a special program named suidperl, also known as sperl.
1550 This program attempts to emulate the set-user-ID and set-group-ID
1551 features of the kernel.
1552
1553Because of the buggy history of suidperl, and the difficulty
1554of properly security auditing as large and complex piece of
1555software as Perl, we cannot recommend using suidperl and the feature
1556should be considered deprecated.
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1557Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle changes in
1558privileges, such as B<sudo>, http://www.courtesan.com/sudo/ .
03739d21 1559
8e07c86e
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1560=head1 make depend
1561
bfb7748a
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1562This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1563The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1564the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1565makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
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1566(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1567Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
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1568
1569Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1570explicitly above.
1571
1572=head1 make
1573
1574This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1575
8d410bc4
YST
1576=head2 Expected errors
1577
1578These errors are normal, and can be ignored:
1579
1580 ...
1581 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1582 ...
1583 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1584
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1585=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1586
8e07c86e 1587If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1588If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1589the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
40dd8381 1590then see L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
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1591
1592=over 4
1593
1ec51d55 1594=item hints
8e07c86e
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1595
1596If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1597for further tips and information.
1598
1ec51d55 1599=item extensions
8e07c86e 1600
1ec51d55 1601If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1602during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1603
3a6175e1 1604 make minitest
c3edaffb 1605
1606to test your version of miniperl.
1607
e57fd563 1608=item locale
1609
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1610If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1611them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1612running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1613See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
1614whole L<"Locale problems"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1615The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1616
1617 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1618 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1619 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1620 LANG = (unset)
1621 are supported and installed on your system.
1622 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1623
1624at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1625
7f678428 1626=item varargs
c3edaffb 1627
1628If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1629correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1630gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1631in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1632correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1633your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1634See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1635
bfb7748a 1636=item util.c
c3edaffb 1637
1638If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1639numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1640
bfb7748a
AD
1641 util.c: In function `Perl_form':
1642 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1643 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1644
1645it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1646previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1647
1ec51d55 1648=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1649
1650If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1651the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1652Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1653fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
1654of your local set-up.
1655
aa689395 1656=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1657
1658If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1659try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1660with
1661
1662 sh Configure -Uusenm
1663
1664or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1665If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1666config.sh.
1667
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AD
1668=item umask not found
1669
1670If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1671is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1672Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1673this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1674try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1675
7f678428 1676=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1677
1678If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1679problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1680version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1681(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1682d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1683
1684 d_vprintf='define'
1685
1686If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1687on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1688the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1689
3fe9a6f1 1690=item do_aspawn
1691
1692If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1693problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
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1694fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1695on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1696
84902520
TB
1697=item __inet_* errors
1698
1699If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1700referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1701installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1702these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1703in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1704newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1705If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1706with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1707test process to avoid the problem.
1708
1709=item *_r() prototype NOT found
1710
1711On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
1712reentrant functions - specifically networking-related ones - being present
1713but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1714other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1715header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1716another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1717Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
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1718header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1719normally /usr/include).
84902520 1720
d6baa268
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1721=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1722
1723This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1724gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1725changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1726rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1727update your gcc installation.
1728
aa689395 1729=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1730
9d67150a 1731If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1732optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1733
1734 optimize='-O'
1735
bfb7748a 1736to
9d67150a 1737
1738 optimize=' '
1739
1740then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1741with B<make depend; make>.
1742
4bbc1586 1743=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1744
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1745If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1746undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1747should look something like
1748
1749 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1750
1751The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1752need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1753will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1754need to start all over again. Run
1755
1756 make distclean
1757
1758and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1759what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1760Configure.
1761
1762If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1763L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1764
1765If you stil have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
1766need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1767that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1768you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1769look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1770
1ec51d55 1771=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1772
1ec51d55
CS
1773Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1774toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1775allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
1776each file in cflags. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1777makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
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1778specific rule.
