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fix RT#88840, don't terminate a child fork psuedo process in DLL Loader Lock
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1If you read this file _as_is_, just ignore the funny characters you see.
2It is written in the POD format (see pod/perlpod.pod) which is specially
3designed to be readable as is.
4
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5=head1 NAME
6
cb8c159f 7INSTALL - Build and Installation guide for perl 5.
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8
9=head1 SYNOPSIS
10
7df75831 11First, make sure you have an up-to-date version of Perl. If you
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12didn't get your Perl source from CPAN, check the latest version at
13http://www.cpan.org/src/. Perl uses a version scheme where even-numbered
08854360 14subreleases (like 5.8.x and 5.10.x) are stable maintenance releases and
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15odd-numbered subreleases (like 5.7.x and 5.9.x) are unstable
16development releases. Development releases should not be used in
17production environments. Fixes and new features are first carefully
18tested in development releases and only if they prove themselves to be
19worthy will they be migrated to the maintenance releases.
3ce0d271 20
7df75831 21The basic steps to build and install perl 5 on a Unix system with all
dd3196cd 22the defaults are to run, from a freshly unpacked source tree:
8e07c86e 23
491517e0 24 sh Configure -de
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25 make
26 make test
27 make install
36477c24 28
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29Each of these is explained in further detail below.
30
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31The above commands will install Perl to /usr/local (or some other
32platform-specific directory -- see the appropriate file in hints/.)
7df75831 33If that's not okay with you, you can run Configure interactively, by
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34just typing "sh Configure" (without the -de args). You can also specify
35any prefix location by adding "-Dprefix='/some/dir'" to Configure's args.
36To explicitly name the perl binary, use the command
37"make install PERLNAME=myperl".
491517e0 38
668cbedd 39Building perl from source requires an ANSI compliant C compiler.
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40A minimum of C89 is required. Some features available in C99 will
41be probed for and used when found. The perl build process does not
42rely on anything more than C89.
43
ff52061e 44These options, and many more, are explained in further detail below.
7f678428 45
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46If you're building perl from a git repository, you should also consult
47the documentation in pod/perlgit.pod for information on that special
48circumstance.
49
8d74ce1c 50If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
ff52061e 51L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 52
7beaa944 53For information on what's new in this release, see the
37ee6528 54pod/perldelta.pod file. For more information about how to find more
9519d2ec 55specific detail about changes, see the Changes file.
c3edaffb 56
1ec51d55 57=head1 DESCRIPTION
edb1cbcb 58
c3edaffb 59This document is written in pod format as an easy way to indicate its
60structure. The pod format is described in pod/perlpod.pod, but you can
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61read it as is with any pager or editor. Headings and items are marked
62by lines beginning with '='. The other mark-up used is
63
64 B<text> embolden text, used for switches, programs or commands
65 C<code> literal code
66 L<name> A link (cross reference) to name
ce80d64e 67 F<file> A filename
1ec51d55 68
c42e3e15 69Although most of the defaults are probably fine for most users,
ce80d64e 70you should probably at least skim through this document before
1ec51d55 71proceeding.
c3edaffb 72
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73In addition to this file, check if there is a README file specific to
74your operating system, since it may provide additional or different
75instructions for building Perl. If there is a hint file for your
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76system (in the hints/ directory) you might also want to read it
77for even more information.
c42e3e15 78
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79For additional information about porting Perl, see the section on
80L<"Porting information"> below, and look at the files in the Porting/
81directory.
d56c5707 82
ce80d64e 83=head1 PRELIMINARIES
c42e3e15 84
ce80d64e 85=head2 Changes and Incompatibilities
c42e3e15 86
37ee6528 87Please see pod/perldelta.pod for a description of the changes and
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88potential incompatibilities introduced with this release. A few of
89the most important issues are listed below, but you should refer
37ee6528 90to pod/perldelta.pod for more detailed information.
c42e3e15 91
fdd3cf50 92B<WARNING:> This version is not binary compatible with prior releases of Perl.
cc65bb49 93If you have built extensions (i.e. modules that include C code)
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94using an earlier version of Perl, you will need to rebuild and reinstall
95those extensions.
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96
97Pure perl modules without XS or C code should continue to work fine
dd3196cd 98without reinstallation. See the discussion below on
7df75831 99L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> for more details.
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100
101The standard extensions supplied with Perl will be handled automatically.
102
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103On a related issue, old modules may possibly be affected by the changes
104in the Perl language in the current release. Please see
37ee6528 105pod/perldelta.pod for a description of what's changed. See your
ce80d64e 106installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly incomplete)
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107list of locally installed modules. Also see the L<CPAN> module's
108C<autobundle> function for one way to make a "bundle" of your currently
109installed modules.
16dc217a 110
aa689395 111=head1 Run Configure
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112
113Configure will figure out various things about your system. Some
114things Configure will figure out for itself, other things it will ask
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115you about. To accept the default, just press RETURN. The default is
116almost always okay. It is normal for some things to be "NOT found",
117since Configure often searches for many different ways of performing
118the same function.
119
ce80d64e 120At any Configure prompt, you can type &-d and Configure will use the
d6baa268 121defaults from then on.
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122
123After it runs, Configure will perform variable substitution on all the
1ec51d55 124*.SH files and offer to run make depend.
8e07c86e 125
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126The results of a Configure run are stored in the config.sh and Policy.sh
127files.
128
ce80d64e 129=head2 Common Configure options
844fc9f4 130
ce80d64e 131Configure supports a number of useful options. Run
844fc9f4 132
ce80d64e 133 Configure -h
d6baa268 134
ce80d64e 135to get a listing. See the Porting/Glossary file for a complete list of
fb73857a 136Configure variables you can set and their definitions.
137
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138=over 4
139
08854360 140=item C compiler
d6baa268 141
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142To compile with gcc, if it's not the default compiler on your
143system, you should run
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144
145 sh Configure -Dcc=gcc
146
08854360 147This is the preferred way to specify gcc (or any another alternative
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148compiler) so that the hints files can set appropriate defaults.
149
d6baa268 150=item Installation prefix
4633a7c4 151
8e07c86e 152By default, for most systems, perl will be installed in
8d74ce1c 153/usr/local/{bin, lib, man}. (See L<"Installation Directories">
7df75831 154and L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for
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155further details.)
156
157You can specify a different 'prefix' for the default installation
ce80d64e 158directory when Configure prompts you, or by using the Configure command
8d74ce1c 159line option -Dprefix='/some/directory', e.g.
8e07c86e 160
25f94b33 161 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl
4633a7c4 162
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163If your prefix contains the string "perl", then the suggested
164directory structure is simplified. For example, if you use
165prefix=/opt/perl, then Configure will suggest /opt/perl/lib instead of
166/opt/perl/lib/perl5/. Again, see L<"Installation Directories"> below
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167for more details. Do not include a trailing slash, (i.e. /opt/perl/)
168or you may experience odd test failures.
8e07c86e 169
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170NOTE: You must not specify an installation directory that is the same
171as or below your perl source directory. If you do, installperl will
172attempt infinite recursion.
84902520 173
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174=item /usr/bin/perl
175
176It may seem obvious, but Perl is useful only when users can easily
177find it. It's often a good idea to have both /usr/bin/perl and
dd64f1c3 178/usr/local/bin/perl be symlinks to the actual binary. Be especially
d6baa268 179careful, however, not to overwrite a version of perl supplied by your
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180vendor unless you are sure you know what you are doing. If you insist
181on replacing your vendor's perl, useful information on how it was
182configured may be found with
183
184 perl -V:config_args
185
186(Check the output carefully, however, since this doesn't preserve
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187spaces in arguments to Configure. For that, you have to look carefully
188at config_arg1, config_arg2, etc.)
d6baa268 189
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190By default, Configure will not try to link /usr/bin/perl to the current
191version of perl. You can turn on that behavior by running
d6baa268 192
7d56c962 193 Configure -Dinstallusrbinperl
d6baa268 194
7d56c962 195or by answering 'yes' to the appropriate Configure prompt.
d6baa268 196
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197In any case, system administrators are strongly encouraged to put
198(symlinks to) perl and its accompanying utilities, such as perldoc,
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199into a directory typically found along a user's PATH, or in another
200obvious and convenient place.
201
71c4561b 202=item Building a development release
04d420f9 203
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204For development releases (odd subreleases, like 5.9.x) if you want to
205use Configure -d, you will also need to supply -Dusedevel to Configure,
206because the default answer to the question "do you really want to
207Configure a development version?" is "no". The -Dusedevel skips that
208sanity check.
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209
210=back
8e07c86e 211
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212If you are willing to accept all the defaults, and you want terse
213output, you can run
214
215 sh Configure -des
216
dd3196cd 217=head2 Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.
46bb10fb 218
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219For most users, most of the Configure defaults are fine, or can easily
220be set on the Configure command line. However, if Configure doesn't
221have an option to do what you want, you can change Configure variables
222after the platform hints have been run by using Configure's -A switch.
223For example, here's how to add a couple of extra flags to C compiler
224invocations:
46bb10fb 225
08854360 226 sh Configure -Accflags="-DPERL_EXTERNAL_GLOB -DNO_HASH_SEED"
46bb10fb 227
5247441a 228To clarify, those ccflags values are not Configure options; if passed to
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229Configure directly, they won't do anything useful (they will define a
230variable in config.sh, but without taking any action based upon it).
231But when passed to the compiler, those flags will activate #ifdefd code.
5247441a 232
ce80d64e 233For more help on Configure switches, run
46bb10fb 234
ce80d64e 235 sh Configure -h
46bb10fb 236
ce80d64e 237=head2 Major Configure-time Build Options
46bb10fb 238
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239There are several different ways to Configure and build perl for your
240system. For most users, the defaults are sensible and will work.
241Some users, however, may wish to further customize perl. Here are
242some of the main things you can change.
46bb10fb 243
ce80d64e 244=head3 Threads
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246On some platforms, perl can be compiled with support for threads. To
247enable this, run
4633a7c4 248
ce80d64e 249 sh Configure -Dusethreads
4633a7c4 250
ce80d64e 251The default is to compile without thread support.
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253Perl used to have two different internal threads implementations. The current
254model (available internally since 5.6, and as a user-level module since 5.8) is
255called interpreter-based implementation (ithreads), with one interpreter per
256thread, and explicit sharing of data. The (deprecated) 5.005 version
54c46bd5 257(5005threads) was removed for release 5.10.
d6baa268 258
ce80d64e 259The 'threads' module is for use with the ithreads implementation. The
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260'Thread' module emulates the old 5005threads interface on top of the current
261ithreads model.
d6baa268 262
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263When using threads, perl uses a dynamically-sized buffer for some of
264the thread-safe library calls, such as those in the getpw*() family.
265This buffer starts small, but it will keep growing until the result
266fits. To get a fixed upper limit, you should compile Perl with
267PERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE defined to be the number of bytes you want. One
268way to do this is to run Configure with
08854360 269C<-Accflags=-DPERL_REENTRANT_MAXSIZE=65536>.
d6baa268 270
08854360 271=head3 Large file support
b367e8b0 272
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273Since Perl 5.6.0, Perl has supported large files (files larger than
2742 gigabytes), and in many common platforms like Linux or Solaris this
275support is on by default.
d6baa268 276
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277This is both good and bad. It is good in that you can use large files,
278seek(), stat(), and -s them. It is bad in that if you are interfacing Perl
279using some extension, the components you are connecting to must also
280be large file aware: if Perl thinks files can be large but the other
281parts of the software puzzle do not understand the concept, bad things
08854360 282will happen.
d6baa268 283
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284There's also one known limitation with the current large files
285implementation: unless you also have 64-bit integers (see the next
286section), you cannot use the printf/sprintf non-decimal integer formats
287like C<%x> to print filesizes. You can use C<%d>, though.
d6baa268 288
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289If you want to compile perl without large file support, use
290
291 sh Configure -Uuselargefiles
292
08854360 293=head3 64 bit support
d6baa268 294
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295If your platform does not run natively at 64 bits, but can simulate
296them with compiler flags and/or C<long long> or C<int64_t>,
ce80d64e 297you can build a perl that uses 64 bits.
d6baa268 298
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299There are actually two modes of 64-bitness: the first one is achieved
300using Configure -Duse64bitint and the second one using Configure
301-Duse64bitall. The difference is that the first one is minimal and
302the second one maximal. The first works in more places than the second.
d6baa268 303
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304The C<use64bitint> option does only as much as is required to get
30564-bit integers into Perl (this may mean, for example, using "long
306longs") while your memory may still be limited to 2 gigabytes (because
307your pointers could still be 32-bit). Note that the name C<64bitint>
308does not imply that your C compiler will be using 64-bit C<int>s (it
309might, but it doesn't have to). The C<use64bitint> simply means that
310you will be able to have 64 bit-wide scalar values.
d6baa268 311
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312The C<use64bitall> option goes all the way by attempting to switch
313integers (if it can), longs (and pointers) to being 64-bit. This may
314create an even more binary incompatible Perl than -Duse64bitint: the
315resulting executable may not run at all in a 32-bit box, or you may
316have to reboot/reconfigure/rebuild your operating system to be 64-bit
317aware.
d6baa268 318
08854360 319Natively 64-bit systems need neither -Duse64bitint nor -Duse64bitall.