1779
7f678428 1780=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1781
c3edaffb 1782SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1783that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1784
f3d9a6ba 1785=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1786
1787If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1788the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1789then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1790Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1791systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
7f678428 1792For example, a system may have -lcposix or -lposix, but it's
1793unlikely to have both, so most users will see warnings for the one
f3d9a6ba
CS
1794they don't have. The phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to
1795reassure you that nothing unusual is happening, and the build
1796process is continuing.
7f678428 1797
1798On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1799message
1800
f3d9a6ba 1801 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1802
1803then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1804the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1805extension without the -lgdbm library.
1806
1807It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1808this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1809quite that tightly coordinated.
1810
aa689395 1811=item sh: ar: not found
1812
1813This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1814was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1815make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1816is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1817directory.
1818
1819=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1820
1821Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1822with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1823bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1824
6087ac44
JH
1825=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1826
11906ba0 1827If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1828V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1829also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1830to include the System V semaphores.
1831
11906ba0 1832=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1833
1834Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1835both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1836ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1837with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1838system.
1839
d6baa268
JH
1840=item GNU binutils
1841
1842If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1843tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1844with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1845may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1846under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1847to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1848vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1849Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1850
16dc217a
GS
1851=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1852
1853The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1854make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1855archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1856C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1857archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1858incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1859official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1860that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1861archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1862
16dc217a
GS
1863=item invalid token: ##
1864
ce80d64e
AD
1865You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1866need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1867file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1868options.
16dc217a 1869
1ec51d55 1870=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e
AD
1871
1872Some additional things that have been reported for either perl4 or perl5:
1873
1874Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1875
1876NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1877
9ede5bc8 1878UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1879
11906ba0 1880FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1881configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1882you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1883
d6baa268
JH
1884HP-UX 11 Y2K patch "Y2K-1100 B.11.00.B0125 HP-UX Core OS Year 2000
1885Patch Bundle" has been reported to break the io/fs test #18 which
1886tests whether utime() can change timestamps. The Y2K patch seems to
1887break utime() so that over NFS the timestamps do not get changed
1888(on local filesystems utime() still works).
1889
6c8d78fb
HS
1890Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1891installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1892and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1893the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1894view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1895to avoid the BIND.
1896
8e07c86e
AD
1897=back
1898
58a21a9b
JH
1899=head2 Cross-compilation
1900
e7a3c61b
JH
1901Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1902rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1903June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1904the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1905while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1906platforms.
1907
1908What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1909cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1910up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1911(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1912awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1913version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
1914cross-compilation support, please keep reading.
1915
1916See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1917the particular platforms:
1918
1919=over 4
1920
1921=item WinCE/PocketPC
1922
75472953 1923README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1924
1925=item Open Zaurus
1926
1927Cross/README
1928
1929=item EPOC
1930
1931README.epoc
1932
1933=item Symbian
1934
1935README.symbian
1936
1937=item OS/400
1938
1939README.os400
1940
1941=back
1942
1943Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1944modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1945cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1946platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1947L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1948of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1949
1950For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1951C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1952directory>.
1953
1954About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1955work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1956building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1957building the perl executable because that would require building
1958extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1959extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1960cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1961
1962The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1963at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1964both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1965cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1966target system.
1967
1968To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1969has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1970
1971 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1972
1973This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1974symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1975for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1976
1977During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1978into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1979cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1980target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1981transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1982the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1983methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1984F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1985
1986To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1987the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1988happens), supply Configure with
1989
1990 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1991
1992The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1993must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1994You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1995
1996 -Dtargetuser=luser
1997
1998but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1999
93bc48fa
JH
2000Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
2001which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
2002This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
2003In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
2004environment:
58a21a9b
JH
2005
2006 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
2007 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
2008 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
2009 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
2010 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
2011
2012If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
2013compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
2014C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
2015(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
2016as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
2017will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
2018in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
2019
2020In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
2021choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
2022for example:
2023
2024 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
2025
2026Putting it all together:
2027
2028 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
2029 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2030 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
2031 -Dtargetuser=root \
2032 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
2033 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2034 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2035 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
2036 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
2037 -D...
2038
e7a3c61b 2039or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
2040
2041 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2042 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2043 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
2044 -D...
2045
e7a3c61b
JH
2046Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
2047F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
2048
2049 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
2050 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
2051 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
2052 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2053 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
2054 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
2055
8e07c86e
AD
2056=head1 make test
2057
d6baa268
JH
2058This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
2059'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
2060wrong. See the file t/README in the t subdirectory.
84902520 2061
84902520 2062Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 2063opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
2064a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 2065
c4f23d77
AD
2066=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
2067
1ec51d55
CS
2068If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
2069by hand to see if it makes any difference. If individual tests
c3edaffb 2070bomb, you can run them by hand, e.g.,
8e07c86e
AD
2071
2072 ./perl op/groups.t
2073
aa689395 2074Another way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1ec51d55 2075individual subtests is to cd to the t directory and run
aa689395 2076
2077 ./perl harness
2078
fb73857a 2079(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
10c7e831
JH
2080complicated constructs). For extension and library tests you
2081need a little bit more: you need to setup your environment variable
2082PERL_CORE to a true value (like "1"), and you need to supply the
2083right Perl library path:
2084
2085 setenv PERL_CORE 1
2086 ./perl -I../lib ../ext/Socket/Socket.t
2087 ./perl -I../lib ../lib/less.t
aa689395 2088
5cda700b 2089(For csh-like shells on UNIX; adjust appropriately for other platforms.)
fb73857a 2090You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
2091comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
2092shared library path if you get errors like:
2093
2094 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
2095
2096See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 2097
c4f23d77
AD
2098=over 4
2099
2100=item locale
2101
1ec51d55 2102Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 2103may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
3fe9a6f1 2104B<make test> exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
2105one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
2106LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 2107are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
2108
2109If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 2110
2111 setenv LC_ALL C
2112
2113(for C shell) or
2114
2115 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
2116
1ec51d55
CS
2117for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
2118make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 2119is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 2120shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
2121things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
2122open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 2123external program.
eed2e782 2124
0740bb5b
AD
2125=item Timing problems
2126
c29923ff
JH
2127Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
2128sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
2129If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
2130these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
2131with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
2132and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
2133F<ext/Time/HiRes/HiRes.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
2134F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 2135
c4f23d77
AD
2136=item Out of memory
2137
2138On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
2139of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
2140For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
2141test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
2142
2143Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
2144
2145 cd t; ./perl op/pat.t
2146
2147to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
2148test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
2149tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
2150and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
2151
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2152=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
2153
2154First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
2155real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
2156
2157Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
2158directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
2159systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
2160run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
2161test').
2162
2163The tests may fail for the following reasons:
2164
2165(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
2166other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
2167
2168This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
2169unpacked in such a way that the user ids in the distribution package
2170are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
2171
2172(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
2173by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2174UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2175add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2176used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2177set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2178file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2179others.)
2180
2181This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2182permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2183also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2184is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2185should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2186supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2187used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
218811.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2189on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2190local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2191
b2b23189
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2192(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2193any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2194directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
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2195(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2196building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2197module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
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2198
2199See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2200about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2201
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2202=back
2203
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2204=head1 make install
2205
2206This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2207Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2208to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2209pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
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2210are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2211in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2212
2213If "make install" just says "`install' is up to date" or something
2214similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2215and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2216by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2217
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2218=head2 Installing perl under different names
2219
2220If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2221when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2222indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2223
2224 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2225
beb13193
RS
2226You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
2227"perl5.005") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
2228
2229 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2230
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2231This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2232avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
2233Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.005".
beb13193 2234
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2235=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2236
2237You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2238the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2239
2240 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2241
2242DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
2243the example in L<"Creating an installable tar archive"> above.
2244
2245
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2246=head2 Installed files
2247
8e07c86e
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2248If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2249anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2250
8e07c86e
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2251 ./perl installperl -n
2252 ./perl installman -n
2253
1ec51d55 2254make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2255
d56c5707
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2256 binaries
2257
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2258 perl,
2259 perl5.nnn where nnn is the current release number. This
2260 will be a link to perl.