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320On these systems, it might be the default compilation mode, and there
321is currently no guarantee that passing no use64bitall option to the
322Configure process will build a 32bit perl. Implementing -Duse32bit*
1ed7425e 323options is planned for a future release of perl.
d6baa268 324
ce80d64e 325=head3 Long doubles
d6baa268 326
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327In some systems you may be able to use long doubles to enhance the
328range and precision of your double precision floating point numbers
329(that is, Perl's numbers). Use Configure -Duselongdouble to enable
330this support (if it is available).
d6baa268 331
ce80d64e 332=head3 "more bits"
b367e8b0 333
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334You can "Configure -Dusemorebits" to turn on both the 64-bit support
335and the long double support.
b367e8b0 336
ce80d64e 337=head3 Algorithmic Complexity Attacks on Hashes
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338
339In Perls 5.8.0 and earlier it was easy to create degenerate hashes.
340Processing such hashes would consume large amounts of CPU time,
3debabd9 341enabling a "Denial of Service" attack against Perl. Such hashes may be
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342a problem for example for mod_perl sites, sites with Perl CGI scripts
343and web services, that process data originating from external sources.
344
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345In Perl 5.8.1 a security feature was introduced to make it harder to
346create such degenerate hashes. A visible side effect of this was that
347the keys(), values(), and each() functions may return the hash elements
348in different order between different runs of Perl even with the same
349data. It also had unintended binary incompatibility issues with
350certain modules compiled against Perl 5.8.0.
351
352In Perl 5.8.2 an improved scheme was introduced. Hashes will return
353elements in the same order as Perl 5.8.0 by default. On a hash by hash
354basis, if pathological data is detected during a hash key insertion,
355then that hash will switch to an alternative random hash seed. As
356adding keys can always dramatically change returned hash element order,
357existing programs will not be affected by this, unless they
358specifically test for pre-recorded hash return order for contrived
359data. (eg the list of keys generated by C<map {"\0"x$_} 0..15> trigger
360randomisation) In effect the new implementation means that 5.8.1 scheme
361is only being used on hashes which are under attack.
362
363One can still revert to the old guaranteed repeatable order (and be
364vulnerable to attack by wily crackers) by setting the environment
365variable PERL_HASH_SEED, see L<perlrun/PERL_HASH_SEED>. Another option
366is to add -DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT to the compilation flags (for
f80da78e 367example by using C<Configure -Accflags=-DUSE_HASH_SEED_EXPLICIT>), in
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368which case one has to explicitly set the PERL_HASH_SEED environment
369variable to enable the security feature, or by adding -DNO_HASH_SEED to
370the compilation flags to completely disable the randomisation feature.
504f80c1 371
3debabd9 372B<Perl has never guaranteed any ordering of the hash keys>, and the
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373ordering has already changed several times during the lifetime of Perl
3745. Also, the ordering of hash keys has always been, and continues to
08854360 375be, affected by the insertion order. Note that because of this
86358043 376randomisation for example the Data::Dumper results will be different
08854360 377between different runs of Perl, since Data::Dumper by default dumps
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378hashes "unordered". The use of the Data::Dumper C<Sortkeys> option is
379recommended.
504f80c1 380
ce80d64e 381=head3 SOCKS
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382
383Perl can be configured to be 'socksified', that is, to use the SOCKS
384TCP/IP proxy protocol library. SOCKS is used to give applications
385access to transport layer network proxies. Perl supports only SOCKS
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386Version 5. The corresponding Configure option is -Dusesocks.
387You can find more about SOCKS from wikipedia at
388L<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOCKS>.
1b9c9cf5 389
ce80d64e 390=head3 Dynamic Loading
d6baa268 391
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392By default, Configure will compile perl to use dynamic loading.
393If you want to force perl to be compiled completely
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394statically, you can either choose this when Configure prompts you or
395you can use the Configure command line option -Uusedl.
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396With this option, you won't be able to use any new extension
397(XS) module without recompiling perl itself.
d6baa268 398
ce80d64e 399=head3 Building a shared Perl library
c3edaffb 400
401Currently, for most systems, the main perl executable is built by
402linking the "perl library" libperl.a with perlmain.o, your static
8ba4bff0 403extensions, and various extra libraries, such as -lm.
c3edaffb 404
08854360 405On systems that support dynamic loading, it may be possible to
9d67150a 406replace libperl.a with a shared libperl.so. If you anticipate building
c3edaffb 407several different perl binaries (e.g. by embedding libperl into
408different programs, or by using the optional compiler extension), then
9d67150a 409you might wish to build a shared libperl.so so that all your binaries
c3edaffb 410can share the same library.
411
412The disadvantages are that there may be a significant performance
9d67150a 413penalty associated with the shared libperl.so, and that the overall
aa689395 414mechanism is still rather fragile with respect to different versions
c3edaffb 415and upgrades.
416
417In terms of performance, on my test system (Solaris 2.5_x86) the perl
9d67150a 418test suite took roughly 15% longer to run with the shared libperl.so.
c3edaffb 419Your system and typical applications may well give quite different
420results.
421
422The default name for the shared library is typically something like
08854360 423libperl.so.5.8.8 (for Perl 5.8.8), or libperl.so.588, or simply
9d67150a 424libperl.so. Configure tries to guess a sensible naming convention
c3edaffb 425based on your C library name. Since the library gets installed in a
426version-specific architecture-dependent directory, the exact name
427isn't very important anyway, as long as your linker is happy.
428
c3edaffb 429You can elect to build a shared libperl by
430
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431 sh Configure -Duseshrplib
432
433To build a shared libperl, the environment variable controlling shared
434library search (LD_LIBRARY_PATH in most systems, DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH for
435NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP/Darwin, LIBRARY_PATH for BeOS, LD_LIBRARY_PATH/SHLIB_PATH
436for HP-UX, LIBPATH for AIX, PATH for Cygwin) must be set up to include
437the Perl build directory because that's where the shared libperl will
438be created. Configure arranges makefile to have the correct shared
439library search settings. You can find the name of the environment
440variable Perl thinks works in your your system by
441
442 grep ldlibpthname config.sh
443
444However, there are some special cases where manually setting the
445shared library path might be required. For example, if you want to run
446something like the following with the newly-built but not-yet-installed
447./perl:
448
04bd6448 449 ./perl -MTestInit t/misc/failing_test.t
08854360 450
ce80d64e 451or
08854360 452
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453 ./perl -Ilib ~/my_mission_critical_test
454
455then you need to set up the shared library path explicitly.
456You can do this with
457
458 LD_LIBRARY_PATH=`pwd`:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH; export LD_LIBRARY_PATH
459
460for Bourne-style shells, or
461
462 setenv LD_LIBRARY_PATH `pwd`
463
464for Csh-style shells. (This procedure may also be needed if for some
465unexpected reason Configure fails to set up makefile correctly.) (And
466again, it may be something other than LD_LIBRARY_PATH for you, see above.)
467
468You can often recognize failures to build/use a shared libperl from error
469messages complaining about a missing libperl.so (or libperl.sl in HP-UX),
470for example:
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471
472 18126:./miniperl: /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
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473
474There is also an potential problem with the shared perl library if you
475want to have more than one "flavor" of the same version of perl (e.g.
476with and without -DDEBUGGING). For example, suppose you build and
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477install a standard Perl 5.10.0 with a shared library. Then, suppose you
478try to build Perl 5.10.0 with -DDEBUGGING enabled, but everything else
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479the same, including all the installation directories. How can you
480ensure that your newly built perl will link with your newly built
481libperl.so.8 rather with the installed libperl.so.8? The answer is
482that you might not be able to. The installation directory is encoded
483in the perl binary with the LD_RUN_PATH environment variable (or
484equivalent ld command-line option). On Solaris, you can override that
485with LD_LIBRARY_PATH; on Linux, you can only override at runtime via
486LD_PRELOAD, specifying the exact filename you wish to be used; and on
487Digital Unix, you can override LD_LIBRARY_PATH by setting the
488_RLD_ROOT environment variable to point to the perl build directory.
489
490In other words, it is generally not a good idea to try to build a perl
491with a shared library if $archlib/CORE/$libperl already exists from a
492previous build.
493
494A good workaround is to specify a different directory for the
495architecture-dependent library for your -DDEBUGGING version of perl.
496You can do this by changing all the *archlib* variables in config.sh to
497point to your new architecture-dependent library.
498
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499=head3 Environment access
500
501Perl often needs to write to the program's environment, such as when C<%ENV>
502is assigned to. Many implementations of the C library function C<putenv()>
503leak memory, so where possible perl will manipulate the environment directly
504to avoid these leaks. The default is now to perform direct manipulation
505whenever perl is running as a stand alone interpreter, and to call the safe
506but potentially leaky C<putenv()> function when the perl interpreter is
507embedded in another application. You can force perl to always use C<putenv()>
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508by compiling with C<-Accflags="-DPERL_USE_SAFE_PUTENV">, see section
509L</"Altering Configure variables for C compiler switches etc.">.
510You can force an embedded perl to use direct manipulation by setting
511C<PL_use_safe_putenv = 0;> after the C<perl_construct()> call.
575e1338 512
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513=head2 Installation Directories
514
515The installation directories can all be changed by answering the
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516appropriate questions in Configure. For convenience, all the installation
517questions are near the beginning of Configure. Do not include trailing
518slashes on directory names. At any point during the Configure process,
519you can answer a question with &-d and Configure will use the defaults
520from then on. Alternatively, you can
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521
522 grep '^install' config.sh
523
524after Configure has run to verify the installation paths.
525
526The defaults are intended to be reasonable and sensible for most
527people building from sources. Those who build and distribute binary
528distributions or who export perl to a range of systems will probably
529need to alter them. If you are content to just accept the defaults,
530you can safely skip the next section.
531
532The directories set up by Configure fall into three broad categories.
533
534=over 4
535
536=item Directories for the perl distribution
537
fc616f2e 538By default, Configure will use the following directories for 5.17.3.
ce80d64e 539$version is the full perl version number, including subversion, e.g.
8891dd8d 5405.12.3, and $archname is a string like sun4-sunos,
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541determined by Configure. The full definitions of all Configure
542variables are in the file Porting/Glossary.
543
544 Configure variable Default value
545 $prefixexp /usr/local
546 $binexp $prefixexp/bin
547 $scriptdirexp $prefixexp/bin
548 $privlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version
549 $archlibexp $prefixexp/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
550 $man1direxp $prefixexp/man/man1
551 $man3direxp $prefixexp/man/man3
552 $html1direxp (none)
553 $html3direxp (none)
554
555$prefixexp is generated from $prefix, with ~ expansion done to convert home
556directories into absolute paths. Similarly for the other variables listed. As
557file system calls do not do this, you should always reference the ...exp
558variables, to support users who build perl in their home directory.
559
560Actually, Configure recognizes the SVR3-style
561/usr/local/man/l_man/man1 directories, if present, and uses those
562instead. Also, if $prefix contains the string "perl", the library
563directories are simplified as described below. For simplicity, only
564the common style is shown here.
565
566=item Directories for site-specific add-on files
567
568After perl is installed, you may later wish to add modules (e.g. from
569CPAN) or scripts. Configure will set up the following directories to
570be used for installing those add-on modules and scripts.
571
572 Configure variable Default value
573 $siteprefixexp $prefixexp
574 $sitebinexp $siteprefixexp/bin
575 $sitescriptexp $siteprefixexp/bin
576 $sitelibexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
577 $sitearchexp $siteprefixexp/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
578 $siteman1direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man1
579 $siteman3direxp $siteprefixexp/man/man3
580 $sitehtml1direxp (none)
581 $sitehtml3direxp (none)
582
583By default, ExtUtils::MakeMaker will install architecture-independent
584modules into $sitelib and architecture-dependent modules into $sitearch.
585
586=item Directories for vendor-supplied add-on files
587
588Lastly, if you are building a binary distribution of perl for
589distribution, Configure can optionally set up the following directories
590for you to use to distribute add-on modules.
591
592 Configure variable Default value
593 $vendorprefixexp (none)
594 (The next ones are set only if vendorprefix is set.)
595 $vendorbinexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
596 $vendorscriptexp $vendorprefixexp/bin
597 $vendorlibexp
598 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
599 $vendorarchexp
600 $vendorprefixexp/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
601 $vendorman1direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man1
602 $vendorman3direxp $vendorprefixexp/man/man3
603 $vendorhtml1direxp (none)
604 $vendorhtml3direxp (none)
605
606These are normally empty, but may be set as needed. For example,
607a vendor might choose the following settings:
608
609 $prefix /usr
610 $siteprefix /usr/local
611 $vendorprefix /usr
612
613This would have the effect of setting the following:
614
615 $binexp /usr/bin
616 $scriptdirexp /usr/bin
617 $privlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version
618 $archlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/$version/$archname
619 $man1direxp /usr/man/man1
620 $man3direxp /usr/man/man3
621
622 $sitebinexp /usr/local/bin
623 $sitescriptexp /usr/local/bin
624 $sitelibexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version
625 $sitearchexp /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/$version/$archname
626 $siteman1direxp /usr/local/man/man1
627 $siteman3direxp /usr/local/man/man3
628
629 $vendorbinexp /usr/bin
630 $vendorscriptexp /usr/bin
631 $vendorlibexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version
632 $vendorarchexp /usr/lib/perl5/vendor_perl/$version/$archname
633 $vendorman1direxp /usr/man/man1
634 $vendorman3direxp /usr/man/man3
635
636Note how in this example, the vendor-supplied directories are in the
668cbedd 637/usr hierarchy, while the directories reserved for the end user are in
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638the /usr/local hierarchy.
639
640The entire installed library hierarchy is installed in locations with
641version numbers, keeping the installations of different versions distinct.
642However, later installations of Perl can still be configured to search the
643installed libraries corresponding to compatible earlier versions.
7df75831 644See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below for more details
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645on how Perl can be made to search older version directories.
646
647Of course you may use these directories however you see fit. For
648example, you may wish to use $siteprefix for site-specific files that
649are stored locally on your own disk and use $vendorprefix for
650site-specific files that are stored elsewhere on your organization's
651network. One way to do that would be something like
652
653 sh Configure -Dsiteprefix=/usr/local -Dvendorprefix=/usr/share/perl
654
655=item otherlibdirs
656
657As a final catch-all, Configure also offers an $otherlibdirs
658variable. This variable contains a colon-separated list of additional
659directories to add to @INC. By default, it will be empty.
660Perl will search these directories (including architecture and
661version-specific subdirectories) for add-on modules and extensions.
662
663For example, if you have a bundle of perl libraries from a previous
664installation, perhaps in a strange place:
665
666 Configure -Dotherlibdirs=/usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.1
667
668=item APPLLIB_EXP
669
670There is one other way of adding paths to @INC at perl build time, and
671that is by setting the APPLLIB_EXP C pre-processor token to a colon-
672separated list of directories, like this
673
674 sh Configure -Accflags='-DAPPLLIB_EXP=\"/usr/libperl\"'
675
676The directories defined by APPLLIB_EXP get added to @INC I<first>,
677ahead of any others, and so provide a way to override the standard perl
678modules should you, for example, want to distribute fixes without
679touching the perl distribution proper. And, like otherlib dirs,
680version and architecture specific subdirectories are also searched, if
681present, at run time. Of course, you can still search other @INC
682directories ahead of those in APPLLIB_EXP by using any of the standard
683run-time methods: $PERLLIB, $PERL5LIB, -I, use lib, etc.
684
785aa5e3 685=item usesitecustomize
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686
687Run-time customization of @INC can be enabled with:
688
36de116d 689 sh Configure -Dusesitecustomize
20ef40cf 690
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691which will define USE_SITECUSTOMIZE and $Config{usesitecustomize}.
692When enabled, this makes perl run F<$sitelibexp/sitecustomize.pl> before
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693anything else. This script can then be set up to add additional
694entries to @INC.
695
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696=item Man Pages
697
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698By default, man pages will be installed in $man1dir and $man3dir, which
699are normally /usr/local/man/man1 and /usr/local/man/man3. If you
700want to use a .3pm suffix for perl man pages, you can do that with
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701
702 sh Configure -Dman3ext=3pm
703
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704=item HTML pages
705
706Currently, the standard perl installation does not do anything with
707HTML documentation, but that may change in the future. Further, some
708add-on modules may wish to install HTML documents. The html Configure
709variables listed above are provided if you wish to specify where such
710documents should be placed. The default is "none", but will likely
711eventually change to something useful based on user feedback.
712
713=back
714
715Some users prefer to append a "/share" to $privlib and $sitelib
716to emphasize that those directories can be shared among different
717architectures.
718
719Note that these are just the defaults. You can actually structure the
720directories any way you like. They don't even have to be on the same
721filesystem.
c3edaffb 722
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723Further details about the installation directories, maintenance and
724development subversions, and about supporting multiple versions are
7df75831 725discussed in L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5"> below.
10c7e831 726
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727If you specify a prefix that contains the string "perl", then the
728library directory structure is slightly simplified. Instead of
729suggesting $prefix/lib/perl5/, Configure will suggest $prefix/lib.
2bf2710f 730
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731Thus, for example, if you Configure with
732-Dprefix=/opt/perl, then the default library directories for 5.9.0 are
2bf2710f 733
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734 Configure variable Default value
735 $privlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0
736 $archlib /opt/perl/lib/5.9.0/$archname
737 $sitelib /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0
738 $sitearch /opt/perl/lib/site_perl/5.9.0/$archname
2bf2710f 739
ce80d64e 740=head2 Changing the installation directory
c3edaffb 741
ce80d64e 742Configure distinguishes between the directory in which perl (and its
7df75831 743associated files) should be installed, and the directory in which it
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744will eventually reside. For most sites, these two are the same; for
745sites that use AFS, this distinction is handled automatically.
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746However, sites that use package management software such as rpm or
747dpkg, or users building binary packages for distribution may also
748wish to install perl into a different directory before moving perl
749to its final destination. There are two ways to do that:
750
751=over 4
752
753=item installprefix
c3edaffb 754
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755To install perl under the /tmp/perl5 directory, use the following
756command line:
c3edaffb 757
7df75831 758 sh Configure -Dinstallprefix=/tmp/perl5
c3edaffb 759
ce80d64e 760(replace /tmp/perl5 by a directory of your choice).
2bf2710f 761
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762Beware, though, that if you go to try to install new add-on
763modules, they too will get installed in under '/tmp/perl5' if you
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764follow this example. That's why it's usually better to use DESTDIR,
765as shown in the next section.
c3edaffb 766
7df75831 767=item DESTDIR
9d67150a 768
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769If you need to install perl on many identical systems, it is convenient
770to compile it once and create an archive that can be installed on
771multiple systems. Suppose, for example, that you want to create an
772archive that can be installed in /opt/perl. One way to do that is by
773using the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>. The DESTDIR is
774automatically prepended to all the installation paths. Thus you
775simply do:
830717a7 776
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777 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl -des
778 make
779 make test
780 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
781 cd /tmp/perl5/opt/perl
782 tar cvf /tmp/perl5-archive.tar .
9d67150a 783
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784=back
785
32878f30
NP
786=head2 Relocatable @INC
787
788To create a relocatable perl tree, use the following command line:
789
790 sh Configure -Duserelocatableinc
791
792Then the paths in @INC (and everything else in %Config) can be
793optionally located via the path of the perl executable.
794
795That means that, if the string ".../" is found at the start of any
796path, it's substituted with the directory of $^X. So, the relocation
797can be configured on a per-directory basis, although the default with
798"-Duserelocatableinc" is that everything is relocated. The initial
799install is done to the original configured prefix.
800
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801This option is not compatible with the building of a shared libperl
802("-Duseshrplib"), because in that case perl is linked with an hard-coded
803rpath that points at the libperl.so, that cannot be relocated.
804
ce80d64e 805=head2 Site-wide Policy settings
55479bb6 806
ce80d64e 807After Configure runs, it stores a number of common site-wide "policy"
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808answers (such as installation directories) in the Policy.sh file.
809If you want to build perl on another system using the same policy
810defaults, simply copy the Policy.sh file to the new system's perl build
811directory, and Configure will use it. This will work even if Policy.sh was
a0a8d9d3 812generated for another version of Perl, or on a system with a
da1b4322 813different architecture and/or operating system. However, in such cases,
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814you should review the contents of the file before using it: for
815example, your new target may not keep its man pages in the same place
816as the system on which the file was generated.
55479bb6 817
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818Alternatively, if you wish to change some or all of those policy
819answers, you should
c3edaffb 820
ce80d64e 821 rm -f Policy.sh
aa689395 822
ce80d64e 823to ensure that Configure doesn't re-use them.
2ae324a7 824
ce80d64e 825Further information is in the Policy_sh.SH file itself.
aa689395 826
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827If the generated Policy.sh file is unsuitable, you may freely edit it
828to contain any valid shell commands. It will be run just after the
829platform-specific hints files.
aa689395 830
ce80d64e 831=head2 Disabling older versions of Perl
aa689395 832
ce80d64e 833Configure will search for binary compatible versions of previously
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834installed perl binaries in the tree that is specified as target tree,
835and these will be used as locations to search for modules by the perl
836being built. The list of perl versions found will be put in the Configure
837variable inc_version_list.
86058a2d 838
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839To disable this use of older perl modules, even completely valid pure perl
840modules, you can specify to not include the paths found:
b2a6d19e 841
ce80d64e 842 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list=none ...
d6baa268 843
274ca399
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844If you do want to use modules from some previous perl versions, the variable
845must contain a space separated list of directories under the site_perl
846directory, and has to include architecture-dependent directories separately,
847eg.
848
4683a5d7 849 sh Configure -Dinc_version_list="5.16.0/x86_64-linux 5.16.0" ...
274ca399 850
ce80d64e 851When using the newer perl, you can add these paths again in the
668cbedd 852PERL5LIB environment variable or with perl's -I runtime option.
86058a2d 853
ce80d64e 854=head2 Building Perl outside of the source directory
86058a2d 855
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856Sometimes it is desirable to build Perl in a directory different from
857where the sources are, for example if you want to keep your sources
858read-only, or if you want to share the sources between different binary
859architectures. You can do this (if your file system supports symbolic
860links) by
06c896bb 861
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862 mkdir /tmp/perl/build/directory
863 cd /tmp/perl/build/directory
864 sh /path/to/perl/source/Configure -Dmksymlinks ...
06c896bb 865
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866This will create in /tmp/perl/build/directory a tree of symbolic links
867pointing to files in /path/to/perl/source. The original files are left
868unaffected. After Configure has finished you can just say
06c896bb 869
ce80d64e 870 make
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871 make test
872 make install
06c896bb 873
ce80d64e 874as usual, and Perl will be built in /tmp/perl/build/directory.
aa689395 875
3bf462b8
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876=head2 Building a debugging perl
877
878You can run perl scripts under the perl debugger at any time with
3fe9a6f1 879B<perl -d your_script>. If, however, you want to debug perl itself,
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880you probably want to have support for perl internal debugging code
881(activated by adding -DDEBUGGING to ccflags), and/or support for the
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882system debugger by adding -g to the optimisation flags. For that,
883use the parameter:
eaf812ae 884
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885 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING
886
887or
888
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889 sh Configure -DDEBUGGING=<mode>
890
891For a more eye appealing call, -DEBUGGING is defined to be an alias
892for -DDEBUGGING. For both, the -U calls are also supported, in order
893to be able to overrule the hints or Policy.sh settings.
894
7df75831 895Here are the DEBUGGING modes:
3bf462b8 896
7df75831 897=over 4
3bf462b8 898
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899=item -DDEBUGGING
900
901=item -DEBUGGING
902
903=item -DEBUGGING=both
904
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905Sets both -DDEBUGGING in the ccflags, and adds -g to optimize.
906
907You can actually specify -g and -DDEBUGGING independently (see below),
908but usually it's convenient to have both.
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909
910=item -DEBUGGING=-g
911
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912=item -Doptimize=-g
913
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914Adds -g to optimize, but does not set -DDEBUGGING.
915
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916(Note: Your system may actually require something like cc -g2.
917Check your man pages for cc(1) and also any hint file for your system.)
918
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919=item -DEBUGGING=none
920
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921=item -UDEBUGGING
922
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923Removes -g from optimize, and -DDEBUGGING from ccflags.
924
925=back
926
3bf462b8 927If you are using a shared libperl, see the warnings about multiple
a522f097 928versions of perl under L<Building a shared Perl library>.
3bf462b8 929
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930Note that a perl built with -DDEBUGGING will be much bigger and will run
931much, much more slowly than a standard perl.
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932
933=head2 DTrace support
934
935On platforms where DTrace is available, it may be enabled by
936using the -Dusedtrace option to Configure. DTrace probes are available for
937subroutine entry (sub-entry) and subroutine exit (sub-exit). Here's a
938simple D script that uses them:
939
940 perl$target:::sub-entry, perl$target:::sub-return {
941 printf("%s %s (%s:%d)\n", probename == "sub-entry" ? "->" : "<-",
942 copyinstr(arg0), copyinstr(arg1), arg2);
943 }
944
945
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946=head2 Extensions
947
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948Perl ships with a number of standard extensions. These are contained
949in the ext/ subdirectory.
950
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951By default, Configure will offer to build every extension which appears
952to be supported. For example, Configure will offer to build GDBM_File
7df75831 953only if it is able to find the gdbm library.
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954
955To disable certain extensions so that they are not built, use the
956-Dnoextensions=... and -Donlyextensions=... options. They both accept
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957a space-separated list of extensions, such as C<IPC/SysV>. The extensions
958listed in
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959C<noextensions> are removed from the list of extensions to build, while
960the C<onlyextensions> is rather more severe and builds only the listed
961extensions. The latter should be used with extreme caution since
962certain extensions are used by many other extensions and modules:
963examples of such modules include Fcntl and IO. The order of processing
964these options is first C<only> (if present), then C<no> (if present).
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965
966Of course, you may always run Configure interactively and select only
967the extensions you want.
968
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969If you unpack any additional extensions in the ext/ directory before
970running Configure, then Configure will offer to build those additional
971extensions as well. Most users probably shouldn't have to do this --
972it is usually easier to build additional extensions later after perl
973has been installed. However, if you wish to have those additional
974extensions statically linked into the perl binary, then this offers a
975convenient way to do that in one step. (It is not necessary, however;
976you can build and install extensions just fine even if you don't have
977dynamic loading. See lib/ExtUtils/MakeMaker.pm for more details.)
978Another way of specifying extra modules is described in
979L<"Adding extra modules to the build"> below.
8d74ce1c 980
dd3196cd 981If you re-use an old config.sh but change your system (e.g. by
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982adding libgdbm) Configure will still offer your old choices of extensions
983for the default answer, but it will also point out the discrepancy to
984you.
985
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986=head2 Including locally-installed libraries
987
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988Perl comes with interfaces to number of libraries, including threads,
989dbm, ndbm, gdbm, and Berkeley db. For the *db* extension, if
8d74ce1c 990Configure can find the appropriate header files and libraries, it will
7df75831 991automatically include that extension. The threading extension needs
27021420 992to be specified explicitly (see L</Threads>).
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993
994Those libraries are not distributed with perl. If your header (.h) files
995for those libraries are not in a directory normally searched by your C
996compiler, then you will need to include the appropriate -I/your/directory
997option when prompted by Configure. If your libraries are not in a
998directory normally searched by your C compiler and linker, then you will
999need to include the appropriate -L/your/directory option when prompted
1000by Configure. See the examples below.