2261 suidperl,
2262 sperl5.nnn If you requested setuid emulation.
2263 a2p awk-to-perl translator
d56c5707
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2264
2265 scripts
2266
8e07c86e
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2267 cppstdin This is used by perl -P, if your cc -E can't
2268 read from stdin.
2269 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
2270 s2p sed-to-perl translator
2271 find2perl find-to-perl translator
aa689395 2272 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers
8e07c86e 2273 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
24b3df7f 2274 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2275 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
aa689395 2276 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules
8e07c86e 2277 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2278 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
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2279 pod2man,
2280 pod2text,
2281 pod2checker,
2282 pod2select,
2283 pod2usage
aa689395 2284 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors
95667ae4 2285 dprofpp Perl code profile post-processor
8e07c86e 2286
d56c5707
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2287 library files
2288
2289 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2290 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
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2291
2292 documentation
2293
d6baa268
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2294 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2295 module man
2296 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
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2297 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2298
d6baa268
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2299Installperl will also create the directories listed above
2300in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2301
d56c5707 2302Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2303under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
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2304optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2305program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2306
d56c5707
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2307Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2308installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
2309perl alongside an already installed production version of perl without
2310disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2311To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2312
2313 Configure -Dversiononly
2314
2315or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2316you can just manually run
2317
2318 ./perl installperl -v
2319
2320and skip installman altogether.
2321See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2322approach.
2323
aa689395 2324=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5
4633a7c4 2325
9a664500 2326Perl 5.9 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2327In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2328
693762b4 2329In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
9a664500 23305.8.0) to another similar version (e.g. 5.8.2) without re-compiling
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2331all of your add-on extensions. You can also safely leave the old version
2332around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
2333For example, if you want to be sure that your script continues to run
9a664500 2334with 5.8.2, simply replace the '#!/usr/local/bin/perl' line at the
693762b4 2335top of the script with the particular version you want to run, e.g.
9a664500 2336#!/usr/local/bin/perl5.8.2.
693762b4 2337
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2338Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to use
2339with a newer version of Perl Here is how it is supposed to work.
2340(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2341
d6baa268
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2342Suppose you already have version 5.005_03 installed. The directories
2343searched by 5.005_03 are
2344
2345 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503/$archname
2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.00503
2347 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2348 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
2349
0a08c020
GS
2350Beginning with 5.6.0 the version number in the site libraries are
2351fully versioned. Now, suppose you install version 5.6.0. The directories
2352searched by version 5.6.0 will be
d6baa268 2353
0a08c020
GS
2354 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0/$archname
2355 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.6.0
2356 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0/$archname
2357 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268
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2358
2359 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005/$archname
2360 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
c42e3e15 2361 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2362
c42e3e15 2363Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268
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2364of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
2365directories. This way, modules installed under 5.005_03 will continue
0a08c020 2366to be usable by 5.005_03 but will also accessible to 5.6.0. Further,
d6baa268 2367suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
0a08c020
GS
2368present only in 5.6.0. That new module will get installed into
2369/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0 and will be available to 5.6.0,
d6baa268 2370but will not interfere with the 5.005_03 version.
bfb7748a 2371
c42e3e15 2372The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23735.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2374
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2375Lastly, suppose you now install 5.8.0, which is not binary compatible
2376with 5.6.0. The directories searched by 5.8.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2377Configure defaults) will be:
2378
2379 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0/$archname
2380 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.0
2381 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0/$archname
2382 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.0
d6baa268 2383
0a08c020 2384 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.6.0
d6baa268 2385
d6baa268 2386 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.005
fe23a901 2387
d6baa268 2388 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2389
cc65bb49
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2390Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2391modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2392
0a08c020 2393Assuming the users in your site are still actively using perl 5.6.0 and
fe23a901 23945.005 after you installed 5.8.0, you can continue to install add-on
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2395extensions using any of perl 5.8.0, 5.6.0, or 5.005. The installations
2396of these different versions remain distinct, but remember that the
2397newer versions of perl are automatically set up to search the
2398compatible site libraries of the older ones. This means that
2399installing a new XS extension with 5.005 will make it visible to both
24005.005 and 5.6.0, but not to 5.8.0. Installing a pure perl module with
24015.005 will make it visible to all three versions. Later, if you
2402install the same extension using, say, perl 5.8.0, it will override the
24035.005-installed version, but only for perl 5.8.0.