8d74ce1c 1001
ce80d64e 1002=head3 Examples
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1003
1004=over 4
1005
1006=item gdbm in /usr/local
1007
1008Suppose you have gdbm and want Configure to find it and build the
d6baa268 1009GDBM_File extension. This example assumes you have gdbm.h
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1010installed in /usr/local/include/gdbm.h and libgdbm.a installed in
1011/usr/local/lib/libgdbm.a. Configure should figure all the
1012necessary steps out automatically.
1013
1014Specifically, when Configure prompts you for flags for
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1015your C compiler, you should include -I/usr/local/include, if it's
1016not here yet. Similarly, when Configure prompts you for linker flags,
1017you should include -L/usr/local/lib.
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1018
1019If you are using dynamic loading, then when Configure prompts you for
1020linker flags for dynamic loading, you should again include
1021-L/usr/local/lib.
1022
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1023Again, this should all happen automatically. This should also work if
1024you have gdbm installed in any of (/usr/local, /opt/local, /usr/gnu,
1025/opt/gnu, /usr/GNU, or /opt/GNU).
8d74ce1c 1026
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1027=item BerkeleyDB in /usr/local/BerkeleyDB
1028
668cbedd 1029The version of BerkeleyDB distributed by Oracle installs in a
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1030version-specific directory by default, typically something like
1031/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7. To have Configure find that, you need to add
1032-I/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include to cc flags, as in the previous example,
1033and you will also have to take extra steps to help Configure find -ldb.
1034Specifically, when Configure prompts you for library directories,
1035add /usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib to the list. Also, you will need to
1036add appropriate linker flags to tell the runtime linker where to find the
1037BerkeleyDB shared libraries.
1038
1039It is possible to specify this from the command line (all on one
8d74ce1c
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1040line):
1041
7df75831 1042 sh Configure -de \
e8b9ce60
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1043 -Dlocincpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/include /usr/local/include' \
1044 -Dloclibpth='/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib /usr/local/lib' \
1045 -Aldflags='-R/usr/local/BerkeleyDB.4.7/lib'
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1046
1047locincpth is a space-separated list of include directories to search.
1048Configure will automatically add the appropriate -I directives.
1049
1050loclibpth is a space-separated list of library directories to search.
e8b9ce60 1051Configure will automatically add the appropriate -L directives.
8d74ce1c 1052
e8b9ce60
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1053The addition to ldflags is so that the dynamic linker knows where to find
1054the BerkeleyDB libraries. For Linux and Solaris, the -R option does that.
1055Other systems may use different flags. Use the appropriate flag for your
1056system.
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1057
1058=back
1059
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1060=head2 Overriding an old config.sh
1061
dd3196cd
RGS
1062If you want to use an old config.sh produced by a previous run of
1063Configure, but override some of the items with command line options, you
1064need to use B<Configure -O>.
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1065
1066=head2 GNU-style configure
1067
1068If you prefer the GNU-style configure command line interface, you can
1069use the supplied configure.gnu command, e.g.
1070
1071 CC=gcc ./configure.gnu
1072
1073The configure.gnu script emulates a few of the more common configure
1074options. Try
1075
1076 ./configure.gnu --help
1077
1078for a listing.
1079
1080(The file is called configure.gnu to avoid problems on systems
1081that would not distinguish the files "Configure" and "configure".)
1082
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1083=head2 Malloc Issues
1084
1085Perl relies heavily on malloc(3) to grow data structures as needed,
1086so perl's performance can be noticeably affected by the performance of
1087the malloc function on your system. The perl source is shipped with a
1088version of malloc that has been optimized for the typical requests from
1089perl, so there's a chance that it may be both faster and use less memory
1090than your system malloc.
1091
1092However, if your system already has an excellent malloc, or if you are
1093experiencing difficulties with extensions that use third-party libraries
1094that call malloc, then you should probably use your system's malloc.
1095(Or, you might wish to explore the malloc flags discussed below.)
1096
1097=over 4
1098
1099=item Using the system malloc
1100
1101To build without perl's malloc, you can use the Configure command
1102
1103 sh Configure -Uusemymalloc
1104
1105or you can answer 'n' at the appropriate interactive Configure prompt.
1106
73d6d1b0
RGS
1107Note that Perl's malloc isn't always used by default; that actually
1108depends on your system. For example, on Linux and FreeBSD (and many more
1109systems), Configure chooses to use the system's malloc by default.
1110See the appropriate file in the F<hints/> directory to see how the
1111default is set.
1112
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1113=item -DPERL_POLLUTE_MALLOC
1114
1115NOTE: This flag is enabled automatically on some platforms if you just
7df75831 1116run Configure to accept all the defaults.
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1117
1118Perl's malloc family of functions are normally called Perl_malloc(),
1119Perl_realloc(), Perl_calloc() and Perl_mfree().
1120These names do not clash with the system versions of these functions.
1121
1122If this flag is enabled, however, Perl's malloc family of functions
1123will have the same names as the system versions. This may be required
1124sometimes if you have libraries that like to free() data that may have
1125been allocated by Perl_malloc() and vice versa.
1126
1127Note that enabling this option may sometimes lead to duplicate symbols
1128from the linker for malloc et al. In such cases, the system probably
1129does not allow its malloc functions to be fully replaced with custom
1130versions.
1131
1132=item -DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS
1133
1134This flag enables debugging mstats, which is required to use the
1135Devel::Peek::mstat() function. You cannot enable this unless you are
1136using Perl's malloc, so a typical Configure command would be
1137
7df75831 1138 sh Configure -Accflags=-DPERL_DEBUGGING_MSTATS -Dusemymalloc
ce80d64e
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1139
1140to enable this option.
1141
1142=back
1143
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1144=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1145
8d74ce1c 1146If you run into problems, try some of the following ideas.
ff52061e 1147If none of them help, then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
8d74ce1c 1148
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1149=over 4
1150
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1151=item Running Configure Interactively
1152
1153If Configure runs into trouble, remember that you can always run
1154Configure interactively so that you can check (and correct) its
1155guesses.
1156
1157All the installation questions have been moved to the top, so you don't
aa689395 1158have to wait for them. Once you've handled them (and your C compiler and
1ec51d55 1159flags) you can type &-d at the next Configure prompt and Configure
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1160will use the defaults from then on.
1161
1162If you find yourself trying obscure command line incantations and
1163config.over tricks, I recommend you run Configure interactively
1164instead. You'll probably save yourself time in the long run.
1165
aa689395 1166=item Hint files
8e07c86e 1167
a0a8d9d3
DD
1168Hint files tell Configure about a number of things:
1169
1170=over 4
1171
1172=item o
1173
1174The peculiarities or conventions of particular platforms -- non-standard
1175library locations and names, default installation locations for binaries,
1176and so on.
1177
1178=item o
1179
1180The deficiencies of the platform -- for example, library functions that,
1181although present, are too badly broken to be usable; or limits on
1182resources that are generously available on most platforms.
1183
1184=item o
1185
1186How best to optimize for the platform, both in terms of binary size and/or
1187speed, and for Perl feature support. Because of wide variations in the
1188implementation of shared libraries and of threading, for example, Configure
1189often needs hints in order to be able to use these features.
1190
1191=back
1192
1193The perl distribution includes many system-specific hints files
1194in the hints/ directory. If one of them matches your system, Configure
1195will offer to use that hint file. Unless you have a very good reason
1196not to, you should accept its offer.
8e07c86e
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1197
1198Several of the hint files contain additional important information.
f5b3b617
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1199If you have any problems, it is a good idea to read the relevant hint file
1200for further information. See hints/solaris_2.sh for an extensive example.
1201More information about writing good hints is in the hints/README.hints
a0a8d9d3
DD
1202file, which also explains hint files known as callback-units.
1203
1204Note that any hint file is read before any Policy file, meaning that
1205Policy overrides hints -- see L</Site-wide Policy settings>.
8e07c86e 1206
73d6d1b0 1207=item WHOA THERE!!!
edb1cbcb 1208
82c11e95
RGS
1209If you are re-using an old config.sh, it's possible that Configure detects
1210different values from the ones specified in this file. You will almost
1211always want to keep the previous value, unless you have changed something
1212on your system.
edb1cbcb 1213
1214For example, suppose you have added libgdbm.a to your system
1215and you decide to reconfigure perl to use GDBM_File. When you run
1216Configure again, you will need to add -lgdbm to the list of libraries.
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1217Now, Configure will find your gdbm include file and library and will
1218issue a message:
edb1cbcb 1219
1220 *** WHOA THERE!!! ***
1221 The previous value for $i_gdbm on this machine was "undef"!
1222 Keep the previous value? [y]
1223
1ec51d55 1224In this case, you do not want to keep the previous value, so you
c3edaffb 1225should answer 'n'. (You'll also have to manually add GDBM_File to
edb1cbcb 1226the list of dynamic extensions to build.)
1227
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1228=item Changing Compilers
1229
1230If you change compilers or make other significant changes, you should
1ec51d55 1231probably not re-use your old config.sh. Simply remove it or
dd3196cd 1232rename it, then rerun Configure with the options you want to use.
8e07c86e 1233
c3edaffb 1234=item Propagating your changes to config.sh
8e07c86e 1235
1ec51d55
CS
1236If you make any changes to config.sh, you should propagate
1237them to all the .SH files by running
1238
1239 sh Configure -S
1240
1241You will then have to rebuild by running
9d67150a 1242
1243 make depend
1244 make
8e07c86e 1245
48370efc
JH
1246=item config.over and config.arch
1247
668cbedd 1248You can also supply a shell script config.over to override
48370efc
JH
1249Configure's guesses. It will get loaded up at the very end, just
1250before config.sh is created. You have to be careful with this,
1251however, as Configure does no checking that your changes make sense.
1252This file is usually good for site-specific customizations.
1253
1254There is also another file that, if it exists, is loaded before the
1255config.over, called config.arch. This file is intended to be per
1256architecture, not per site, and usually it's the architecture-specific
1257hints file that creates the config.arch.
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1258
1259=item config.h
1260
1ec51d55
CS
1261Many of the system dependencies are contained in config.h.
1262Configure builds config.h by running the config_h.SH script.
1263The values for the variables are taken from config.sh.
8e07c86e 1264
1ec51d55
CS
1265If there are any problems, you can edit config.h directly. Beware,
1266though, that the next time you run Configure, your changes will be
8e07c86e
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1267lost.
1268
1269=item cflags
1270
1271If you have any additional changes to make to the C compiler command
1ec51d55 1272line, they can be made in cflags.SH. For instance, to turn off the
5729ffdd
NC
1273optimizer on toke.c, find the switch structure marked 'or customize here',
1274and add a line for toke.c ahead of the catch-all *) so that it now reads:
1275
1276 : or customize here
1277
1278 case "$file" in
1279 toke) optimize='-g' ;;
1280 *) ;;
1281
1282You should not edit the generated file cflags directly, as your changes will
65c512c3 1283be lost the next time you run Configure, or if you edit config.sh.
8e07c86e 1284
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1285To explore various ways of changing ccflags from within a hint file,
1286see the file hints/README.hints.
1287
1288To change the C flags for all the files, edit config.sh and change either
1289$ccflags or $optimize, and then re-run
1ec51d55
CS
1290
1291 sh Configure -S
1292 make depend
8e07c86e 1293
aa689395 1294=item No sh
8e07c86e 1295
c42e3e15
GS
1296If you don't have sh, you'll have to copy the sample file
1297Porting/config.sh to config.sh and edit your config.sh to reflect your
1298system's peculiarities. See Porting/pumpkin.pod for more information.
8e07c86e
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1299You'll probably also have to extensively modify the extension building
1300mechanism.
1301
c3edaffb 1302=item Porting information
1303
e6f03d26 1304Specific information for the OS/2, Plan 9, VMS and Win32 ports is in the
1ec51d55
CS
1305corresponding README files and subdirectories. Additional information,
1306including a glossary of all those config.sh variables, is in the Porting
ce80d64e 1307subdirectory. Porting/Glossary should especially come in handy.
c3edaffb 1308
7f678428 1309Ports for other systems may also be available. You should check out
468f45d5 1310http://www.cpan.org/ports for current information on ports to
7f678428 1311various other operating systems.
1312
ce80d64e 1313If you plan to port Perl to a new architecture, study carefully the
491517e0 1314section titled "Philosophical Issues in Patching and Porting Perl"
c222ef46 1315in the file Porting/pumpkin.pod and the file pod/perlgit.pod.
491517e0
JA
1316Study also how other non-UNIX ports have solved problems.
1317
8e07c86e
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1318=back
1319
ce80d64e 1320=head2 Adding extra modules to the build
fadf0ef5
JH
1321
1322You can specify extra modules or module bundles to be fetched from the
1323CPAN and installed as part of the Perl build. Either use the -Dextras=...
1324command line parameter to Configure, for example like this:
1325
d3df0cfd 1326 Configure -Dextras="Bundle::LWP DBI"
fadf0ef5
JH
1327
1328or answer first 'y' to the question 'Install any extra modules?' and
d3df0cfd 1329then answer "Bundle::LWP DBI" to the 'Extras?' question.
fadf0ef5 1330The module or the bundle names are as for the CPAN module 'install' command.
a522f097
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1331This will only work if those modules are to be built as dynamic
1332extensions. If you wish to include those extra modules as static
1333extensions, see L<"Extensions"> above.
fadf0ef5
JH
1334
1335Notice that because the CPAN module will be used to fetch the extra
1336modules, you will need access to the CPAN, either via the Internet,
1337or via a local copy such as a CD-ROM or a local CPAN mirror. If you
1338do not, using the extra modules option will die horribly.
1339
1340Also notice that you yourself are responsible for satisfying any extra
1341dependencies such as external headers or libraries BEFORE trying the build.
d3df0cfd 1342For example: you will need to have the Foo database specific
fadf0ef5
JH
1343headers and libraries installed for the DBD::Foo module. The Configure
1344process or the Perl build process will not help you with these.
1345
ce80d64e 1346=head2 suidperl
03739d21 1347
172dd959
JV
1348suidperl was an optional component of earlier releases of perl. It is no
1349longer available. Instead, use a tool specifically designed to handle
1350changes in privileges, such as B<sudo>.
03739d21 1351
8e07c86e
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1352=head1 make depend
1353
bfb7748a
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1354This will look for all the includes. The output is stored in makefile.
1355The only difference between Makefile and makefile is the dependencies at
1356the bottom of makefile. If you have to make any changes, you should edit
ce80d64e 1357makefile, not Makefile, since the Unix make command reads makefile first.
bfb7748a
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1358(On non-Unix systems, the output may be stored in a different file.
1359Check the value of $firstmakefile in your config.sh if in doubt.)
8e07c86e
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1360
1361Configure will offer to do this step for you, so it isn't listed
1362explicitly above.
1363
1364=head1 make
1365
1366This will attempt to make perl in the current directory.
1367
8d410bc4
YST
1368=head2 Expected errors
1369
f5b5f377 1370These error reports are normal, and can be ignored:
8d410bc4
YST
1371
1372 ...
1373 make: [extra.pods] Error 1 (ignored)
1374 ...
1375 make: [extras.make] Error 1 (ignored)
1376
8d74ce1c
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1377=head2 What if it doesn't work?
1378
8e07c86e 1379If you can't compile successfully, try some of the following ideas.
7f678428 1380If none of them help, and careful reading of the error message and
8d74ce1c 1381the relevant manual pages on your system doesn't help,
ff52061e 1382then see L<"Reporting Problems"> below.
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1383
1384=over 4
1385
1ec51d55 1386=item hints
8e07c86e
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1387
1388If you used a hint file, try reading the comments in the hint file
1389for further tips and information.
1390
1ec51d55 1391=item extensions
8e07c86e 1392
1ec51d55 1393If you can successfully build miniperl, but the process crashes
ce80d64e 1394during the building of extensions, run
c3edaffb 1395
3a6175e1 1396 make minitest
c3edaffb 1397
1398to test your version of miniperl.
1399
e57fd563 1400=item locale
1401
bfb7748a
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1402If you have any locale-related environment variables set, try unsetting
1403them. I have some reports that some versions of IRIX hang while
1404running B<./miniperl configpm> with locales other than the C locale.
1405See the discussion under L<"make test"> below about locales and the
08854360 1406whole L<perllocale/"LOCALE PROBLEMS"> section in the file pod/perllocale.pod.
3e6e419a
JH
1407The latter is especially useful if you see something like this
1408
1409 perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
1410 perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
1411 LC_ALL = "En_US",
1412 LANG = (unset)
1413 are supported and installed on your system.
1414 perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
1415
1416at Perl startup.
e57fd563 1417
06aa495b
DM
1418=item other environment variables
1419
1420Configure does not check for environment variables that can sometimes
1421have a major influence on how perl is built or tested. For example,
1422OBJECT_MODE on AIX determines the way the compiler and linker deal with
1423their objects, but this is a variable that only influences build-time
1424behaviour, and should not affect the perl scripts that are eventually
1425executed by the perl binary. Other variables, like PERL_UNICODE,
adbb55c0 1426PERL5LIB, and PERL5OPT will influence the behaviour of the test suite.
06aa495b
DM
1427So if you are getting strange test failures, you may want to try
1428retesting with the various PERL variables unset.
1429
7f678428 1430=item varargs
c3edaffb 1431
1432If you get varargs problems with gcc, be sure that gcc is installed
bfb7748a
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1433correctly and that you are not passing -I/usr/include to gcc. When using
1434gcc, you should probably have i_stdarg='define' and i_varargs='undef'
ce80d64e 1435in config.sh. The problem is usually solved by installing gcc
bfb7748a
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1436correctly. If you do change config.sh, don't forget to propagate
1437your changes (see L<"Propagating your changes to config.sh"> below).
7f678428 1438See also the L<"vsprintf"> item below.
c3edaffb 1439
bfb7748a 1440=item util.c
c3edaffb 1441
1442If you get error messages such as the following (the exact line
bfb7748a 1443numbers and function name may vary in different versions of perl):
c3edaffb 1444
19f4563d 1445 util.c: In function 'Perl_form':
bfb7748a
AD
1446 util.c:1107: number of arguments doesn't match prototype
1447 proto.h:125: prototype declaration
c3edaffb 1448
1449it might well be a symptom of the gcc "varargs problem". See the
7f678428 1450previous L<"varargs"> item.
c3edaffb 1451
1ec51d55 1452=item LD_LIBRARY_PATH
c3edaffb 1453
1454If you run into dynamic loading problems, check your setting of
aa689395 1455the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable. If you're creating a static
1456Perl library (libperl.a rather than libperl.so) it should build
c3edaffb 1457fine with LD_LIBRARY_PATH unset, though that may depend on details
668cbedd 1458of your local setup.
c3edaffb 1459
aa689395 1460=item nm extraction
c3edaffb 1461
1462If Configure seems to be having trouble finding library functions,
1463try not using nm extraction. You can do this from the command line
1464with
1465
1466 sh Configure -Uusenm
1467
1468or by answering the nm extraction question interactively.
1ec51d55 1469If you have previously run Configure, you should not reuse your old
c3edaffb 1470config.sh.
1471
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1472=item umask not found
1473
1474If the build processes encounters errors relating to umask(), the problem
1475is probably that Configure couldn't find your umask() system call.
1476Check your config.sh. You should have d_umask='define'. If you don't,
1477this is probably the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above. Also,
1478try reading the hints file for your system for further information.
1479
7f678428 1480=item vsprintf
c3edaffb 1481
1482If you run into problems with vsprintf in compiling util.c, the
1483problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
1484version of vsprintf(). Check whether your system has vprintf().
1485(Virtually all modern Unix systems do.) Then, check the variable
1486d_vprintf in config.sh. If your system has vprintf, it should be:
1487
1488 d_vprintf='define'
1489
1490If Configure guessed wrong, it is likely that Configure guessed wrong
bfb7748a
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1491on a number of other common functions too. This is probably
1492the L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
c3edaffb 1493
3fe9a6f1 1494=item do_aspawn
1495
1496If you run into problems relating to do_aspawn or do_spawn, the
1497problem is probably that Configure failed to detect your system's
bfb7748a
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1498fork() function. Follow the procedure in the previous item
1499on L<"nm extraction">.
3fe9a6f1 1500
84902520
TB
1501=item __inet_* errors
1502
1503If you receive unresolved symbol errors during Perl build and/or test
1504referring to __inet_* symbols, check to see whether BIND 8.1 is
1505installed. It installs a /usr/local/include/arpa/inet.h that refers to
1506these symbols. Versions of BIND later than 8.1 do not install inet.h
1507in that location and avoid the errors. You should probably update to a
6d240721
JH
1508newer version of BIND (and remove the files the old one left behind).
1509If you can't, you can either link with the updated resolver library provided
1510with BIND 8.1 or rename /usr/local/bin/arpa/inet.h during the Perl build and
1511test process to avoid the problem.
1512
73d6d1b0 1513=item .*_r() prototype NOT found
6d240721
JH
1514
1515On a related note, if you see a bunch of complaints like the above about
668cbedd 1516reentrant functions -- specifically networking-related ones -- being present
6d240721
JH
1517but without prototypes available, check to see if BIND 8.1 (or possibly
1518other BIND 8 versions) is (or has been) installed. They install
1519header files such as netdb.h into places such as /usr/local/include (or into
1520another directory as specified at build/install time), at least optionally.
f1300be0 1521Remove them or put them in someplace that isn't in the C preprocessor's
6d240721
JH
1522header file include search path (determined by -I options plus defaults,
1523normally /usr/include).
84902520 1524
d6baa268
JH
1525=item #error "No DATAMODEL_NATIVE specified"
1526
1527This is a common error when trying to build perl on Solaris 2.6 with a
1528gcc installation from Solaris 2.5 or 2.5.1. The Solaris header files
1529changed, so you need to update your gcc installation. You can either
1530rerun the fixincludes script from gcc or take the opportunity to
1531update your gcc installation.
1532
aa689395 1533=item Optimizer
c3edaffb 1534
9d67150a 1535If you can't compile successfully, try turning off your compiler's
aa689395 1536optimizer. Edit config.sh and change the line
9d67150a 1537
1538 optimize='-O'
1539
bfb7748a 1540to
9d67150a 1541
1542 optimize=' '
1543
1544then propagate your changes with B<sh Configure -S> and rebuild
1545with B<make depend; make>.
1546
4bbc1586 1547=item Missing functions and Undefined symbols
9d67150a 1548
4bbc1586
AD
1549If the build of miniperl fails with a long list of missing functions or
1550undefined symbols, check the libs variable in the config.sh file. It
1551should look something like
1552
1553 libs='-lsocket -lnsl -ldl -lm -lc'
1554
1555The exact libraries will vary from system to system, but you typically
1556need to include at least the math library -lm. Normally, Configure
1557will suggest the correct defaults. If the libs variable is empty, you
1558need to start all over again. Run
1559
1560 make distclean
1561
1562and start from the very beginning. This time, unless you are sure of
1563what you are doing, accept the default list of libraries suggested by
1564Configure.
1565
1566If the libs variable looks correct, you might have the
1567L<"nm extraction"> problem discussed above.
1568
668cbedd 1569If you still have missing routines or undefined symbols, you probably
4bbc1586
AD
1570need to add some library or other, or you need to undefine some feature
1571that Configure thought was there but is defective or incomplete. If
1572you used a hint file, see if it has any relevant advice. You can also
1573look through through config.h for likely suspects.
8e07c86e 1574
1ec51d55 1575=item toke.c
8e07c86e 1576
1ec51d55
CS
1577Some compilers will not compile or optimize the larger files (such as
1578toke.c) without some extra switches to use larger jump offsets or
1579allocate larger internal tables. You can customize the switches for
668cbedd 1580each file in cflags.SH. It's okay to insert rules for specific files into
1ec51d55 1581makefile since a default rule only takes effect in the absence of a
8e07c86e
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1582specific rule.
1583
7f678428 1584=item Missing dbmclose
8e07c86e 1585
c3edaffb 1586SCO prior to 3.2.4 may be missing dbmclose(). An upgrade to 3.2.4
1587that includes libdbm.nfs (which includes dbmclose()) may be available.
8e07c86e 1588
1bb125e2
MB
1589=item error: too few arguments to function 'dbmclose'
1590
1591Building ODBM_File on some (Open)SUSE distributions might run into this
1592error, as the header file is broken. There are two ways to deal with this
1593
1594 1. Disable the use of ODBM_FILE
1595
1596 Configure ... -Dnoextensions=ODBM_File
1597
1598 2. Fix the header file, somewhat like this:
1599
1600 --- a/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:54:59.000000000 +0100
1601 +++ b/usr/include/dbm.h 2010-03-24 08:55:15.000000000 +0100
1602 @@ -59,4 +59,4 @@ extern datum firstkey __P((void));
1603
1604 extern datum nextkey __P((datum key));
1605
1606 -extern int dbmclose __P((DBM *));
1607 +extern int dbmclose __P((void));
1608
f3d9a6ba 1609=item Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lsomething
7f678428 1610
1611If you see such a message during the building of an extension, but
1612the extension passes its tests anyway (see L<"make test"> below),
1613then don't worry about the warning message. The extension
1614Makefile.PL goes looking for various libraries needed on various
aa689395 1615systems; few systems will need all the possible libraries listed.
74b7c41f
AD
1616Most users will see warnings for the ones they don't have. The
1617phrase 'probably harmless' is intended to reassure you that nothing
1618unusual is happening, and the build process is continuing.
7f678428 1619
1620On the other hand, if you are building GDBM_File and you get the
1621message
1622
f3d9a6ba 1623 Note (probably harmless): No library found for -lgdbm
7f678428 1624
1625then it's likely you're going to run into trouble somewhere along
1626the line, since it's hard to see how you can use the GDBM_File
1627extension without the -lgdbm library.
1628
1629It is true that, in principle, Configure could have figured all of
1630this out, but Configure and the extension building process are not
1631quite that tightly coordinated.
1632
aa689395 1633=item sh: ar: not found
1634
1635This is a message from your shell telling you that the command 'ar'
1636was not found. You need to check your PATH environment variable to
1637make sure that it includes the directory with the 'ar' command. This
1ec51d55 1638is a common problem on Solaris, where 'ar' is in the /usr/ccs/bin
aa689395 1639directory.
1640
1641=item db-recno failure on tests 51, 53 and 55
1642
1643Old versions of the DB library (including the DB library which comes
1644with FreeBSD 2.1) had broken handling of recno databases with modified
1645bval settings. Upgrade your DB library or OS.
1646
6087ac44
JH
1647=item Bad arg length for semctl, is XX, should be ZZZ
1648
11906ba0 1649If you get this error message from the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem test, your System
6087ac44
JH
1650V IPC may be broken. The XX typically is 20, and that is what ZZZ
1651also should be. Consider upgrading your OS, or reconfiguring your OS
1652to include the System V semaphores.