0a08c020
GS
2404
2405This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2406to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2407versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
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2408
2409=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2410
1ec51d55 2411Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2412separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2413won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2414libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2415way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2416
9a664500 2417 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.8.2
d52d4e46 2418
9a664500 2419and adding /opt/perl5.8.2/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2420may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2421scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2422
693762b4 2423Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
cc65bb49 2424(e.g. 5.8 for all 5.8.x versions), but change directory with
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2425each major version.
2426
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2427If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2428seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2429subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2430yet.
2431
e655887d 2432=head2 Upgrading from 5.005 or 5.6 to 5.8.0
693762b4 2433
9a664500 2434B<Perl 5.9.0 is binary incompatible with Perl 5.8.x, Perl 5.6.x, 5.005,
e655887d
CB
2435and any earlier Perl release.> Perl modules having binary parts
2436(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
9a664500
AMS
2437used with 5.9.0. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24385.9.0, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
e655887d
CB
2439installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl5">
2440above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2441
2442See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2443incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2444perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2445
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2446=head1 Coexistence with perl4
2447
2448You can safely install perl5 even if you want to keep perl4 around.
2449
1ec51d55
CS
2450By default, the perl5 libraries go into /usr/local/lib/perl5/, so
2451they don't override the perl4 libraries in /usr/local/lib/perl/.
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2452
2453In your /usr/local/bin directory, you should have a binary named
1ec51d55 2454perl4.036. That will not be touched by the perl5 installation
8e07c86e
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2455process. Most perl4 scripts should run just fine under perl5.
2456However, if you have any scripts that require perl4, you can replace
d6baa268 2457the #! line at the top of them by #!/usr/local/bin/perl4.036 (or
4dc3e0af 2458whatever the appropriate pathname is). See L<perltrap> for
d6baa268 2459possible problems running perl4 scripts under perl5.
8e07c86e 2460
aa689395 2461=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2462
d6baa268
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2463Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2464system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
1ec51d55 2465header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
d6baa268
JH
2466by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2467library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
aa689395 2468
d6baa268
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2469Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
2470of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2471hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2472For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2473structures.
aa689395 2474
fb73857a 2475=head1 installhtml --help
aa689395 2476
3e3baf6d
TB
2477Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2478format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
fb73857a 2479documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
aa689395 2480
d6baa268
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2481Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2482html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2483
fb73857a 2484The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
3e3baf6d 2485perl documentation:
aa689395 2486
3e3baf6d
TB
2487 ./installhtml \
2488 --podroot=. \
2489 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2490 --recurse \
2491 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2492 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2493 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2494 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
2495 --libpods=perlfunc:perlguts:perlvar:perlrun:perlop \
2496 --verbose
2497
2498See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2499many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2500see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2501resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2502(and would welcome patches for them).
aa689395 2503
fb73857a 2504You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2505the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2506
aa689395 2507=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2508
2509Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2510available in TeX format. Type
2511
2512 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2513
8ebf57cf
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2514=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2515
2516The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2517Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2518operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2519
c8214fdf 2520Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
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2521Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2522space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2523Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2524programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2525depends on what do you need to do.
2526
8ebf57cf
JH
2527In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2528recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2529depends on what you need.