1653
11906ba0 1654=item ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem........semget: No space left on device
220f3621
GS
1655
1656Either your account or the whole system has run out of semaphores. Or
1657both. Either list the semaphores with "ipcs" and remove the unneeded
1658ones (which ones these are depends on your system and applications)
1659with "ipcrm -s SEMAPHORE_ID_HERE" or configure more semaphores to your
1660system.
1661
d6baa268
JH
1662=item GNU binutils
1663
1664If you mix GNU binutils (nm, ld, ar) with equivalent vendor-supplied
1665tools you may be in for some trouble. For example creating archives
1666with an old GNU 'ar' and then using a new current vendor-supplied 'ld'
1667may lead into linking problems. Either recompile your GNU binutils
1668under your current operating system release, or modify your PATH not
1669to include the GNU utils before running Configure, or specify the
1670vendor-supplied utilities explicitly to Configure, for example by
1671Configure -Dar=/bin/ar.
1672
16dc217a
GS
1673=item THIS PACKAGE SEEMS TO BE INCOMPLETE
1674
1675The F<Configure> program has not been able to find all the files which
1676make up the complete Perl distribution. You may have a damaged source
1677archive file (in which case you may also have seen messages such as
1678C<gzip: stdin: unexpected end of file> and C<tar: Unexpected EOF on
1679archive file>), or you may have obtained a structurally-sound but
1680incomplete archive. In either case, try downloading again from the
1681official site named at the start of this document. If you do find
1682that any site is carrying a corrupted or incomplete source code
1683archive, please report it to the site's maintainer.
1684
16dc217a
GS
1685=item invalid token: ##
1686
ce80d64e
AD
1687You are using a non-ANSI-compliant C compiler. To compile Perl, you
1688need to use a compiler that supports ANSI C. If there is a README
1689file for your system, it may have further details on your compiler
1690options.
16dc217a 1691
1ec51d55 1692=item Miscellaneous
8e07c86e 1693
7df75831 1694Some additional things that have been reported:
8e07c86e
AD
1695
1696Genix may need to use libc rather than libc_s, or #undef VARARGS.
1697
1698NCR Tower 32 (OS 2.01.01) may need -W2,-Sl,2000 and #undef MKDIR.
1699
668cbedd 1700UTS may need one or more of -K or -g, and #undef LSTAT.
8e07c86e 1701
11906ba0 1702FreeBSD can fail the ext/IPC/SysV/t/sem.t test if SysV IPC has not been
5cda700b 1703configured in the kernel. Perl tries to detect this, though, and
ce80d64e 1704you will get a message telling you what to do.
6087ac44 1705
6c8d78fb
HS
1706Building Perl on a system that has also BIND (headers and libraries)
1707installed may run into troubles because BIND installs its own netdb.h
1708and socket.h, which may not agree with the operating system's ideas of
1709the same files. Similarly, including -lbind may conflict with libc's
1710view of the world. You may have to tweak -Dlocincpth and -Dloclibpth
1711to avoid the BIND.
1712
8e07c86e
AD
1713=back
1714
58a21a9b
JH
1715=head2 Cross-compilation
1716
e7a3c61b
JH
1717Perl can be cross-compiled. It is just not trivial, cross-compilation
1718rarely is. Perl is routinely cross-compiled for many platforms (as of
1719June 2005 at least PocketPC aka WinCE, Open Zaurus, EPOC, Symbian, and
1720the IBM OS/400). These platforms are known as the B<target> platforms,
1721while the systems where the compilation takes place are the B<host>
1722platforms.
1723
1724What makes the situation difficult is that first of all,
1725cross-compilation environments vary significantly in how they are set
1726up and used, and secondly because the primary way of configuring Perl
1727(using the rather large Unix-tool-dependent Configure script) is not
1728awfully well suited for cross-compilation. However, starting from
1729version 5.8.0, the Configure script also knows one way of supporting
668cbedd 1730cross-compilation support, so please keep reading.
e7a3c61b
JH
1731
1732See the following files for more information about compiling Perl for
1733the particular platforms:
1734
1735=over 4
1736
1737=item WinCE/PocketPC
1738
75472953 1739README.ce
e7a3c61b
JH
1740
1741=item Open Zaurus
1742
1743Cross/README
1744
1745=item EPOC
1746
1747README.epoc
1748
1749=item Symbian
1750
1751README.symbian
1752
1753=item OS/400
1754
1755README.os400
1756
1757=back
1758
1759Packaging and transferring either the core Perl modules or CPAN
1760modules to the target platform is also left up to the each
1761cross-compilation environment. Often the cross-compilation target
1762platforms are somewhat limited in diskspace: see the section
1763L<Minimizing the Perl installation> to learn more of the minimal set
1764of files required for a functional Perl installation.
1765
1766For some cross-compilation environments the Configure option
1767C<-Dinstallprefix=...> might be handy, see L<Changing the installation
1768directory>.
1769
1770About the cross-compilation support of Configure: what is known to
1771work is running Configure in a cross-compilation environment and
1772building the miniperl executable. What is known not to work is
1773building the perl executable because that would require building
1774extensions: Dynaloader statically and File::Glob dynamically, for
1775extensions one needs MakeMaker and MakeMaker is not yet
1776cross-compilation aware, and neither is the main Makefile.
1777
1778The cross-compilation setup of Configure has successfully been used in
1779at least two Linux cross-compilation environments. The setups were
1780both such that the host system was Intel Linux with a gcc built for
1781cross-compiling into ARM Linux, and there was a SSH connection to the
1782target system.
1783
1784To run Configure in cross-compilation mode the basic switch that
1785has to be used is C<-Dusecrosscompile>.
58a21a9b
JH
1786
1787 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile -D...
1788
1789This will make the cpp symbol USE_CROSS_COMPILE and the %Config
b0f06652
VK
1790symbol C<usecrosscompile> available, and C<xconfig.h> will be used
1791for cross-compilation.
58a21a9b
JH
1792
1793During the Configure and build, certain helper scripts will be created
1794into the Cross/ subdirectory. The scripts are used to execute a
1795cross-compiled executable, and to transfer files to and from the
1796target host. The execution scripts are named F<run-*> and the
1797transfer scripts F<to-*> and F<from-*>. The part after the dash is
1798the method to use for remote execution and transfer: by default the
1799methods are B<ssh> and B<scp>, thus making the scripts F<run-ssh>,
1800F<to-scp>, and F<from-scp>.
1801
1802To configure the scripts for a target host and a directory (in which
1803the execution will happen and which is to and from where the transfer
1804happens), supply Configure with
1805
1806 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir
1807
1808The targethost is what e.g. ssh will use as the hostname, the targetdir
93bc48fa
JH
1809must exist (the scripts won't create it), the targetdir defaults to /tmp.
1810You can also specify a username to use for ssh/rsh logins
58a21a9b
JH
1811
1812 -Dtargetuser=luser
1813
1814but in case you don't, "root" will be used.
1815
93bc48fa
JH
1816Because this is a cross-compilation effort, you will also need to specify
1817which target environment and which compilation environment to use.
1818This includes the compiler, the header files, and the libraries.
1819In the below we use the usual settings for the iPAQ cross-compilation
1820environment:
58a21a9b
JH
1821
1822 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux
1823 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc
1824 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1825 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include
1826 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib
1827
1828If the name of the C<cc> has the usual GNU C semantics for cross
1829compilers, that is, CPU-OS-gcc, the names of the C<ar>, C<nm>, and
1830C<ranlib> will also be automatically chosen to be CPU-OS-ar and so on.
93bc48fa
JH
1831(The C<ld> requires more thought and will be chosen later by Configure
1832as appropriate.) Also, in this case the incpth, libpth, and usrinc
1833will be guessed by Configure (unless explicitly set to something else,
1834in which case Configure's guesses with be appended).
58a21a9b
JH
1835
1836In addition to the default execution/transfer methods you can also
1837choose B<rsh> for execution, and B<rcp> or B<cp> for transfer,
1838for example:
1839
1840 -Dtargetrun=rsh -Dtargetto=rcp -Dtargetfrom=cp
1841
1842Putting it all together:
1843
1844 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
93bc48fa
JH
1845 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1846 -Dtargetdir=/tar/get/dir \
58a21a9b
JH
1847 -Dtargetuser=root \
1848 -Dtargetarch=arm-linux \
1849 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1850 -Dusrinc=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1851 -Dincpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/include \
1852 -Dlibpth=/skiff/local/arm-linux/lib \
1853 -D...
1854
e7a3c61b 1855or if you are happy with the defaults:
93bc48fa
JH
1856
1857 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1858 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1859 -Dcc=arm-linux-gcc \
1860 -D...
1861
e7a3c61b
JH
1862Another example where the cross-compiler has been installed under
1863F</usr/local/arm/2.95.5>:
1864
1865 sh ./Configure -des -Dusecrosscompile \
1866 -Dtargethost=so.me.ho.st \
1867 -Dcc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/bin/arm-linux-gcc \
1868 -Dincpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1869 -Dusrinc=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/include \
1870 -Dlibpth=/usr/local/arm/2.95.5/lib
1871
8e07c86e
AD
1872=head1 make test
1873
d6baa268
JH
1874This will run the regression tests on the perl you just made. If
1875'make test' doesn't say "All tests successful" then something went
36bded94 1876wrong.
84902520 1877
84902520 1878Note that you can't run the tests in background if this disables
fb73857a 1879opening of /dev/tty. You can use 'make test-notty' in that case but
1880a few tty tests will be skipped.
c3edaffb 1881
c4f23d77
AD
1882=head2 What if make test doesn't work?
1883
1ec51d55 1884If make test bombs out, just cd to the t directory and run ./TEST
36bded94 1885by hand to see if it makes any difference.
8e07c86e 1886
36bded94
AD
1887One way to get more detailed information about failed tests and
1888individual subtests is to run the harness from the t directory:
aa689395 1889
785aa5e3 1890 cd t ; ./perl harness <list of tests>
aa689395 1891
fb73857a 1892(this assumes that most basic tests succeed, since harness uses
785aa5e3
RGS
1893complicated constructs). If no list of tests is provided, harness
1894will run all tests.
10c7e831 1895
36bded94
AD
1896If individual tests fail, you can often run them by hand (from the main
1897perl directory), e.g.,
1898
1899 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/groups.t
1900
fb73857a 1901You should also read the individual tests to see if there are any helpful
10c7e831
JH
1902comments that apply to your system. You may also need to setup your
1903shared library path if you get errors like:
1904
1905 /sbin/loader: Fatal Error: cannot map libperl.so
1906
36bded94
AD
1907The file t/README in the t subdirectory contains more information about
1908running and modifying tests.
1909
10c7e831 1910See L</"Building a shared Perl library"> earlier in this document.
c3edaffb 1911
c4f23d77
AD
1912=over 4
1913
1914=item locale
1915
1ec51d55 1916Note: One possible reason for errors is that some external programs
c07a80fd 1917may be broken due to the combination of your environment and the way
785aa5e3 1918'make test' exercises them. For example, this may happen if you have
1ec51d55
CS
1919one or more of these environment variables set: LC_ALL LC_CTYPE
1920LC_COLLATE LANG. In some versions of UNIX, the non-English locales
e57fd563 1921are known to cause programs to exhibit mysterious errors.
1922
1923If you have any of the above environment variables set, please try
aa689395 1924
1925 setenv LC_ALL C
1926
1927(for C shell) or
1928
1929 LC_ALL=C;export LC_ALL
1930
1ec51d55
CS
1931for Bourne or Korn shell) from the command line and then retry
1932make test. If the tests then succeed, you may have a broken program that
aa689395 1933is confusing the testing. Please run the troublesome test by hand as
e57fd563 1934shown above and see whether you can locate the program. Look for
1ec51d55
CS
1935things like: exec, `backquoted command`, system, open("|...") or
1936open("...|"). All these mean that Perl is trying to run some
e57fd563 1937external program.
eed2e782 1938
0740bb5b
AD
1939=item Timing problems
1940
c29923ff
JH
1941Several tests in the test suite check timing functions, such as
1942sleep(), and see if they return in a reasonable amount of time.
9341413f
JH
1943If your system is quite busy and doesn't respond quickly enough,
1944these tests might fail. If possible, try running the tests again
1945with the system under a lighter load. These timing-sensitive
1946and load-sensitive tests include F<t/op/alarm.t>,
3831a787
NC
1947F<ext/Time-HiRes/t/HiRes.t>, F<ext/threads-shared/t/waithires.t>,
1948F<ext/threads-shared/t/stress.t>, F<lib/Benchmark.t>,
9341413f 1949F<lib/Memoize/t/expmod_t.t>, and F<lib/Memoize/t/speed.t>.
0740bb5b 1950
f89caa8d
RGS
1951You might also experience some failures in F<t/op/stat.t> if you build
1952perl on an NFS filesystem, if the remote clock and the system clock are
1953different.
1954
c4f23d77
AD
1955=item Out of memory
1956
1957On some systems, particularly those with smaller amounts of RAM, some
1958of the tests in t/op/pat.t may fail with an "Out of memory" message.
7970f296
GS
1959For example, on my SparcStation IPC with 12 MB of RAM, in perl5.5.670,
1960test 85 will fail if run under either t/TEST or t/harness.
c4f23d77
AD
1961
1962Try stopping other jobs on the system and then running the test by itself:
1963
04bd6448 1964 ./perl -MTestInit t/op/pat.t
c4f23d77
AD
1965
1966to see if you have any better luck. If your perl still fails this
1967test, it does not necessarily mean you have a broken perl. This test
1968tries to exercise the regular expression subsystem quite thoroughly,
1969and may well be far more demanding than your normal usage.