2530
2531Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2532
2533 use strict;
2534 use warnings;
2535 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2536 print("$f\n");
2537 }
2538
bfe08c74 2539in Linux is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2540
2541 ./bin/perl
bfe08c74
RGS
2542 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/strict.pm
2543 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/warnings.pm
2544 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2545 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/XSLoader.pm
2546 ./lib/perl5/5.9.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf
JH
2547
2548Secondly, Debian perl-base package contains the following files,
bfe08c74 2549size about 1.9MB in its i386 version:
8ebf57cf 2550
bfe08c74
RGS
2551 /usr/bin/perl
2552 /usr/bin/perl5.8.4
2553 /usr/lib/perl/5.8
2554 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B.pm
2555 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/B/Deparse.pm
2556 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Config.pm
2557 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Cwd.pm
2558 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Data/Dumper.pm
2559 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/DynaLoader.pm
2560 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Errno.pm
2561 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Fcntl.pm
2562 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/File/Glob.pm
2563 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO.pm
2564 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/File.pm
2565 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Handle.pm
2566 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Pipe.pm
2567 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Seekable.pm
2568 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Select.pm
2569 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket.pm
2570 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/POSIX.pm
2571 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/Socket.pm
2572 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/XSLoader.pm
2573 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.bs
2574 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2575 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.bs
2576 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Data/Dumper/Dumper.so
2577 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/DynaLoader.a
2578 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2579 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2580 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2581 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2582 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/DynaLoader/extralibs.ld
2583 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.bs
2584 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2585 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.bs
2586 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2587 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.bs
2588 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/IO/IO.so
2589 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.bs
2590 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2591 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2592 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2593 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.bs
2594 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2595 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/lib.pm
2596 /usr/lib/perl/5.8.4/re.pm
2597 /usr/share/doc/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2598 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2599 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
2600 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian.gz
8ebf57cf 2601 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2602 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
8ebf57cf 2603 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
bfe08c74
RGS
2604 /usr/share/perl/5.8
2605 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/AutoLoader.pm
2606 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp.pm
2607 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Carp/Heavy.pm
2608 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter.pm
2609 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2610 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec.pm
2611 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2612 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/FileHandle.pm
2613 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Getopt/Long.pm
2614 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2615 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2616 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open2.pm
2617 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/IPC/Open3.pm
2618 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/List/Util.pm
2619 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Scalar/Util.pm
2620 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/SelectSaver.pm
2621 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Symbol.pm
2622 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/ParseWords.pm
2623 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Tabs.pm
2624 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/Text/Wrap.pm
2625 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/attributes.pm
2626 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/base.pm
2627 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes.pm
2628 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/bytes_heavy.pl
2629 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/constant.pm
2630 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/fields.pm
2631 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/integer.pm
2632 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/locale.pm
2633 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/overload.pm
2634 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/strict.pm
2635 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8.pm
2636 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/utf8_heavy.pl
2637 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/vars.pm
2638 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings.pm
2639 /usr/share/perl/5.8.4/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2640
e7a3c61b
JH
2641A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2642need to run a Perl program is
2643
2644 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
2645
2646(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2647it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2648use something like the below
2649
2650 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2651
2652(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2653and 'ktrace'.)
2654
8e07c86e
AD
2655=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2656
bfb7748a
AD
2657Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2658is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2659build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
bfb7748a
AD
2660can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2661sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
8e07c86e 2662
1ec51d55 2663Under UNIX, you can produce a documentation book in postscript form,
bfb7748a
AD
2664along with its table of contents, by going to the pod/ subdirectory and
2665running (either):
34a2a22e
RM
2666
2667 ./roffitall -groff # If you have GNU groff installed
aa689395 2668 ./roffitall -psroff # If you have psroff
34a2a22e
RM
2669
2670This will leave you with two postscript files ready to be printed.
aa689395 2671(You may need to fix the roffitall command to use your local troff
2672set-up.)
34a2a22e 2673
bfb7748a
AD
2674Note that you must have performed the installation already before running
2675the above, since the script collects the installed files to generate
2676the documentation.
34a2a22e 2677
8e07c86e
AD
2678=head1 AUTHOR
2679
bfb7748a
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2680Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2681heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2682feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
fb73857a 2683
f5b3b617
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2684If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2685L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2686
2687=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2688
2689This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2690the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2691If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
d6baa268
JH
2692a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2693and the contact information to match your distribution.