1970
a55bb48b
AD
1971=item libgcc_s.so.1: cannot open shared object file
1972
1973This message has been reported on gcc-3.2.3 and earlier installed with
1974a non-standard prefix. Setting the LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable
1975(or equivalent) to include gcc's lib/ directory with the libgcc_s.so.1
1976shared library should fix the problem.
1977
4f76e5ba
AD
1978=item Failures from lib/File/Temp/t/security saying "system possibly insecure"
1979
1980First, such warnings are not necessarily serious or indicative of a
1981real security threat. That being said, they bear investigating.
1982
1983Note that each of the tests is run twice. The first time is in the
1984directory returned by File::Spec->tmpdir() (often /tmp on Unix
1985systems), and the second time in the directory from which the test was
1986run (usually the 't' directory, if the test was run as part of 'make
1987test').
1988
1989The tests may fail for the following reasons:
1990
1991(1) If the directory the tests are being run in is owned by somebody
1992other than the user running the tests, or by root (uid 0).
1993
1994This failure can happen if the Perl source code distribution is
668cbedd 1995unpacked in such a way that the user IDs in the distribution package
4f76e5ba
AD
1996are used as-is. Some tar programs do this.
1997
1998(2) If the directory the tests are being run in is writable by group or
1999by others, and there is no sticky bit set for the directory. (With
2000UNIX/POSIX semantics, write access to a directory means the right to
2001add or remove files in that directory. The 'sticky bit' is a feature
2002used in some UNIXes to give extra protection to files: if the bit is
2003set for a directory, no one but the owner (or root) can remove that
2004file even if the permissions would otherwise allow file removal by
2005others.)
2006
2007This failure may or may not be a real problem: it depends on the
2008permissions policy used on this particular system. This failure can
2009also happen if the system either doesn't support the sticky bit (this
2010is the case with many non-UNIX platforms: in principle File::Temp
2011should know about these platforms and skip the tests), or if the system
2012supports the sticky bit but for some reason or reasons it is not being
2013used. This is, for example, the case with HP-UX: as of HP-UX release
201411.00, the sticky bit is very much supported, but HP-UX doesn't use it
2015on its /tmp directory as shipped. Also, as with the permissions, some
2016local policy might dictate that the stickiness is not used.
781948c1 2017
b2b23189
JH
2018(3) If the system supports the POSIX 'chown giveaway' feature and if
2019any of the parent directories of the temporary file back to the root
2020directory are 'unsafe', using the definitions given above in (1) and
4f76e5ba
AD
2021(2). For Unix systems, this is usually not an issue if you are
2022building on a local disk. See the documentation for the File::Temp
2023module for more information about 'chown giveaway'.
781948c1
JH
2024
2025See the documentation for the File::Temp module for more information
4f76e5ba 2026about the various security aspects of temporary files.
781948c1 2027
c4f23d77
AD
2028=back
2029
5ee651a9
NC
2030The core distribution can now run its regression tests in parallel on
2031Unix-like platforms. Instead of running C<make test>, set C<TEST_JOBS> in
2032your environment to the number of tests to run in parallel, and run
2033C<make test_harness>. On a Bourne-like shell, this can be done as
2034
2035 TEST_JOBS=3 make test_harness # Run 3 tests in parallel
2036
2037An environment variable is used, rather than parallel make itself, because
2038L<TAP::Harness> needs to be able to schedule individual non-conflicting test
2039scripts itself, and there is no standard interface to C<make> utilities to
2040interact with their job schedulers.
2041
8e07c86e
AD
2042=head1 make install
2043
2044This will put perl into the public directory you specified to
1ec51d55 2045Configure; by default this is /usr/local/bin. It will also try
8e07c86e 2046to put the man pages in a reasonable place. It will not nroff the man
aa689395 2047pages, however. You may need to be root to run B<make install>. If you
ce80d64e
AD
2048are not root, you must still have permission to install into the directories
2049in question and you should ignore any messages about chown not working.
2050
19f4563d 2051If "make install" just says "'install' is up to date" or something
ce80d64e
AD
2052similar, you may be on a case-insensitive filesystems such as Mac's HFS+,
2053and you should say "make install-all". (This confusion is brought to you
2054by the Perl distribution having a file called INSTALL.)
8e07c86e 2055
dd64f1c3
AD
2056=head2 Installing perl under different names
2057
2058If you want to install perl under a name other than "perl" (for example,
2059when installing perl with special features enabled, such as debugging),
2060indicate the alternate name on the "make install" line, such as:
2061
2062 make install PERLNAME=myperl
2063
beb13193 2064You can separately change the base used for versioned names (like
be8498a1 2065"perl5.8.9") by setting PERLNAME_VERBASE, like
beb13193
RS
2066
2067 make install PERLNAME=perl5 PERLNAME_VERBASE=perl
2068
5cda700b
AD
2069This can be useful if you have to install perl as "perl5" (e.g. to
2070avoid conflicts with an ancient version in /usr/bin supplied by your vendor).
be8498a1 2071Without this the versioned binary would be called "perl55.8.8".
beb13193 2072
ce80d64e
AD
2073=head2 Installing perl under a different directory
2074
2075You can install perl under a different destination directory by using
2076the DESTDIR variable during C<make install>, with a command like
2077
2078 make install DESTDIR=/tmp/perl5
2079
2080DESTDIR is automatically prepended to all the installation paths. See
7df75831 2081the example in L<"DESTDIR"> above.
ce80d64e 2082
dd64f1c3
AD
2083=head2 Installed files
2084
8e07c86e
AD
2085If you want to see exactly what will happen without installing
2086anything, you can run
4633a7c4 2087
8e07c86e
AD
2088 ./perl installperl -n
2089 ./perl installman -n
2090
1ec51d55 2091make install will install the following:
8e07c86e 2092
d56c5707
JH
2093 binaries
2094
8e07c86e 2095 perl,
be8498a1 2096 perl5.n.n where 5.n.n is the current release number. This
8e07c86e 2097 will be a link to perl.
668cbedd 2098 a2p awk-to-perl translator.
d56c5707
JH
2099
2100 scripts
2101
73d6d1b0
RGS
2102 cppstdin This is used by the deprecated switch perl -P, if
2103 your cc -E can't read from stdin.
8e07c86e 2104 c2ph, pstruct Scripts for handling C structures in header files.
668cbedd 2105 config_data Manage Module::Build-like module configuration.
73d6d1b0 2106 corelist Shows versions of modules that come with different
668cbedd
KW
2107 versions of perl.
2108 cpan The CPAN shell.
2109 cpan2dist The CPANPLUS distribution creator.
2110 cpanp The CPANPLUS shell.
2111 cpanp-run-perl A helper for cpanp.
668cbedd
KW
2112 enc2xs Encoding module generator.
2113 find2perl find-to-perl translator.
2114 h2ph Extract constants and simple macros from C headers.
8e07c86e 2115 h2xs Converts C .h header files to Perl extensions.
73d6d1b0
RGS
2116 instmodsh A shell to examine installed modules.
2117 libnetcfg Configure libnet.
24b3df7f 2118 perlbug Tool to report bugs in Perl.
8e07c86e 2119 perldoc Tool to read perl's pod documentation.
668cbedd 2120 perlivp Perl Installation Verification Procedure.
73d6d1b0 2121 piconv A Perl implementation of the encoding conversion
668cbedd
KW
2122 utility iconv.
2123 pl2pm Convert Perl 4 .pl files to Perl 5 .pm modules.
8e07c86e 2124 pod2html, Converters from perl's pod documentation format
aa689395 2125 pod2latex, to other useful formats.
d56c5707
JH
2126 pod2man,
2127 pod2text,
d56c5707 2128 pod2usage
668cbedd
KW
2129 podchecker POD syntax checker.
2130 podselect Prints sections of POD documentation.
2131 prove A command-line tool for running tests.
2132 psed A Perl implementation of sed.
2133 ptar A Perl implementation of tar.
2134 ptardiff A diff for tar archives.
2135 ptargrep A grep for tar archives.
2136 s2p sed-to-perl translator.
2137 shasum A tool to print or check SHA checksums.
2138 splain Describe Perl warnings and errors.
2139 xsubpp Compiler to convert Perl XS code into C code.
08ad9465 2140 zipdetails display the internal structure of zip files
8e07c86e 2141
d56c5707
JH
2142 library files
2143
2144 in $privlib and $archlib specified to
8e07c86e 2145 Configure, usually under /usr/local/lib/perl5/.
d56c5707
JH
2146
2147 documentation
2148
d6baa268
JH
2149 man pages in $man1dir, usually /usr/local/man/man1.
2150 module man
2151 pages in $man3dir, usually /usr/local/man/man3.
8e07c86e
AD
2152 pod/*.pod in $privlib/pod/.
2153
33cceb07 2154installperl will also create the directories listed above
d6baa268 2155in L<"Installation Directories">.
4633a7c4 2156
d56c5707 2157Perl's *.h header files and the libperl library are also installed
d6baa268 2158under $archlib so that any user may later build new modules, run the
56c6f531
JH
2159optional Perl compiler, or embed the perl interpreter into another
2160program even if the Perl source is no longer available.
8e07c86e 2161
33cceb07
RGS
2162=head2 Installing only version-specific parts
2163
d56c5707
JH
2164Sometimes you only want to install the version-specific parts of the perl
2165installation. For example, you may wish to install a newer version of
33cceb07 2166perl alongside an already installed production version without
d56c5707
JH
2167disabling installation of new modules for the production version.
2168To only install the version-specific parts of the perl installation, run
2169
2170 Configure -Dversiononly
2171
2172or answer 'y' to the appropriate Configure prompt. Alternatively,
2173you can just manually run
2174
2175 ./perl installperl -v
2176
2177and skip installman altogether.
33cceb07 2178
d56c5707
JH
2179See also L<"Maintaining completely separate versions"> for another
2180approach.
2181
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2182=head1 cd /usr/include; h2ph *.h sys/*.h
2183
2184Some perl scripts need to be able to obtain information from the
2185system header files. This command will convert the most commonly used
2186header files in /usr/include into files that can be easily interpreted
2187by perl. These files will be placed in the architecture-dependent
2188library ($archlib) directory you specified to Configure.
2189
668cbedd 2190Note: Due to differences in the C and perl languages, the conversion
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2191of the header files is not perfect. You will probably have to
2192hand-edit some of the converted files to get them to parse correctly.
2193For example, h2ph breaks spectacularly on type casting and certain
2194structures.
2195
2196=head1 installhtml --help
2197
2198Some sites may wish to make perl documentation available in HTML
2199format. The installhtml utility can be used to convert pod
2200documentation into linked HTML files and install them.
2201
2202Currently, the supplied ./installhtml script does not make use of the
2203html Configure variables. This should be fixed in a future release.
2204
2205The following command-line is an example of one used to convert
2206perl documentation:
2207
2208 ./installhtml \
2209 --podroot=. \
2210 --podpath=lib:ext:pod:vms \
2211 --recurse \
2212 --htmldir=/perl/nmanual \
2213 --htmlroot=/perl/nmanual \
2214 --splithead=pod/perlipc \
2215 --splititem=pod/perlfunc \
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2216 --verbose
2217
2218See the documentation in installhtml for more details. It can take
2219many minutes to execute a large installation and you should expect to
2220see warnings like "no title", "unexpected directive" and "cannot
2221resolve" as the files are processed. We are aware of these problems
2222(and would welcome patches for them).
2223
2224You may find it helpful to run installhtml twice. That should reduce
2225the number of "cannot resolve" warnings.
2226
2227=head1 cd pod && make tex && (process the latex files)
2228
2229Some sites may also wish to make the documentation in the pod/ directory
2230available in TeX format. Type
2231
2232 (cd pod && make tex && <process the latex files>)
2233
2234=head1 Starting all over again
2235
668cbedd 2236If you wish to rebuild perl from the same build directory, you should
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2237clean it out with the command
2238
2239 make distclean
2240
2241or
2242
2243 make realclean
2244
2245The only difference between the two is that make distclean also removes
2246your old config.sh and Policy.sh files.
2247
2248If you are upgrading from a previous version of perl, or if you
2249change systems or compilers or make other significant changes, or if
668cbedd 2250you are experiencing difficulties building perl, you should not reuse
f4ce0e6d
RGS
2251your old config.sh.
2252
2253If your reason to reuse your old config.sh is to save your particular
2254installation choices, then you can probably achieve the same effect by
2255using the Policy.sh file. See the section on L<"Site-wide Policy
2256settings"> above.
2257
ff52061e
RGS
2258=head1 Reporting Problems
2259
2260Wherever possible please use the perlbug tool supplied with this Perl
2261to report problems, as it automatically includes summary configuration
2262information about your perl, which may help us track down problems far
2263more quickly. But first you should read the advice in this file,
2264carefully re-read the error message and check the relevant manual pages
2265on your system, as these may help you find an immediate solution. If
2266you are not sure whether what you are seeing is a bug, you can send a
2267message describing the problem to the comp.lang.perl.misc newsgroup to
2268get advice.
2269
2270The perlbug tool is installed along with perl, so after you have
2271completed C<make install> it should be possible to run it with plain
2272C<perlbug>. If the install fails, or you want to report problems with
2273C<make test> without installing perl, then you can use C<make nok> to
2274run perlbug to report the problem, or run it by hand from this source
2275directory with C<./perl -Ilib utils/perlbug>
2276
2277If the build fails too early to run perlbug uninstalled, then please
2278B<run> the C<./myconfig> shell script, and mail its output along with
2279an accurate description of your problem to perlbug@perl.org
2280
2281If Configure itself fails, and does not generate a config.sh file
2282(needed to run C<./myconfig>), then please mail perlbug@perl.org the
2283description of how Configure fails along with details of your system
668cbedd 2284-- for example the output from running C<uname -a>
ff52061e
RGS
2285
2286Please try to make your message brief but clear. Brief, clear bug
2287reports tend to get answered more quickly. Please don't worry if your
668cbedd 2288written English is not great -- what matters is how well you describe
ff52061e
RGS
2289the important technical details of the problem you have encountered,
2290not whether your grammar and spelling is flawless.
2291
2292Trim out unnecessary information. Do not include large files (such as
2293config.sh or a complete Configure or make log) unless absolutely
2294necessary. Do not include a complete transcript of your build
2295session. Just include the failing commands, the relevant error
2296messages, and whatever preceding commands are necessary to give the
668cbedd 2297appropriate context. Plain text should usually be sufficient -- fancy
ff52061e
RGS
2298attachments or encodings may actually reduce the number of people who
2299read your message. Your message will get relayed to over 400
2300subscribers around the world so please try to keep it brief but clear.
2301
5acb7768
NC
2302If the bug you are reporting has security implications, which make it
2303inappropriate to send to a publicly archived mailing list, then please send
2304it to perl5-security-report@perl.org. This points to a closed subscription
2305unarchived mailing list, which includes all the core committers, who be able
2306to help assess the impact of issues, figure out a resolution, and help
2307co-ordinate the release of patches to mitigate or fix the problem across all
2308platforms on which Perl is supported. Please only use this address for security
2309issues in the Perl core, not for modules independently distributed on CPAN.
2310
ff52061e
RGS
2311If you are unsure what makes a good bug report please read "How to
2312report Bugs Effectively" by Simon Tatham:
2313http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html
2314
7df75831 2315=head1 Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5
4633a7c4 2316
4ea27089 2317Perl 5.17 is not binary compatible with earlier versions of Perl.
cc65bb49 2318In other words, you will have to recompile your XS modules.
14eee2f1 2319
693762b4 2320In general, you can usually safely upgrade from one version of Perl (e.g.
33cceb07
RGS
23215.X.Y) to another similar minor version (e.g. 5.X.(Y+1))) without
2322re-compiling all of your extensions. You can also safely leave the old
2323version around in case the new version causes you problems for some reason.
693762b4 2324
be8498a1
RGS
2325Usually, most extensions will probably not need to be recompiled to be
2326used with a newer version of Perl. Here is how it is supposed to work.
ce80d64e 2327(These examples assume you accept all the Configure defaults.)
693762b4 2328
33cceb07
RGS
2329Suppose you already have version 5.8.7 installed. The directories
2330searched by 5.8.7 are typically like:
d6baa268 2331
33cceb07
RGS
2332 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7/$archname
2333 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.7
2334 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2335 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
d6baa268 2336
33cceb07
RGS
2337Now, suppose you install version 5.8.8. The directories
2338searched by version 5.8.8 will be:
d6baa268 2339
33cceb07
RGS
2340 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8/$archname
2341 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.8.8
2342 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8/$archname
2343 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2344
33cceb07
RGS
2345 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7/$archname
2346 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
c42e3e15 2347 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2348
c42e3e15 2349Notice the last three entries -- Perl understands the default structure
d6baa268 2350of the $sitelib directories and will look back in older, compatible
33cceb07
RGS
2351directories. This way, modules installed under 5.8.7 will continue
2352to be usable by 5.8.7 but will also accessible to 5.8.8. Further,
d6baa268 2353suppose that you upgrade a module to one which requires features
33cceb07
RGS
2354present only in 5.8.8. That new module will get installed into
2355/usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8 and will be available to 5.8.8,
2356but will not interfere with the 5.8.7 version.
bfb7748a 2357
c42e3e15 2358The last entry, /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/, is there so that
fe23a901 23595.6.0 and above will look for 5.004-era pure perl modules.
d6baa268 2360
33cceb07
RGS
2361Lastly, suppose you now install 5.10.0, which is not binary compatible
2362with 5.8.x. The directories searched by 5.10.0 (if you don't change the
fe23a901
RF
2363Configure defaults) will be:
2364
33cceb07
RGS
2365 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0/$archname
2366 /usr/local/lib/perl5/5.10.0
2367 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0/$archname
2368 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.10.0
d6baa268 2369
33cceb07 2370 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.8
d6baa268 2371
33cceb07 2372 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.8.7
fe23a901 2373
d6baa268 2374 /usr/local/lib/perl5/site_perl/
bfb7748a 2375
cc65bb49
AD
2376Note that the earlier $archname entries are now gone, but pure perl
2377modules from earlier versions will still be found.
2378
0a08c020
GS
2379This way, you can choose to share compatible extensions, but also upgrade
2380to a newer version of an extension that may be incompatible with earlier
2381versions, without breaking the earlier versions' installations.
693762b4
AD
2382
2383=head2 Maintaining completely separate versions
4633a7c4 2384
1ec51d55 2385Many users prefer to keep all versions of perl in completely
d6baa268 2386separate directories. This guarantees that an update to one version
0a08c020
GS
2387won't interfere with another version. (The defaults guarantee this for
2388libraries after 5.6.0, but not for executables. TODO?) One convenient
2389way to do this is by using a separate prefix for each version, such as
d52d4e46 2390
fc616f2e 2391 sh Configure -Dprefix=/opt/perl5.17.3
d52d4e46 2392
fc616f2e 2393and adding /opt/perl5.17.3/bin to the shell PATH variable. Such users
d52d4e46 2394may also wish to add a symbolic link /usr/local/bin/perl so that
2395scripts can still start with #!/usr/local/bin/perl.
2396
693762b4 2397Others might share a common directory for maintenance sub-versions
33cceb07 2398(e.g. 5.10 for all 5.10.x versions), but change directory with
693762b4
AD
2399each major version.
2400
6877a1cf
AD
2401If you are installing a development subversion, you probably ought to
2402seriously consider using a separate directory, since development
2403subversions may not have all the compatibility wrinkles ironed out
2404yet.
2405
ce571c63 2406=head2 Upgrading from 5.17.1 or earlier
693762b4 2407
fc616f2e 2408B<Perl 5.17.3 may not be binary compatible with Perl 5.17.1 or
4683a5d7 2409earlier Perl releases.> Perl modules having binary parts
e655887d 2410(meaning that a C compiler is used) will have to be recompiled to be
fc616f2e
TC
2411used with 5.17.3. If you find you do need to rebuild an extension with
24125.17.3, you may safely do so without disturbing the older
7df75831 2413installations. (See L<"Coexistence with earlier versions of perl 5">
e655887d 2414above.)
c42e3e15
GS
2415
2416See your installed copy of the perllocal.pod file for a (possibly
2417incomplete) list of locally installed modules. Note that you want
cc65bb49 2418perllocal.pod, not perllocale.pod, for installed module information.
693762b4 2419
8ebf57cf
JH
2420=head1 Minimizing the Perl installation
2421
2422The following section is meant for people worrying about squeezing the
2423Perl installation into minimal systems (for example when installing
2424operating systems, or in really small filesystems).
2425
c8214fdf 2426Leaving out as many extensions as possible is an obvious way:
5cda700b
AD
2427Encode, with its big conversion tables, consumes a lot of
2428space. On the other hand, you cannot throw away everything. The
2429Fcntl module is pretty essential. If you need to do network
c8214fdf
JH
2430programming, you'll appreciate the Socket module, and so forth: it all
2431depends on what do you need to do.
2432
8ebf57cf
JH
2433In the following we offer two different slimmed down installation
2434recipes. They are informative, not normative: the choice of files
2435depends on what you need.
2436
2437Firstly, the bare minimum to run this script
2438
2439 use strict;
2440 use warnings;
2441 foreach my $f (</*>) {
2442 print("$f\n");
2443 }
2444
fc616f2e 2445in Linux with perl-5.17.3 is as follows (under $Config{prefix}):
8ebf57cf
JH
2446
2447 ./bin/perl
fc616f2e
TC
2448 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/strict.pm
2449 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/warnings.pm
2450 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/i686-linux/File/Glob.pm
2451 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/feature.pm
2452 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/XSLoader.pm
2453 ./lib/perl5/5.17.3/i686-linux/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
8ebf57cf 2454
00930d57
AD
2455Secondly, for perl-5.10.1, the Debian perl-base package contains 591 files,
2456(of which 510 are for lib/unicore) totaling about 3.5MB in its i386 version.
2457Omitting the lib/unicore/* files for brevity, the remaining files are:
8ebf57cf 2458
bfe08c74 2459 /usr/bin/perl
00930d57
AD
2460 /usr/bin/perl5.10.1
2461 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config.pm
2462 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_git.pl
2463 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Config_heavy.pl
2464 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Cwd.pm
2465 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/DynaLoader.pm
2466 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Errno.pm
2467 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Fcntl.pm
2468 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/File/Glob.pm
2469 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Hash/Util.pm
2470 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO.pm
2471 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/File.pm
2472 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Handle.pm
2473 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Pipe.pm
2474 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Seekable.pm
2475 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Select.pm
2476 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket.pm
2477 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/INET.pm
2478 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/IO/Socket/UNIX.pm
2479 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/List/Util.pm
2480 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/POSIX.pm
2481 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Scalar/Util.pm
2482 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/Socket.pm
2483 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/XSLoader.pm
2484 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Cwd/Cwd.so
2485 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/autosplit.ix
2486 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_expandspec.al
2487 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_find_symbol_anywhere.al
2488 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/DynaLoader/dl_findfile.al
2489 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Fcntl/Fcntl.so
2490 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/File/Glob/Glob.so
2491 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Hash/Util/Util.so
2492 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/IO/IO.so
2493 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/List/Util/Util.so
2494 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/POSIX.so
2495 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/autosplit.ix
2496 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/POSIX/load_imports.al
2497 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/auto/Socket/Socket.so
2498 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/lib.pm
2499 /usr/lib/perl/5.10.1/re.pm
8ebf57cf 2500 /usr/share/doc/perl/AUTHORS.gz
bfe08c74 2501 /usr/share/doc/perl/Documentation
00930d57 2502 /usr/share/doc/perl/README.Debian
8ebf57cf 2503 /usr/share/doc/perl/changelog.Debian.gz
bfe08c74 2504 /usr/share/doc/perl/copyright
00930d57 2505 /usr/share/lintian/overrides/perl-base
8ebf57cf 2506 /usr/share/man/man1/perl.1.gz
00930d57
AD
2507 /usr/share/man/man1/perl5.10.1.1.gz
2508 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/AutoLoader.pm
2509 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp.pm
2510 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Carp/Heavy.pm
2511 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter.pm
2512 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Exporter/Heavy.pm
2513 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec.pm
2514 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/File/Spec/Unix.pm
2515 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/FileHandle.pm
2516 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Getopt/Long.pm
2517 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open2.pm
2518 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/IPC/Open3.pm
2519 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/SelectSaver.pm
2520 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Symbol.pm
2521 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/ParseWords.pm
2522 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Tabs.pm
2523 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Text/Wrap.pm
2524 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/Tie/Hash.pm
2525 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/attributes.pm
2526 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/base.pm
2527 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes.pm
2528 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/bytes_heavy.pl
2529 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/constant.pm
2530 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/fields.pm
2531 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/integer.pm
2532 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/locale.pm
2533 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/overload.pm
2534 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/strict.pm
2535 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/unicore/*
2536 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8.pm
2537 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/utf8_heavy.pl
2538 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/vars.pm
2539 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings.pm
2540 /usr/share/perl/5.10.1/warnings/register.pm
8ebf57cf 2541
e7a3c61b
JH
2542A nice trick to find out the minimal set of Perl library files you will
2543need to run a Perl program is
2544
a0a8d9d3 2545 perl -e 'do "prog.pl"; END { print "$_\n" for sort keys %INC }'
e7a3c61b
JH
2546
2547(this will not find libraries required in runtime, unfortunately, but
2548it's a minimal set) and if you want to find out all the files you can
2549use something like the below
2550
2551 strace perl -le 'do "x.pl"' 2>&1 | perl -nle '/^open\(\"(.+?)"/ && print $1'
2552
2553(The 'strace' is Linux-specific, other similar utilities include 'truss'
2554and 'ktrace'.)
2555
c19ccd8c
RGS
2556=head2 C<-DNO_MATHOMS>
2557
2558If you configure perl with C<-Accflags=-DNO_MATHOMS>, the functions from
2559F<mathoms.c> will not be compiled in. Those functions are no longer used
2560by perl itself; for source compatibility reasons, though, they weren't
2561completely removed.
2562
8e07c86e
AD
2563=head1 DOCUMENTATION
2564
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2565Read the manual entries before running perl. The main documentation
2566is in the pod/ subdirectory and should have been installed during the
8e07c86e 2567build process. Type B<man perl> to get started. Alternatively, you
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2568can type B<perldoc perl> to use the supplied perldoc script. This is
2569sometimes useful for finding things in the library modules.
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2570
2571=head1 AUTHOR
2572
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2573Original author: Andy Dougherty doughera@lafayette.edu , borrowing very
2574heavily from the original README by Larry Wall, with lots of helpful
2575feedback and additions from the perl5-porters@perl.org folks.
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2577If you have problems, corrections, or questions, please see
2578L<"Reporting Problems"> above.
2579
2580=head1 REDISTRIBUTION
2581
2582This document is part of the Perl package and may be distributed under
d6baa268 2583the same terms as perl itself, with the following additional request:
f5b3b617 2584If you are distributing a modified version of perl (perhaps as part of
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2585a larger package) please B<do> modify these installation instructions
2586and the contact information to match your distribution.